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Shirley Sherrod and All Workers Deserve to Have Their Voices Protected
All across the nation, people are watching the case of Shirley Sherrod, who was asked to resign as Georgia state director for rural development at the U.S. Department of Agriculture because of an edited video clip. A moment of personal honesty about a redemptive experience in her own life was snipped into an apparent example of bias, and the unforgiving 24-second news cycle was not her friend.
While it was wrong for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to force Sherrod to resign before he had all the facts, I am sure that she will receive a fair hearing and get her due process.
What happened to Shirley Sherrod happens to so many American workers every day. They are fired or disciplined without cause or due process and have no recourse. They don’t have a voice on the job or an avenue to speak out for their rights. Most Americans work in jobs covered by the idea of “employment at will.” This doctrine, a relic of 19th century anti-labor laws, allows employers to fire workers at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimates that at least 200,000 Americans are unjustly fired every year. In fact, the ACLU says it receives more complaints about workers being mistreated by their employer than it does from people who are mistreated by the government.
While the case of Shirley Sherrod has shined the spotlight on one case of unjust firing, millions of Americans whose cases don’t make the news need protection to make sure they are not deprived of a job for no reason. The best protection is a union contract that spells out the worker’s rights and establishes a due process before the worker can be fired.
But when workers try to form unions, many are threatened, intimidated by their employers or fired. That’s why we in the union movement are working so hard to ensure that working people can exercise their freedom to join a union and gain their voice. Congress must pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field and let workers, not their bosses, decide how they want to choose a union.
Every worker has a right to a voice in the workplace. It’s time we began protecting that right by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
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6 Comments
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by PeoplesWorld, AFL-CIO, Gregory A. Cendana, Ray Beckerman, Danielle Hatchett and others. Danielle Hatchett said: Nice piece from @aflcio EVP Holt Baker: Shirley #Sherrod, And All Workers, Deserve To Have Their Voices Protected http://bit.ly/951KDT [...]
Thank you for this excellent article. I have only one problem with it: if it is so important to pass EFCA (and it is!) how are we going to get it passed? The Democrats have totally failed us on this campaign promise, to date. What makes the AFL-CIO think the Democrats will ever make good on this promise and pass this landmark progressive act? Clearly, we need to break with the sellout Democratic Party, build a huge, truly democratic grassroots rank and file labor movement and elect independent politicians who are accountable to us, not owned by Wall Street.
The difference is, Shirley Sherrod’s retaliatory, abitrary and unjustifiable firing was personally approved by President Obama, because Rupert Murdock unearthed a tape and doctored it and hired Glen Beck and Bill O’Reilly to shriek about it. Obama is afraid to do anything that will cause the far-right phones to shriek – which is why he has done so little for us, after the AFL-CIO has done so much for him. It almost makes me wish we had a Labor Party, but that’s crazy talk – Glen Beck would never go along with it.
The struggle for economic fair equity of the financially less sophisticated, more humbly known as the meek, was brilliantly articulated in Sherrod’s speech. Many of her talking points could have easily been delivered by any Labor leader. The knee-jerk Actions by the right to snippets taken out of context was OUTRAGEOUS and was compounded by knee-jerk REactions on the left.
Once upon a time; I served as the President of the Albany/Southwest Georgia Labor Council. I was born at Turner Air Force Base Hospital in Albany, GA. I’ve lived here all my life. I am well acquainted with her husband, Charles, and count him and his family to be GREAT friends of Labor. Several news cycles have now been spent straightening this mess out, instead of focusing on issues Shirley champions.
Although, I strongly agree with the need to pass EFCA as a tool to level the playing field for the working-class of America. I’m not so sure that its high-minded policies, even if passed, would have deterred her employer from jumping the gun down here where the rubber meets the road. (Actually, the side of the road in her case.)
Andrew Breitbart can kiss my (democratic) donkey!
Shirley Sherrod has an open invitation to deliver WHATEVER kind of speech she wishes, in any manner of style she chooses, no matter the fashion of her prose, at any meeting of any organization that I will ever Chair.
Now, there’s some filling for all the elephant ears of the right wing-nut media who trumpet lies through their snouts. Perhaps, they would better recognize my comments as serving up a healthy portion of “righteous indignation!”
Bon appetit,
Grady Burrell
Prove the media cut up the speech, and then sue the bastards!
For a hilarious look at the sort of thing Breitbart regularly does; check out this clip of Breitbart, himself:
http://pol.moveon.org/breitbart.html?id=22053-9420198-12goJ3x&t=1