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Global Support Growing for Employee Free Choice
Since Friday, when we wrote about international union support for the Employee Free Choice Act, more letters backing this critical legislation have poured in from around the world.
In separate letters to United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard, leaders of unions in eight countries, along with an international union federation, have expressed solid support for the bill. The latest letters come from all corners of the world: Paraguay, Japan, Ghana, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Togo, the base of the 13-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM).
Global union leaders point out the legislation would bring the United States in line with international labor standards. Now, a report released at the historic global summit on organizing shows the United States has the lowest rate of union membership among developed nations and the anti-union tactics used in this country are being exported to other countries.
In one of the letters, Terezinho Martins Da Rocha, president of the Brazilian rubber workers union, says:
There is no defense for employers who interfere in workers’ decisions to form trade unions. Unfortunately, every day in the United States working women and men are intimidated and dismissed simply for trying to exercise their right to organize.
It is time for the United States to join the other democracies around the world that respect the fundamental rights of workers to form trade unions and bargain collectively with their employers.
Kiyoshi Ochiai, chairperson of the Japanese unions affiliated with the ICEM, writes:
Our trade union stands firmly behind the American trade unions in your efforts to get the United States Congress to pass this legislation into law, with the support of President Barack Obama….[W]e consider it an essential element in a free society that workers be allowed to join a trade union in an unobstructed way.
On Friday, we told you about letters of support from Saman Pronprachathum, general secretary of the Petroleum & Chemical Worker’s Federation of Thailand and the top leaders of the Indonesian paper workers union who spoke out for the legislation, saying “a strong economy depends on workers [being] given the opportunity to join a trade union and to bargain collectively so that fair wages and social benefits are lifted for all in a society.”
Click here to read some of the letters from global unions supporting employee free choice in the United States.
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2 Comments
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If there was ever a time for the Employee Free Choice Act, that time is now. Not only is it nearly impossible to form a union without fear and intimidation by employers, but union-busting has grown into a $4 billion a year business in the U.S. alone.
Companies that previously had good relationships with their union employees have been emboldened by weak labor laws. One of those is the McGraw-Hill Companies. Read more at:
http://nabetcwa54.org
So foreigners and union funds and a few others want to see card check? This is amazing.
I think card check may be an effort to get new contributors to the union pension plans which appear to be seriously underfunded. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/card-check-is-not-the-sol b 202892.html