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Civil Rights Leaders Urge Passage of Employee Free Choice |
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Martin Luther King Jr. often drew the parallels and connections between the civil rights and union movements. Today, on the eve of the anniversary of King’s assassination, national civil rights leaders called for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the choice of how to form a union.
During a telephone press conference, Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), a coalition of some 200 organizations, pointed out that unions have been one of the main vehicles for African Americans to move into the middle class.
The Employee Free Choice Act has been largely written about as a labor bill but those of us in the civil rights community know it is so much more…workers’ rights are civil rights; and that the right to organize is a civil and human rights issue of the first magnitude.
From generation to generation, by organizing unions, working Americans have turned entire industries and occupations into sources of middle class incomes, secure benefits, and opportunities for upward mobility. This is true for Americans from every background—but especially for African Americans.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous added that the fight for Employee Free Choice “is a fight not just to make sure everyone has a job, but to make sure everyone has access to a good job.”
There are those who say the Employee Free Choice Act will hurt the economy. They forget that slavery was a full employment system. Everyone on the plantation had a job.
The reality is working people’s income has flat-lined while the income of the wealthy has grown. In times when we’re looking at getting our economy going again, putting more money in the pockets of working people is good for the entire country.
Listen to an audio recording of the press conference here.
The civil rights leaders’ endorsement of the Employee Free Choice Act is important, writes Art Levine on the Huffington Post, and could help convince wavering senators to support the bill and is an indication that the battle for the legislation is far from over. Click here to read Levine’s blog.
Melanie Campbell, executive director of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, said, “It is outrageous that in this day and age, working men and women face the same kind of mistreatment and intimidation in the workplace when trying to form unions as civil rights leaders did when fighting for equal rights and protections.”
Often what is lost in the back and forth “inside the beltway” debate over the Employee Free Choice Act is the real life impact of either being able to organize and bargain collectively or being intimidated and told to be quiet and not make a fuss.
Women in the workforce, particularly African American women have continually struggled for equal protection and equal employment opportunities. Often union membership has offered women not just the added wages and benefits but the adequate training to compete with their male counterparts.
Steven Pitts, labor policy specialist at the University of California Berkeley Labor Center, also spoke during the press conference.
The civil rights leaders echoed what labor educator Edgar Moore says in a guest column at the AFL-CIO website. In “African Americans Win With Unions,” Moore, a faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s William Brennan Institute for Labor Studies, writes:
The Employee Free Choice Act is important for African American workers. Union membership has been a passageway to the middle class for generations of African American workers.
Last November, the National Baptist Convention of America, one of the nation’s largest African American religious groups with 3 million members, endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act.
During the press call, Henderson summed up the issue by quoting labor giant A. Philip Randolph:
As A. Philip Randolph used to say, the two tickets for full equality for African Americans have been the voter registration card and the union card. The first card allows all Americans to choose better leaders. The second card allows all Americans to choose a better life.
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I find this astounding. I agree with Al Sharpton and Geoprge McGovern on this who have been quoted opposing EFCA as it takes away the long sought right for a private vote. The very right that Congressmen like George Miller insist unions in other countries preserve!
Of course union intimidation is real. In 2007, almost six thousand (6,000) complaints were filed against unions.
84.4% alleged illegal restraint and coercion of employees. Most (82.8%) were filed by individuals.
It’s not surprising that you find this article, astounding. As a self-described CEO of a company that employs about 150 people, you won’t get it. You can’t possible understand the plight of the American worker because you lack their perspective. You are far too interested in pressing forward notions like Patriotism is really just a disguise for protectionism. It seems as though we’ve had this debate before.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/03/27/economic-terrorism/
You, sir, are a hypocrite. Previously, you accused the union side of not being honest by citing articles in the Wall Street Journal as some sort of proof. Here, you cite figures that have not been vetted as even credible, supposedly filed to an, as yet, un-named agency. You don’t actually expect anyone to take you as a credible source of information, do you?
