Witnesses: Employee Free Choice Critical to a Stronger, Fairer Economy

by Seth Michaels, Mar 10, 2009

As the Senate HELP Committee hearing on rebuilding the middle class continues, three witnesses have testified about the importance of the Employee Free Choice Act to a stronger, fairer economy, representing the academic, civil rights and faith communities.

Dr.  Paula Voos is chairwoman of the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at New Jersey’s Rutgers University. She says that economic research shows that unions help strengthen an economy by broadly sharing wealth, rather than concentrating it in only a few hands and creating the kinds of unsustainable bubbles that have contributed to our ongoing economic crisis.

Inequality helped create this crisis, and solving it should be a priority for the nation. We need to rebuild purchasing power and build a solid economy for the future, rather than being stuck in a bubble economy.

Not only do unions equalize income distribution, they actually contribute to higher productivity. Union businesses are no more likely to go out of business than any other business. Union jobs are good jobs, and unions care about their firms and saving jobs.

Americans have the right to form a union if they so desire. We need to find a way for that to happen without a lot of conflict—that’s a really central issue for this committee.

Wade Henderson, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said that unions have been critical to the advancement of equality in this country. He says that the deep imbalance in the economy, and the blocking of the freedom to form unions by corporations, are significant civil rights issues.

Employers have made a mock of secret ballots by using tactics of delay and intimidation….Restoring fairness to the process by which workers form a union is fundamental to civil and human rights, and it’s one of the most important steps we can take to rebuild our economy.

Jim Wallis, president and executive of Sojourners, said the growth of economic inequality, employer abuses and the erosion of the dignity of work are serious moral issues. He pointed to the Employee Free Choice Act and the freedom to bargain as a way to build the common good in this country, a critical issue to the faith community.

This is a fairness issue. The system of employee-employer relations is fundamentally lopsided. There’s a need to level the playing field, to redress a great imbalance. When a system is in such fundamental imbalance, it is our obligation on both sides of the aisle to remedy that.

Economic decisions have human consequences and moral content—the way power is distributed in a free market economy frequently gives employers more power than employees in bargaining. How do we level the playing field? How do we give workers a voice? How do we correct the abuses in the system?

Quoting Pope John Paul II, Wallis said no one may attack the right to organize without attacking human dignity. He said he’s a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Senators will ask questions of these witnesses as the hearings continue.

		Become a Fan on Facebook			Follow Us on Twitter			Subscribe to YouTube			Subscribe to Blog RSS

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (1)