Faith Leaders, Working Women Take Action to Support Employee Free Choice Act

by Seth Michaels, Jun 5, 2009

In Arkansas and other key states, union members and allies are rallying for Employee Free Choice.

This morning, 20 religious leaders in Hammond, Ind., met with union members from the Northwest Indiana Federation of Labor to talk about the need for the Employee Free Choice Act and sign a letter to Sen. Evan Bayh asking him to support workers’ freedom to form unions. 

Today’s breakfast is just a small part of a national effort on behalf of  faith communities in support of the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. 

Union members, religious leaders, Working America members and a wide range of allies have made their voices heard with prayer vigils and rallies at Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s offices all around Arkansas, including Little Rock, Fayetteville, Jonesboro, Texarkana and El Dorado. They’ve also held vigils in Indiana, including events in South Bend, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, as well as Omaha, Neb., and Missoula, Mont.

Elsewhere in the country, supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act are finding creative ways to reach out to their communities. In Virginia, union members organized a softball team sponsored by the Central Virginia Area Labor Federation (now with an 8-0 record!). In Alaska, working women are asking Sen. Lisa Murkowski to support the Employee Free Choice Act, while academics and business owners held a roundtable in New Orleans to discuss why they support this bill to protect the freedom to bargain for a better life. 

In Maine, Mike Hillard, a professor of economics at the University of Southern Maine, is one of the thousands of academics backing the Employee Free Choice Act. Looking at the history of increasing abuses against workers trying to form unions, Hillard says: 

The problem is that the process that the law created…has been subverted, intentionally….Labor law could be stretched or violated with little consequence. 

I think we stand at a crossroads. Both as an expert and as a citizen, I call on our senators to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

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