Employee Free Choice Act Backers Out by the Hundreds of Thousands This Summer

by Seth Michaels, Sep 9, 2009

More than 150,000 union members and supporters turned out for events, rallies, parades and picnics in recent days, to show their support for the Employee Free Choice Act, federal legislation that would level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions and bargain for a better life.

In a letter to the Baton Rouge Advocate, Michael Day, a member of the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) in Louisiana, writes that in the face of more than 25,000 acts of discrimination against employees trying to form a union every year, Congress must pass the Employee Free Choice Act:

I can’t understand a good Democrat having a problem supporting a bill such as the Employee Free Choice Act that levels the playing field between employees and corporations and puts the choice of joining or not joining a union in the hands of working men and women.

I voted for change that I could believe in, not change that I can’t notice.

Over the summer, union members and allies delivered more than 250,000 letters and made nearly 200,000 phone calls to their senators asking for real health care reform and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Tomorrow, hundreds of activists and advocates from faith, environmental, civil rights, student and community groups will be visiting their senators as part of a day of action for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Over the Labor Day weekend, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to signing legislation that levels the playing field so workers who want a union can get a union. Obama was at an AFL-CIO picnic in Cincinnati, while in Pittsburgh, Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd that the Employee Free Choice Act will pass and be signed into law this year.

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