Gerard: We Need Employee Free Choice

by Seth Michaels, Aug 7, 2009

On the latest newscast by the Real News Network, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard checks in on the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act and the need for political leaders to step up and restore the freedom to form unions.

Gerard notes that the inability of workers to form unions and bargain under current labor laws has eroded worker power and hurt our economy. He says passage of the Employee Free Choice Act must be one of the most important measurements on which to judge the Obama administration and the majority in Congress. This fight won’t be easy, Gerard says, but it’s imperative.

Gerard says that even though President Obama and the House and Senate leadership support Employee Free Choice, the union movement must mobilize and put pressure on wavering senators to make sure they stand with workers:

Unions are committed to this legislation, and we’re fighting hard…people want this legislation, people understand that we need to rebuild the labor movement and re-establish collective bargaining so you can help fix the economy. We need an economy that works for everybody.

Cutting through corporate disinformation, Gerard clarifies that the Employee Free Choice Act would put workers in charge by giving them—not their bosses—the power to make decisions about how to form a union:

What it does is…put the choice where it belongs, with the workers. In no other industrialized country does the employer decide if there will be an election or not, how it will be conducted. Workers make that choice.

Gerard provides a great explanation of the Employee Free Choice Act and the political landscape of this critical fight. Watch the entire video here.

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