Employee Free Choice Will Ensure Workers Get a Fair First Contract
The freedom to form unions and bargain is critical to workers and to a stronger, fairer economy—but weak law that allows delay and stalling blocks workers from gaining the first contracts that can bring them a better life.
Studies show that when workers vote for unions, fewer than half of them have a contract a full year later—and in more than a third of cases, workers still don’t have a contract two years later. Despite exercising their freedom to form unions against great obstacles, workers aren’t able to bargain for health coverage, retirement security, fair wages and safe workplace conditions.
The Employee Free Choice Act would end this injustice by providing a process to help bargainers reach an agreement through mediation and, for issues the parties are unable to resolve on their own, arbitration. Arbitration would occur only under the Employee Free Choice Act if either side requests it, after months of negotiations.
Big Business: Two-Faced Talk on Arbitration
The big-money corporate interests against the Employee Free Choice Act are continuing their disinformation campaign, throwing around misleading rhetoric and bad-faith arguments, seeking to confuse policymakers, the press and the public.
The latest Big Business tactic is to attack the provision of the Employee Free Choice Act that guarantees workers who form a union a fair first contract—a vital provision, because more than 50 percent of workers who form a union don’t have a contract after one year and more than a third still don’t have a contract after two years.
Corporations are crying about the possibility they might have to take part in arbitration with employees if they don’t reach a first contract after three months of talks—even though they’re enthusiastic about arbitration in a wide variety of circumstances where they have the advantage.
Corporate Hypocrisy on Bargaining Highlights Need for Employee Free Choice
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The misleading attacks by Big Business on the Employee Free Choice Act now are aimed at the provision that would guarantee that workers can get a fair first contract. Their scare tactics are not only misleading, they’re hypocritical.
Right now, workers lack a legal means to ensure they get a fair first contract. Recent research shows that even after workers successfully win a union and the ability to bargain, they’re too often blocked from getting a fair first contract. Fifty-two percent of workers don’t have a contract a full year after the election, and 37 percent don’t have a first contract two years after the election. For too many workers, the promise of the freedom to bargain is out of reach because the law doesn’t offer them any help.
The Employee Free Choice Act provides a process to help first-time bargainers to reach an agreement, through mediation and, for issues the parties are unable to resolve on their own, arbitration. The reason we need first-contract arbitration is to create an incentive for companies to bargain voluntarily with their workers.
Employee Free Choice Act: A Signature Battle for Our Future
At the three-day America’s Future Now! conference going on now in Washington, D.C., many workshops are focused on empowering people and building a stronger, fairer economy, and few issues are more critical to those goals than the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
At a session this morning on the Employee Free Choice Act, some of the people most involved in the fight to pass the bill discussed why we need it and how we’re going to make it happen.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the leadership in the Senate is strongly behind the bill and he won’t back down on giving real freedom to workers who want a union, making sure workers can get a first contract and that there are meaningful penalties to violations of workers’ freedom.
If senators refuse to compromise, if they refuse to come to the table in good faith, I will take the original bill to the floor and demand an up-or-down vote. We will see where everyone stands, and working people can vote accordingly.
Workers Face Increasing Abuse in Attempts to Form Unions
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Today on Capitol Hill, labor law experts and a California worker exposed the ugly truth about corporate abuses of workers trying to exercise their freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
At the center of the discussion: Kate Bronfenbrenner’s new report, “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the American Rights at Work Education Fund. The report shows that the problems the Employee Free Choice Act would address are getting worse.
Bronfenbrenner has studied these issues for decades as the director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Relations. This is her fourth survey over 20 years, enabling her to put into historical perspective the obstacles workers face today.
At the Capitol Hill briefing, Bronfenbrenner said weak laws and a hostile environment have emboldened corporations, over the past decade, to step up their abuses against workers trying to form unions.
The research provides a detailed portrait of a system that has failed private-sector workers. Workers have come to understand what our data confirms: Employers are using an arsenal of legal and illegal tactic to interfere with workers trying to organize, and they are doing it with impunity.
Corporate Anti-Worker Tactics on the Rise
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A landmark study examining workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain shows that the problems the Employee Free Choice Act would address are getting worse.
“No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” authored by Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Relations, documents a disturbing increase in corporate tactics to interfere with, block and delay workers’ attempts to form unions. Workers who want to form a union all too frequently are subject to harassment, mandatory meetings, threats and even illegal firings.
The study, released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the American Rights at Work Education Fund, updates earlier studies by Bronfenbrenner. “No Holds Barred” examines more than 1,000 union representation campaigns over four years and finds that “intense and aggressive” tactics to block workers’ freedom to form unions are becoming more commonplace.
Netroots Nation Salon: The Fight for Employee Free Choice, Online and Off
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Online organizers and progressive activists from inside and outside the union movement met today at the AFL-CIO for a frank conversation about the state of the Employee Free Choice Act and how online activism can help push the bill forward.
Sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Netroots Nation, a nonprofit organization for the advancement of online political activism, the event, titled “Can the Netroots help make the Employee Free Choice Act law,” was part of Netroots Nation’s ongoing Salon Series.
Moderated by Christopher Hayes of The Nation, the event featured the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff, Laura Clawson of Working America and Daily Kos, Michael Whitney of SEIU and Rebecca Wasserman of American Rights at Work.
Maxwell, New NLRB Appointments: Change We Can Believe In
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It bears repeating: Elections have consequences.
Great news from the White House, as three new appointments over the weekend show President Barack Obama’s commitment to improving workers’ lives and protecting their freedom on the job. Mary Beth Maxwell will head to the U.S. Department of Labor, while two experienced worker advocates—Craig Becker and Mark Pearce—have been nominated to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Maxwell, the executive director of American Rights at Work and a strong advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act, has been named as a senior adviser to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and a member of Vice President Joe Biden’s Middle Class Task Force. She’ll bring to the administration a history of speaking out in support of workers and their freedom to bargain for a better life.
Employee Free Choice vs. Wall Street Greed
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Who’s behind the opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act? It’s the same corporate executives and Wall Street millionaires whose greed and irresponsibility led to our nation’s economic crisis—the same people who are looking for taxpayer-funded bailouts even as they lobby to prevent workers from bargaining for a better life.
A new ad takes to task the opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act for their support of an economy that works for CEOs, but not for the rest of us.
Produced by American Rights at Work, the ad was launched nationally over the weekend after its debut on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show.”
As Congress Recesses, Campaign for Employee Free Choice Goes into High Gear
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Members of Congress return to their districts this weekend for a two-week recess, and when they get there, they’ll be greeted with unprecedented grassroots energy in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Hundreds of rallies, community meetings and events will take place over the next two weeks as workers and their allies demand that members of the House and Senate act quickly to protect employees’ freedom to form a union and bargain.
The broad coalition in support of the Employee Free Choice Act includes union members and their families, religious groups, students, civil rights organizations and small business owners. They’ll reach out to thank supporters and ask those who haven’t signed on yet to co-sponsor the critical bill. This outpouring of support, which will include phone banks, letters and personal meetings with elected officials, will be accompanied by a new ad running in key states.
