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Op-Ed Highlights: Making the Economy Work for Everyone |
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Here are a few highlights from newspapers around the country that make the case for why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.
Writing in Politico, former Clinton administration adviser Paul Begala explains how our system for forming unions is broken and why Employee Free Choice is necessary to give workers a shot at joining the middle class. Contrasting the stories of real workers with that of Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, Begala says:
“For eight years under the GOP, economic policy gave CEOs such as Ken Lewis the gold mine, while giving hard-working, middle-class Americans…the shaft. President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress were elected to change that, and protecting employees from corporate abuses is part of the change we need. That’s what the Employee Free Choice Act will do.”
In the Bangor Daily News, two economics professors—University of Southern Maine’s Michael Hillard and Bowdoin College’s David Vail—point to the history behind the nation’s economic crisis and explain why it’s critical that Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act.
For Maine as for the U.S., there are economic as well as moral justifications for restoring workers’ rights. Unionization rates, excluding government and agriculture, have plummeted from a peak of 39 percent to just 7 percent. Unionization allowed previous generations of workers to share equitably in their productivity and to realize economic security. The current generation of working people has created enormous wealth but not shared in the prosperity. The higher unionization rates that follow from fair labor laws would go a long way to remedy this inequity.
In a letter to the North Little Rock Times, Arkansas state Rep. Richard Carroll adds his name to the list of elected officials who support the Employee Free Choice Act.
As a member of the state Legislature, I have seen first-hand the devastating effects of poverty-level wages on my constituents and the community at large. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act would ensure that workers have the livable wages guaranteed by a union contract. In addition, union workers are 52 percent more likely to have health care benefits and three times more likely to have pensions. When workers bargain, the benefits go to everyone in our economy, not just the CEOs at the top.
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From what I have read of the “current” compromises on the EFCA, labor should oppose passage itself. The compromises strip the major portions of the orginal bill and make the bill a sick joke.
The unions should hold accountable those “deal makers” and remember them next election. Just as some of the “compromises” on healthcare, just as letting the auto industry go under.
I will take the bill with compromises over nothing at all. If you notice, US Chamber of Commerce and others are still opposed to the stripped bill, because it holds companies more accountable. You will never get everything in politics.