Solis: We’ll Work Hard to Pass Employee Free Choice Act

by James Parks, Sep 14, 2009

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told the AFL-CIO’s 26th Constitutional Convention today that she and the Obama administration will join with workers to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

In the first address by a labor secretary to an AFL-CIO convention in more than eight years, Solis, the daughter of union members, said unions are more important than ever in today’s economic crisis:

“Workers are under assault and they need the voice on the job that unions provide. I believe and I know union jobs are good jobs.”

She quoted President Obama’s Labor Day speech when he said:

“That’s why I support [the Employee free Choice Act]: to level the playing field so it’s easier for employees who want a union to form a union. Nothing—nothing wrong with that. Because when labor is strong, America is strong. When we all stand together, we all rise together.”

Solis, whose father recently suffered a stroke, said health care reform is a must for our country. The status quo in health care is “unsustainable,” she said. Workers like her father who spent their lives working hard had a right to expect secure and stable benefits in their retirement.

And they are counting on us to do the right thing.

Real health care reform will not only ensure that workers with insurance keep their benefits, she said, it will provide affordable options for those without health care coverage and rein in the cost of health care for everyone.

Solis also listed a series of actions demonstrating how her leadership is creating what AFL-CIO President John Sweeney calls a “pro-Labor Department”:

• Hiring more wage and hour and safety inspectors to bring levels back up before the Bush administration.
• Providing nearly $800 million to provide training for good jobs as part of the economic stimulus funds.
• Showing strong support for project labor agreements that ensure workers on federal construction projects are paid decent wages.

Her goal as labor secretary, Solis said, is to “simply create good jobs for everyone,”

with decent pay, enough to support a family, safe and secure workplaces, a voice on the job with the right to organize and to collective bargain. Jobs that last where export products, not paychecks. And jobs that will rebuild a strong middle class.

Also, this morning, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl welcomed delegates to Pittsburgh, a city whose history is the history of the union movement. Ravenstahl, 29, one of the youngest mayors in the country, said that story is told in the “blood, sweat and tears of workers in Pittsburgh.”

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (3)