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Vets: Employee Free Choice Affirms Freedoms We Fought For |
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This Fourth of July, there will parades, picnics, family gatherings and speeches about what it means to be an American and a patriot.
For the men and women who have served in the military, being a patriot means fighting at home to protect the freedoms they defended in conflicts abroad. And for millions of them, that means belonging to a union.
Take Brett McElfresh, a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA) Local 94 in Canton, Ohio. McElfresh served four years in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Iraq. He is the first member of his local to join the Helmets to Hardhats program sponsored by by the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD). The program has helped more than 5,000 military vets find new careers as electricians, plumbers, roofers and in other skilled trades.
His experience in the military and in the union are parallel, McElfresh says.
I realized when you join the service, you serve your country. When you come back home and join a union, you go from defending your country to helping build and maintain your country.
I am absolutely proud to be a union member.
McElfresh is not alone. Some 2.1 million union members are veterans, or 14 percent of all union members. An even higher percentage of union retirees are veterans.
One thing most of them agree on is the need for the Employee Free Choice Act. Across the country, veterans are speaking out in favor of the legislation. Carolyn Consoli, a Navy veteran who spoke at an April town hall meeting in Los Angeles attended by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, said it was hard for her and many other returning veterans to find jobs that offered the pay and benefits she needed:
The only jobs I could find were those that led to poverty wages.
One out of five veterans who recently returned from tours of duty remains unemployed. One out of four veterans finding a job since leaving the service earns less than $21,840 a year.
The veterans who testified at the town hall meeting said they were able to join the military with just a signature, without having to ask anyone’s permission. Why, then, shouldn’t they have the same chance to form a union and bargain for a better life?
Kelly Mobley agrees. After 13 years on active duty in the Air Force and 10 years in the Reserves, Mobley began a second career as a field rep for the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE), an AFSCME affiliate. She followed her mother, who retired as an OAPSE official the same year her daughter joined the union.
She says all workers deserve the basic right to choose how to live their lives.
That’s why we left England and why we had the Boston Tea Party. Big Business is oppressing the workers.
Mobley says her passion for working people made the transition from the military to the union easy.
In the military, I was fighting for basic freedoms. In the union, I’m fighting for basic human rights. In the military, I was fighting in the trenches. In the union, I’m in the trenches going up against the big lawyers and school superintendents to protect—and I say this with great respect—the little people. I’m fighting for the cooks, bus drivers, custodians, the people who make the schools work.
On this Independence Day, McElfresh says we need to remember that our freedoms are precious and must be protected. That’s why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important.
We were fighting for freedom of choice [in Iraq], the right to do what you want to do, and not be forced to do something you don’t want. We should be able to make a choice [to join a union] and not be told what to do. Not passing the Employee Free Choice Act would be going against what our forefathers stood for and what the Fourth of July stands for.
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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
http://vimeo.com/5455943
I have just uploaded this video and do not have much time. The site is converting it and it has about an hour to go until you can download and spread the video.
This is Target’s anti-union training video shown as part of orientation.
I hope it isn’t removed before you can download it.
Download it (a link at the bottom of the page) and spread it immediately. Forward it and upload it to filesharing sites before Target Corp removes its propaganda.
We must end the injustice perpetuated against America’s labor force by avaricious CEOs. Urge your Senator to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
In San Antonio 62% of workers at the Grand Hyatt Hotel signed up with UNITEHERE. Management initially agreed to remain “neutral” but has since hired labor consultants and begun a campaign of terror on supporters of the union.
There have been several delegations from the community attempting to meet with Hyatt Boss. He has lied and denies using anti-union tactics. Tomorrow we rally in their support demanding that management allow the workers to decide whether or not to join the union. The NLRB has July 17th as the election day.
With passage of the Employee Free Choice Act such intimidation would not occur as workers would have the right to decide between an election or simply using card check. The Hyatt workers would have won hands down with 62% yet current labor laws allow for bosses to engage in psychological terror, firings and other forms of intimidation. WE NEED EFCA NOW!