Employee Free Choice Act: Op-Ed Highlights
Here are two great recent op-eds on the case for the Employee Free Choice Act.
In The Hill, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard remembers the late Crystal Lee Sutton, the inspiration for the film “Norma Rae” who passed away last weekend. Sutton’s story—attempting to form a union and bargain for a better life but facing harassment and illegal firing—shows why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, Gerard says. In particular, he notes, we must remember how, after the great personal sacrifice and victory by Sutton and her co-workers, they were still denied the ability to bargain for a fair contract:
The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) won the right to represent the workers. That’s what people remember from the film. A great victory. What they don’t know is that J.P. Stevens officials didn’t sign a labor contract with the union until a decade later.
That’s why the Employee Free Choice Act must pass. Not only do companies threaten, harass and illegally fire workers like Sutton who try to form unions, but even when workers finally do win union representation, corporations wrongly hold up negotiations to deny workers their first labor contract—as J. P. Stevens did.
