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Check Out Union Videos on Employee Free Choice Rally |
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We wanted to highlight some of the great video clips from union members at last week’s rally on Capitol Hill. At the rally, we delivered some of the 1.5 million petitions in support of the Employee Free Choice Act to Congress and got a chance to show why the freedom to form unions and bargain can help create an economy that works for everyone.
On their rally video, Electrical Workers (IBEW) members from around the country talk about the difficulties workers face trying to form unions and the importance of unions in protecting benefits, fair wages and the ability to join the middle class.
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Chris Brown, a member of IBEW Local 70, is one of the hundreds of workers who took part in delivering some of the 1.5 million signatures gathered in support of the legislation. Brown says:
“The Employee Free Choice Act is important to the working people because it’s going to give them a chance to organize, be able to get a fair wage for a fair day’s work, be able to have health insurance and retirement so when they’re in their late 60s, they’re not still working…trying to pay their gas or their electric bill or pay for their insurance.”
A video by the Steelworkers (USW) includes comments at the rally by USW President Leo Gerard, who called the freedom to join a union “a fundamental human right.” He said economic recovery must go hand in hand with restoring workers’ power to bargain for a better life.
We’re here today as our economy’s in free fall, and we’ve got the largest division between the rich and the rest of us in the history of our country. We’re here today to tell the whole country that the right of workers to join a union, the right of workers to choose which way they want to join that union and the right of workers to choose which union they’re going to join is none of the boss’s business. It’s the workers’ business.
Gerard said the myths promoted by corporate front groups about the Employee Free Choice Act “have no relation to the truth.”
A new video from the Machinists (IAM) explains what the Employee Free Choice Act does and why it’s necessary. George Myers, director of IAM’s Organizing Department, says the freedom to form unions and bargain is essential to hold corporations accountable and ensure the economy works for everyone.
Since the law is tilted so strongly toward corporations, they control a lot of the things that the employees should be controlling….We’ll push for it because it’s the right thing to do for all working people.
Union members and allies also will deliver petitions with signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act to elected leaders when they are back in their district offices later this month. The grassroots campaign to pass the bill is on the move around the country.
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Another good video from the Employee free Choice Act Rally is here: http://vimeo.com/3088827
Everyone did a great job that day!
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The real key to true economic recovery is high paying, stable jobs. Rebuilding the middle class so our children and grand children can one day own their own homes, buy a new car and save for their retirement future. It will never be more than a dream without the Employee Free Choice Act. The current service sector jobs and clerk jobs with hamburger stand wages can’t possibly support a family or the economy.
Ask your friends at work if they are aware of the bill and explain it’s importance for our future and future American generations.
A free people should have the right to bargain for a better life.