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Report: Employee Free Choice Act Needed to Make Economy Work |
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The advocacy organization American Rights at Work has produced a new report, “The Employee Free Choice Act: Ensuring the Economy Works for Everyone,” that clearly explains how restoring the freedom to form unions and bargain can revitalize the U.S. economy.
Written by researchers Erin Johansson and Julie Martinez Ortega, the report analyzes economic history and the nation’s ongoing economic crisis to show that a decline in union membership—brought about by weak labor laws and relentless corporate anti-union activity—is at the heart of the U.S. economic quagmire. The report says putting the freedom to bargain for a better life back in the hands of workers by passing the Employee Free Choice Act is a key step for economic recovery.
Restoring the right to form unions is a key part of an economic strategy to bring shared and sustainable prosperity to the middle class, creating the workforce needed for future economic growth, and ensuring workers have a role in crafting future policies that represent their interests.
The report, drawing on work by policy experts and journalists around the country, links the current economic crisis to a lack of bargaining power in the hands of workers—a problem due in large part to the fact that forming a union has become “a risk, not a right.” Workers who try to form unions are routinely harassed, intimidated or fired with little to no legal recourse—denying them the bargaining power they need to improve their wages, benefits and economic security.
A majority of employers aggressively use both legal and illegal anti-union tactics during union representation elections, which impedes workers’ ability to form unions…
If given a free and fair chance, it’s likely that many more employees would choose union representation. With expanded collective bargaining power, more workers would move into the middle class, stimulating economic growth and leading to more shared prosperity.
Johansson and Martinez Ortega show that the benefits of bargaining in the workplace are enormous for union members—but broader bargaining rights improve conditions for all workers in the labor market. The economy can only create broadly shared prosperity for everyone if workers can participate freely in efforts to get a fair contract and improve their own lives, according to the report. The benefits aren’t just in wages, but in the long-term health of the economy and society, as workers are engaged and empowered.
Allowing workers to freely form unions is essential to putting money back into the pockets of those whose spending drives the economy, producing a highly skilled workforce to promote future economic growth, and increasing the political participation of workers to shape new economic strategies that benefit the middle class.
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From an Obama speech last year: “Change does not happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up.” From people “arguing, agitating, mobilizing, and ultimately forcing elected officials to be accountable.”
Granny translates that to “hold our elected officials’ feet to the fire until EFCA is signed, sealed and delivered…” Phone them, write them, email them, visit them and don’t let up until EFCA is taken care of. Don’t give them a chance to say that “they did not understand how important it was to us.” Don’t give them a chance to be “misled” by the anti-EFCA factions and their lies. The anti-EFCA may have plenty of money and lawyers behind them, we have the power of numbers to beat them at their own dirty game.
It is very difficult to understand if the American Working Families have money from decent employment, then they will spend it here in America rather than hiring cheap foreign labor where all the money is sent back to their homes. Unions protect wages, workers and employers.