Ayers: Employee Free Choice Act a ‘Win-Win’ for Workers, Business
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Cutting through the myths and explaining the importance of workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain, Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), makes the case for the Employee Free Choice Act in the upcoming issue of The Voice, the magazine of the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT).
In an op-ed aimed at leaders in the construction industry, Ayers says much of the controversy around the legislation is based on “outlandish claims” by opponents who hope to keep workers from bargaining for a better life. Indeed, Ayers says, the freedom of workers to form unions and bargain is a tool to strengthen the economy.
Rural Economies Need Employee Free Choice
In a great new op-ed in Minnesota’s Bemidji Pioneer, Richard Levins, a professor emeritus of applied economics at the University of Minnesota, says the Employee Free Choice Act gives workers in rural economies the ability to bargain for a better life and restore the economy in their communities.
He says the race to the bottom in wages isn’t working anymore for our economy and calls the Employee Free Choice Act a “much-needed stimulus” for rural economies.
Labor Secretary Solis: ‘Level the Playing Field’
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We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Elections have consequences. Speaking today in an interview with The Washington Post, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis re-affirmed the administration’s commitment to passing the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain.
Here’s what Solis had to say about why we need the Employee Free Choice Act:
I think it helps to level the playing field because, in many cases, workers have been disadvantaged. They’ve been intimidated, they’ve been harassed, and we have case after case after case that we can look at. And you probably hear from the opposing side, that they will say, “Well, no, there have been successes where people have been able to organize, and they have been able to push forward a unionization.” But when you look at the attempts that have been made over the past few years…there have been barriers that have been put up. And I think that the past administration was not very favorable for unions. They were not supportive in many ways.
Business Professors: Employee Free Choice Act Good for the Economy
Two top business experts have taken to the pages of Business Week to make the case for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Paul Adler, a professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, and Donald Palmer, an associate dean and professor at the University of California-Davis, say corporate hostility to the Employee Free Choice Act and to workers’ freedom to form unions is short-sighted because communities with well-paid workers have economic advantages for business.
Adler and Palmer cite training, job satisfaction and the healthy communities that come from economically secure workers as reasons why businesses benefit when their employees can form unions and bargain.
230 Economists Voice Support for Employee Free Choice
The Employee Free Choice Act is absolutely necessary to help workers rebuild the economy, according to a statement signed by 230 economists.
In the statement, many of America’s top economists, including Nobel Prize laureates, explain why the new law to protect workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain is more than desirable—it’s essential. Released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the statement builds on a February call for the legislation that has gathered growing support among economists.
The 230 economists, coming from top institutions in 33 states, point to the erosion of working family incomes as a key factor in our economic crisis—and the need for the freedom of workers to bargain collectively, without fear of management abuses, as key to recovery. The signers say:
As economists, we believe this is a critically important step in rebuilding our economy and strengthening our democracy by enhancing the voice of working people in the workplace.
These economists join hundreds of academics and other experts from across the country, from historians to business professors, as well as a broad coalition of faith, environmental, small business and civil rights groups, who are supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.
Pennsylvania Workers: Our Communities Need Employee Free Choice Act
Molly Theobald reports on the fight for Employee Free Choice in Pennsylvania.
Each and every day, firefighters, teachers and letter carriers serve our communities; caring for us and keeping us safe. Today, in Scranton, members of the Fire Fighters (IAFF), AFT, Letter Carriers (NALC), the Scranton Central Labor Council and the Northeast Area Labor Federation got together for a roundtable discussion on how our communities are strengthened by giving these men and women the tools they need to do their jobs effectively through the Employee Free Choice Act.
Fair wages, quality health benefits and the resources and tools to do their jobs are all secured through collectively bargaining—and those who serve our communities are testament to how protecting the freedom to form unions makes our communities stronger.
Two Former Labor Secretaries: Why We Support Employee Free Choice
Ray Marshall, secretary of labor from 1977 to 1981, and Robert Reich, secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997, have borne witness to a big shift in the economy and the power of workers over past decades. They’ve seen an economy weakened by inequality, corporate greed and the decreasing ability of workers to bargain for their fair share—and they know now is the time to change that.
In Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, Reich and Marshall explain clearly why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field for workers seeking to join unions and create an economy that works for everyone. Economic recovery starts by giving workers the tools they need to get fair wages, better benefits and economic security, say the two former labor secretaries:
A vital component of our nation’s recovery is making sure that we don’t return to a bubble-and-bust economy, where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class gets squeezed…the economy we are rebuilding must be a sustainable one. That starts with good-paying, secure jobs.
America’s Future Conference: Restore the Middle Class with Employee Free Choice
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The nation’s economy is in a tailspin, and one of the best ways to help turn it around is by passing the Employee Free Choice Act, several speakers said this morning at a national gathering of progressive leaders.
Sponsored by Campaign for America’s Future, the previously titled “Take Back America” annual conference has been renamed “America’s Future Now” to emphasize that this could be the greatest period of progressive reform since the 1960s.
Opening the three-day conference in Washington, D.C., Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, told participants the Employee Free Choice Act is
essential to insuring that the blessings of the next prosperity will be widely shared, that the American middle class will expand, not decline, and that the progressive majority will be consolidated.
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.
