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Trumka: Employee Free Choice Restores Choice Back to Workers |
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AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka set the record straight about what the Employee Free Choice Act is really about: The bill would restore the decision to join a union to workers—where it belongs.
In an interview yesterday on Bloomberg News, Trumka said the nation’s labor laws originally let workers decide how they want to join a union, but over the years that freedom has been hijacked by employers. The Employee Free Choice Act would ensure that workers, not employers, make that decision.
Trumka said the Employee Free Choice Act (which was introduced Tuesday)
would restore balance to a system that’s terribly broken….Our economy is two-thirds driven by consumer spending, but over the last 30 years, the system has caused workers’ wages to stagnate. This will give them the right to bargain collectively….It’ll strengthen the middle class, it’ll grow the economy, and it’ll close the wage gap between the very rich and the rest of us.
Asked about claims by the Chamber of Commerce that the bill is not going anywhere, Trumka reminded the reporter that 73 percent of the public supports the bill and that those who oppose it are the “same people who opposed health and safety regulations in our mines, who opposed the living wage.” (See the video.)
These are the same “Chicken Littles” that yelled that the sky is falling, and every time they yell it doesn’t fall.
You can let us know how you feel about all the outrageous claims corporate crazies are making about the Employee Free Choice Act. Vote for the recipient of our Chicken Little Sky Is Falling Bizarre Corporate Panic over Workers’ Rights Award here. The award will go to the corporate mouthpiece that spews the most outlandish statement about the bill.
In the Bloomberg interview, Trumka also easily rebutted claims by Republicans in Congress that the bill was “undemocratic.”
It’s the most democratic thing you can have. What’s undemocratic is the system today when employers intimidate, harass and fire workers who want to join a union. What can be more democratic than I say I want to join a union and I get to decide whether I want to sign a card or have a secret ballot election? When you join a church, do you have a secret ballot election? Or when you join the Elks Club? Of course not. You get to decide. That’s what [the Employee Free Choice Act] does—it restores balance to a system that has been skewed so far in the employers’ favor that it is no longer recognizable by the framers.
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Employee Free Choice Act Now Launches Website to Educate Public on Card Check Legislation
The Truth About EFCA.Org is part of a multi-faceted new media campaign slated to help shed light on the “card check” issue and expose some of the misinformation being spread by corporate front groups who oppose the EFCA and who try to continue their control and lavish life styles. Besides tracking the latest news on EFCA, the http://www.TheTruthAboutEFCA.Org website contains a link to our blog with contributions from EFCA bloggers and special guests.
Website: http://www.TheTruthAboutEFCA.Org
For More Information on EFCA please visit our websites and blog
http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
http://efcaunionbustingclub.blogspot.com/
http://www.FreeChoiceActNow.Org
http://www.LaborUnionResources.Org
For more information on Employer FEAR, Coercion and Intimidation Union Busting Tactics Press Below
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/2009/02/just-say-no-to-employee-free-choice-act.html
While a bit long, reading to the end should have you too asking the questions I ask here.
Too many of us have failed to read our U.S. History assignments when we were in school. I am now a retired CWA member as well as a Carpenters and Joiners Union member, and I’ve always noticed that too many of my peers have no clue about ‘labor-management relations’ from the 1870’s into the 1920’s. Not enough of us appreciate all that those (some who even died for us) people did for us and the benefits they got and we enjoy. As a result of a lack of knowledge, we failed to properly respond when then President Ronald Reagan busted up PATCO. All manner of companies have been diminishing unions since.
It is no surprise now that Citigroup and others are engaged in these activities. For at least 50 years corporations have been lobbying our Congressmen and Senators, giving too many of them the funds to support campaigns with the politicians then giving us empty rhetoric, betraying us with deceptively written litigation frequently having its funding in a separate bill giving them the option of voting one way on the bill and the other way on the funding. This allowed politicians to tell any group whatever they thought we wanted to hear.
Today we have the “Citigroups” who saw yet another way to fatten their profits. It was not good enough to get what they wanted on bankruptcy and credit (credit card) legislation. President Bush gave them a ‘GREEN light’ when he made his speech which appeared to be encouraging home ownership. While most little and local banks operated as normal, the big ones had their green light and saw the opportunity to steal from the little guy again. With the rules wide open on fees and penalities, big banks handed out credit like candy to those who failed to read the fine print, knowing full well, it was only a matter of time before they would foreclose, and repo’ the car or the house. The Bush administration was receptive, and so they got big “bail-out” packages. How could it get any better? The poor are being made poorer, and the fat-cats are getting fatter.
I know that some among you are asking, “Where did this dude come up with this wild idea?” So here is my reasoning - Keeping in mind the history of the past 50 years; If we are paying attention to the news the past couple weeks, we see some of the banks and even GM suddenly don’t need all that bail-out, some of them not needing it all. Doesn’t that make you wonder as to how did they justify asking for the “free money” while Bush was president, and since taking over, President Obama has indicated there would be accountability and oversight. If it was not another rip-off of America, why is it that they no longer need as much, and some don’t need any once they knew they would have to be accountable? For those among us who don’t know, In the 1870’s the railroads (then the big businesses) were attempting to bust the unions. When a ‘union member’ was layed-off (terminated) he was given a nice ‘letter of recommendation’ extolling how good an employee this person was, but it had what is known as a ‘watermark’ and when the new prospective employer saw the watermark, well you get the picture, he didn’t get the job. This is history, and history will be repeated; likely in a different way, but the end effect will be very similar if we do not pay attention and demand accountability from our legislators and officials at all levels.