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Employee Free Choice Act: A Signature Battle for Our Future |
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At the three-day America’s Future Now! conference going on now in Washington, D.C., many workshops are focused on empowering people and building a stronger, fairer economy, and few issues are more critical to those goals than the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
At a session this morning on the Employee Free Choice Act, some of the people most involved in the fight to pass the bill discussed why we need it and how we’re going to make it happen.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the leadership in the Senate is strongly behind the bill and he won’t back down on giving real freedom to workers who want a union, making sure workers can get a first contract and that there are meaningful penalties to violations of workers’ freedom.
If senators refuse to compromise, if they refuse to come to the table in good faith, I will take the original bill to the floor and demand an up-or-down vote. We will see where everyone stands, and working people can vote accordingly.
(Click here to read more news and views from the America’s Future Now conference. You also can listen to the conference sessions live on BlogTalk Radio here.)
Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), talked about the 1930s, when the expansion of collective bargaining helped rebuild the economy by giving workers a stake in the economy. We need to give workers that power again, he said:
You will never revive this economy or the buying power of American workers unless American workers have a seat at the table, a voice, the ability to collectively bargain.
Cohen told the story of Sara Steffens, a prize-winning journalist who, with her co-workers, faced massive employer intimidation while trying to form a union. The United States is nearly unique among industrial democracies in the world because here workers like Steffens face a management veto and management abuses over what should be their choice to form a union. CEOs and corporate lobbyists are spending tens of millions of dollars, Cohen said, to block the Employee Free Choice Act and keep their control over the process. That’s why we need a strong and united progressive front behind this bill, Cohen said:
We need to say to every senator, which side are you on? Are you on the side of Sara Steffens, or are you on the side of the Chamber of Commerce, making the same arguments they made in 1935? Some people are saying this isn’t the time, but this is exactly the time. It’s the time to rebuild the middle class.
Former Rep. David Bonior, chairman of American Rights at Work, said there needs to be a tie between the union movement and the broader progressive community, because we have common goals: making sure people have health care, fair wages, safety in the workplace and dignity and power in their own lives. We have the ability to change this country in a fundamental way, Bonior said. He offered a strong case that the Employee Free Choice Act is at the heart of the change our country needs.
We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act. We will do it. This is a struggle that’s been going on for decades and the injustice of it is ringing out.
We’ve watched our economy take a nosedive. It’s obvious that CEOs and corporations have gone too far, and everyone is paying a price. Those who have been calling the shots the last eight years, they put profits ahead of people—now they have the nerve to say that progressive policies will hurt the economy, as if they were experts?
Bonior said that you strengthen the economy from the bottom up, by giving workers, not their bosses, the choice about forming a union.
If you work hard, you should get a decent wage. If you get sick, you should have decent health care. If you put in a lifetime of work, you should get a pension. That’s the American dream. There’s no history of a strong middle class without collective bargaining…the Employee Free Choice Act will empower people.
Bonior said that over the past decade, 90 percent of wage growth went to the top 10 percent of earners, 59 percent of growth went to only 1 percent of earners—and a staggering 34 percent of wage growth went to the very top 0.1 percent of earners. That hurts the economy, and it’s a striking contrast to the fairer, more balanced wage growth when workers had a real choice to form a union. It’s due directly to the relentless attacks against workers who are trying to form unions, he said.
Bonior closed with a strong message for President Barack Obama and his economic team:
It is not good enough to go back to what we had, because what we had did not work and is not just and we will not stand enough.
We all have a stake in empowering more workers to have unions.
Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, said that the Employee Free Choice Act is a critical step in history.
The election of Obama is a testament to the long history of the civil rights movement and the progressive coalition—we haven’t won everything yet, Henderson said, but we look at real changes like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court and it’s striking to think how much things have changed. But we need the Employee Free Choice Act as well, said Henderson.
It’s not just about what unions do for individuals—although that’s critical—but what they do for communities, Henderson said.
We support it because it’s fair, because it’s the right thing to do, because it will transform this country. We need to turn up the heat to make sure that Congress deals with the fundamental needs of American workers.
Harkin, like Henderson, said the changes in Washington since the election are obvious—with a president, Barack Obama, who co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate, and a strong secretary of labor, Hilda Solis. The next change we need is to give workers the bargaining rights they need.
The American people know the economy is broken, and they know the best bet for strengthening the middle class is giving them the right to organize. And the best way to do that is through the Employee Free Choice Act.
Workers need an easy way to say, “Yes, I want a union,” without being harassed, without being intimidated, without being fired.
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May 23, 2009
Via First-Class Mail
Senator Harkin, Tom
731 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Re: S. 560 and H.R. 1409 and Employee Free Choice Act 2009
Dear Senator:
It has come to my attention that Senate Democratic leaders met Thursday afternoon in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office, to discuss strategy on compromise options to get to 60 votes for Labor’s top priority, the Employee Free Choice Act .
While conservatives have latched on to an effort to preserve the “secret ballot” it has also been reported for some weeks now that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) who has backed off support for EFCA, has suggested preserving the secret ballot by mailing in votes.
If Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposed mail ballot is proposed instead of its current form and/or a dual-purpose membership card alternative (see enclosed card) which I have written to you and other senators a few weeks ago about, in my opinion this would be a huge mistake both prolifically for you, other democrats who support EFCA and the democratic party for a number of reasons.
One reason is mail ballots are presently being used in NLRB union elections. This is no compromise. The purpose of this bill was to make it easier for workers to join unions without the fear of intimidation by an employer and to level the playing field by having a workers right to choose NOT an employers right to choose. Using a mail ballot will not achieve this objective. If anything it would make it harder for them to join a union for the following reasons.
For over 30 years I have had the privilege to conducted thousands of NLRB elections during my career, while I prefer mail ballot elections over on site poll elections it is because the success rate for me has been approximately 100%. This is why the majority of anti-union busting employers demand poll ballot elections vs. mail ballot elections. While the success rate is undisputed using it to form a union under S. 560 and H.R. 1409 and Employee Free Choice Act 2009 would be disastrous.
You should be aware when using a NLRB mail ballot election approximately 50% or less participate in these types of elections. This would fall short of the majority status needed under this bill. A good example of this is a mal ballot election I just won on May 22, 2009, in this particular election only 15 voted out of 64 eligible voters in another election involving the State Department which we now represent there were 710 eligible voters and only 228 people participated. The result 112 for SPFPA 102 for the incumbent union 2 votes for the employer and 22 voided ballots due to not following the NLRB procedures. .(see enclosed tally sheets) These two examples are just two out of hundreds of NLRB mail ballot elections I have conducted achieving the same results. 50% or less falling far short of any majority.
Some of the other reasons why this would fail is because of the process of how the NLRB mail ballots work. NLRB mail ballots take at least two weeks to set up and two to three weeks to mail in making the process longer not shorter. In addition the procedure used in an NLRB mail ballot election is much more difficult to understand for the average worker because in many cases they fail to follow the instructions such as placing a ballot in the separate envelope as required to ensure secrecy and their failure to sign the back of the ballot which is required to have their vote counted.
Based on the above workers refuse to participate for the lack of understanding and/or do participate but have their ballots voided for failure to follow the instructions properly. As in the case of the State Department election.
While I know you are working very hard on trying to muster the 60 votes needed from our own party on some type of compromise bill that will satisfy all, I can only suggest to you that if a mail ballot is introduced as the compromise alternative many labor leaders, supporters and workers who are involved in this fight will see this alternative as a sellout to the big interest groups controlled by corporate greed. Politically you and those at the forefront of this fight would end up as the fall guy which I would not like to see happen.
While I know politically you are faced between a rock and a hard place over the biggest controversial bill in over 70 years, the average American worker like non-union workers do not understand politics or the difficulty involved in trying to come to some sort of compromise.
As stated in my previous letter if some sort of compromise is introduced then it should be the dual purpose membership card as the alternative to the present form. By doing so you preserve the “Secret Ballot” by offering a choice on how an employee wishes to join a union. Either by a “A Secret Ballot Election” or by way of electing to choose to have their dual-purpose membership card used for majority status.
Either way the EMPLOYEE Chooses on how to form a union NOT the Employer!
This is clearly defined in the dual-purpose membership card and there can be NO argument that this method would eliminate “A Secret Ballot Election”.
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/2009/01/amending-employee-free-choice-act.html
Enlarge the Card on the senate floor and show the world in black and white that democracy is preserved by NOT eliminating “The Secret Ballot Election”.
In conclusion, if you are unable to muster the votes needed using a dual-purpose membership card alternative then so be it. There are other labor reforms which are badly needed such as the binding arbitration, shorter election periods, equal access, stiffer penalties against an employer and many other areas which can be found on my blog http://efcanow.blogspot.com in a article I wrote on the subject : Thinking Outside The Box to Get The Employee Free Choice Act EFCA Passed.
You and those senators who are supporting this bill will not be the fall guys for its failure, YOU will be looked upon as hero’s and a champion of workers rights.
In a recent article by TMC entitled Harkin: Compromise On EFCA Or Else it stated you said “Work with me in earnest on a compromise, or I’ll put the bill on the Senate floor and you can vote your conscience.” If this EFCA bill is to fail then so be it by those senators who are not supporting us. We will deal with them in 2010 and the near future.
I leave you with one quote I use ending all my organizing presentations:
“I would rather die standing up, than live life on my knees.” Mexican revolutionary, champion of agrarianism, who fought in guerrilla actions during and after the Mexican Revolution (1911-17).
If you should have any questions please do not hesitate to call me. I can be reached at 1-800-228-7492 or my cell at 646-567-6454. Thank you for your time. God bless you and god bless the United States of America and its workers.
Respectfully and in Solidarity
________________________
Steve Maritas
SPFPA International Organizing Director
Cc: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid
Sen. Charles Schumer
Sen. Dick Durbin
Sen. Bob Menendez
Sen. Jeff Bingaman
Sen Carl Levin
Dainal Goldberg
Steward Acuff AFL-CIO
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