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Face Forward: The Employee Free Choice Act |
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The Employee Free Choice Act is going to get some major “face time” with the American public in the coming weeks.
A new grassroots campaign, “Faces of the Employee Free Choice Act,” gets under way next week and coincides with stepped-up mobilization action planned for the upcoming congressional Easter recess.
The “Faces” campaign features new billboards and building banners that will be displayed throughout Washington, D.C., and in states across the country. The billboards and 50-foot-tall building banners feature union members, along with a quote from the workers about why the Employee Free Choice Act is vital for all workers to restore their freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
In the banner adorning the AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C., Chinazo Okolo, a member of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 3403, says she wants the Employee Free Choice Act to become law because
I want the economy to work for everyone.
Next week, the workers featured on the banners and billboards will join union leaders, Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), “West Wing” actors Martin Sheen and Bradley Whitford on Capitol Hill to highlight the new campaign.
Meanwhile around the country, activists are gearing up for the April 6-17 congressional recess, arranging visits with their lawmakers in their home offices and planning events to build support for the Employee Free Choice Act. Be sure to check back for updates on those grassroots actions.
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Employee Free Choice Act: Take Action: Ask Senator Specter: Why the flip-flop on EFCA?
Take Action: Ask Senator Specter: Why the flip-flop?
http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/efcaspecter_us/
The same corporations that ruined our economy now want to keep workers from forming unions and bargaining for a better life. So they’re spending millions to stop the Employee Free Choice Act.
Now we know it’s having an effect: Senator Arlen Specter – an original co-sponsor of the bill – recently announced he would actively prevent the bill from coming to a vote.
Tell Sen. Specter not to sell out working families – tell him to allow a Senate vote on the Employee Free Choice Act!
Dear Senator Specter,
I thought I could count on you to stand up for working families. What happened?
I was dismayed to hear that you flip-flopped on the Employee Free Choice Act after cosponsoring the bill in 2005 and supporting an up-or-down vote in 2007. I urge you to allow the Senate to have an up-or-down vote on this critical bill.
I know the economy is really bad right now. But the fact is, the Employee Free Choice Act is part of the solution, and it will make our economy and our middle class stronger.
As a study from the Center for American Progress says, “The essence of what labor unions do - give workers a stronger voice so that they can get a fair share of the economic growth they help create - is and has always been important to making the economy work for all Americans. And unions only become more important as the economy worsens.”
Please read this study and reconsider your decision: PRESS BELOW.
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2009/02/efca_factsheets.html
If the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law, it can help almost 1 million Pennsylvanians and pump more than $2 billion into the state’s economy every year.
If, in spite of all this, you still disagree, the least you can do is allow the Senate to have an up-or-down vote on this legislation that is critical to working families in Pennsylvania and around the country.
Employee Free Choice Act Breaking News:
This afternoon, hundreds of students, workers, and community members will be rallying at Penn State University in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
As part of USAS’ Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference, students from all around Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, will be attending today’s rally at Penn State.
This demonstration of supportfor the Employee Free Choice Act comes on the heels of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s recent statement of opposition to this bill in Congress. In addition to calling on Senator Specter to change his position to actually support working Americans, United Students Against Sweatshops is also demanding that University President Graham Spanier endorse the Employee Free Choice Act, as well as put its key principles into practice when Penn State negotiates with
its employees in the future.
Please take action online today to express your support for the hundreds of students and community members rallying at Penn State today, and to show Senator Specter just how many Americans he is misrepresenting by his opposition to reforming labor law.
Take Action Now: PRESS BELOW
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/USASemployeefreechoice/
PLEASE FORWARD THIS ACTION ALERT WIDELY!
http://www.TheTruthAboutEFCA.Org
EFCA Blog http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
Tags: Arlen Specter, Senator Arlen Specter, Sen Specter, Employee Free Choice Act,EFCA,Employee Free Choice, Free Choice, Free Choice Act, Labor Union, EFCA Penn State University
Why is Employee Free Choice Act so necessary? Why are businesses so fiercely fighting against the EFCA? The answer can be demonstrated by the article to be found at http://tinyurl.com/d4lbel in the Des Moines Register. State closes bunkhouse that housed mentally retarded workers. Great story of how labor works in our country. The state of Texas ships their mentally retarded out of state like to Iowa where they are put to work in a meat processing plant. The company rents a bug infested rat trap for a couple hundred dollars and then deducts rent of several hundred dollars from the Social Security checks of these inmates. Takes them to work at 4:30 am and works them till dark.
