‘The West Wing’ Cast Joins Workers to Support Employee Free Choice

by Seth Michaels, Mar 31, 2009

Barack Obama is not the only U.S. president who supports the Employee Free Choice Act: America’s most famous fictional president is in Washington, D.C., today to stand alongside workers in support of the freedom to form unions.

As part of the union movement’s “Faces of the Employee Free Choice Act” campaign, workers like Dan Luevano and Asela Espiritu were joined by members of the cast of “The West Wing” in a rally in support of the Employee Free Choice Act on Capitol Hill this morning. Martin Sheen, who played fictional U.S. President Jed Bartlett in the long-running show, came to Washington along with actors Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff.

After this morning’s rally, workers traveled around Capitol Hill to visit U.S. senators and ask them to quickly pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would protect workers from management abuses and give employees, not their bosses, the choice about how to form a union and bargain for a better life.

Whitford thanked the workers for coming to Washington to speak out in favor of the freedom to form unions and against the broken system that takes power out of workers’ hands. He spoke eloquently about the need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

We must never forget these workers. This issue boils down to a simple fact: It is a fundamental right in this country for workers to be able to join unions and to bargain collectively. Unfortunately, as these workers will tell you, this is often not the case. Without the protections provided by the Employee Free Choice Act, workers looking to join unions are subject to harassment, disinformation and dismissal because of a system that is exploited by and stacked in favor of management.

The Employee Free Choice Act puts the process of whether or not to join a union and how it is done where it belongs, in the hands of the workers. We must not allow the political process to water down this fundamental right. We must not allow lawmakers to put political expediency ahead of this right.

Whitford said that the same corporate interests who oppose medical leave, workplace safety, oversight of the financial system and the minimum wage cannot be allowed to keep control over the process for forming unions through their multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign.

Workers, elected leaders and community allies also spoke this morning in support of this critical bill.

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