The statement, “I agree…it takes away the long sought right for a private vote” has been thoroughly debunked. The Employee Free Choice Act protects the right to a secret ballot election should the EMPLOYEES CHOOSE to have one; AND YOU KNOW THAT! I hope you continue spreading this lie because it will only provide more credibility for the Unions when the general public is more widely made aware of it.
Such lack of Corporate honesty, combined with what’s occurring on Wall Street, will serve as an example of the types of lies typically spread by companies about Unions during mandatory informational meetings employers force employees to attend prior to a secret ballot election. Thus; Corporate America will provide the catalyst for the idea that CORPORATE INTIMIDATION is a far greater REAL threat to workers than any level of hypothetical union intimidation could ever possibly achieve. In the end, hypocrites like you will do more GOOD than harm for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. So, keep spreading the lies or better yet, start telling the truth; either way the greater good of the public interest will be served.
For the sake of argument, should the workers actually become exposed to “union intimidation” during the organizing process; don’t you suspect the Free Choice they would select would be the SECRET BALLOT provision contained within the Employee Free Choice Act!?! Therefore; do you think knowing that would tend to increase or decrease alleged “union intimidation” from the organizers? Therein lies your checks and balances for a hypothetical situation that almost never occurs in practice. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that if union intimidation ran as rampant as you suggest, there would be a higher frequency of union desertification exercised by the members of them?
You are as full of you know what as the articles you write. Get real! Obviously, you are driven by the love of money and it has clouded you vision of what is right from wrong. Repent…while there is still time!
What is astounding, Mr Shapiro, is your concern for workers’ privacy. You don’t seem to be too concerned about their other constitutional rights, like FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY.
What is “secret” about an employee being brought into a private meeting and threatened with the loss of his or her job, or the closing or moving of the facility if the employee votes for a union? There is no “privacy” in a union election, only coercion by employers, coercion that, if this were a political election, would be blatantly illegal. But since there are little to no penalties for employers who abuse workers for trying to unionize, employers know they can get away with it.
Since you are SO concerned, let’s take a look at indisputable facts about union elections, Mr Shapiro. Answer these questions, all of which are “Yes” for political elections.
Equal Access to Media? No
Freedom of Speech? Hell, no.
Equal Access to Voters? are you kidding?
Voters Free of Coercion? of course not
Campaign Finance Regulation? Nope
Timely Implementation of the Voters will? what is that?
Secret Ballot? Yes
What we have now are employers inserting themselves into the rights of the people to freely choose who and how they associate. An employer has no right to be involved in the process at all, that is what YOU don’t get Mr. Shapiro. The Constitution does not give a corporation a right to vote. There is no mention of corporations or companies in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. These rights appply to US, the PEOPLE of the United States of America. You are simply an employer who is entitled to enter into a contractual agreement with people whose services you need in order to make money. As individuals we have the right to decide how we bargain with the employer, and EFCA does not change that. It simply makes the choice between card check and an election the choice of the workers, NOT the employer.
stop pretending you care about workers’ rights. you look pathetic.
Mr. Shapiro,
In 1998, 24,000 workers received backpay from their employers for being illegally fired or punished for their union activity.
In 2005, that number was 30,000.
These are cases that have actually been settled by the NLRB. Roughly one third of all filed complaints are settled outside of the NLRB. not to mention, these are numbers under the most anti-labor administration in 75 years.
You, on the other hand, sighted 6000 filed complaints, not settled cases. How many cases of union intimidation were actually found to exist? Even if all of them were found to have merit, that is still 1/5th the number cases of coercion by employers that were so bad that they were forced to pay back pay. There are even more violations of labor law by employers in which they were found guilty, but weren’t forced to pay any penalty because the law doesn’t provide for one.
Give it a rest, bub. you’re a shill, and a bad one at that.
Well put, my friend!!!