“There has never been a union at the West Liberty Plant. There have been several elections and the last ones were very close, I think there was a disputed election where the union won by three votes, but there were some irregularities and another vote was taken and the union lost by one or two votes. When the plant was run by Louis Rich (1943-1979), and organized labor was much stronger, the union votes were never close, and the union was defeated by wide margins. (Oscar Mayer purchased Louis Rich in 1979, and Louis Rich’s management began leaving in the early 80’s. When the plant was sold to the growers that formed West Liberty Foods in the mid 90’s, almost all if not all of the management came from Kraft.” from a poster on the blog about this story.
This type of story would disappear if EFCA were to pass and a union was elected to represent employees. Obviously the U.S. Chamber of Commerce must do everything in its power to ensure their business members are capable of continuing their unjust and illegal activities like at this plant in Iowa.
Oh my god! Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I thought that the abuses of undocumented workers in North Carolina in the poultry industry was bad.
The elite want a land of no labor rights and they have been getting it on a silver platter for the past 30 years. Greed keeps the wheels turning and the corporate media refuses to report on stories like the one you posted on a national level.
The Employee Free Choice Act must become law, but now some Democrats are siding with anti-labor corporations who oppose it.
Senator Blanche Lincoln (D - Arkansas): ” the Employee Free Choice Act isn’t necessary”.
Of course not, after all, non-union Arkansas is a bastion of prosperity!
Well, actually, it isn’t. It’s poverty-stricken and features ultra low wages. But guess who likes low wages? Wal-Mart. And guess who loves Wal-Mart? Arkansas politicians like Blanche Lincoln.
The Center for Responsive Politics shows that Sen. Lincoln has indeed been a direct beneficiary of Wal-Mart’s political hand-outs, with donors associated with the company giving Lincoln over $35,800 in her career.
Lincoln has also received $44,000 from Tyson Foods, the poultry giant with its own checkered record of worker abuses and hostility to unions.
What is even more egregious is that Sen. Lincoln supports laws that help Wal-Mart and other anti-labor “big box” stores get cheap, unsafe junk from China and elsewhere. And in the process, the jobs of U.S. workers are being transferred offshore to slave-labor environs.
Workers in Arkansas could use more unions. Arkansas has the 5th-highest rate of poverty in the country. The state’s median income ranks 48th in the nation; only Mississippi and New Mexico are lower. Per capita income ranks 48th in the nation.
Nationally, the “union advantage” that results from having a union is about a 12% boost in wage levels. What Arkansas worker wouldn’t want that extra 12%?
In addition, over 80% of union workers have employer-provided health care, as compared to less than 50% for non-union workers.
It should not surprise anyone to learn that Sen. Lincoln is one of the “Blue Dog Democrats” who dare call
themselves “moderates”. That’s laughable. Today’s “moderate” was yesterday’s Goldwater Republican. (Or Reagan Democrat, whatever the hell that is…)
Some may argue that labor needs Democrats to control Congress, and labor just needs to suck it up…our time will come. We’re promised pie in the sky when we die too.
Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. Democrats need labor to win. (You can put a great big period there. That reality is indisputable.)
Labor advocates for all workers. Union people earn above the minimum wage, yet labor continues to push for increases in the minimum wage. When labor calls for laws requiring workplaces to be safe, it means all workplaces for everyone. When labor supports social programs intended to assist people in need, it means all people in need. When labor pushes legislation to extend access to health care for working class families, it means all working class families. When labor demands continued funding for Social Security and Medicare, it means for everyone. When labor calls for support for public education, it is advocating for children from both union and non-union households.
As the old saying goes, if you like your weekends off, thank organized labor.
During the election cycle Democrats said the EFCA was high on their legislative agenda. Now, however, labor is hearing a different tune. Reasons for Congressional retreat on the EFCA are nearly as numerous as the number of anti-EFCA corporate donors who are throwing money at Congress.
If the EFCA goes down, so will labor’s support for Democrats. Labor won’t sidle up to the anti-worker GOP, but neither will its ranks and file continue to support Democrats who view labor as relevant only around election time.
Write to your Members of Congress. Write to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Write to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Write to President Obama. Tell them if Democrats fail to pass the EFCA, working men and women are going to pass on Democrats.