Unions Respond to Devastating Montana Floods
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AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer reports on the flood relief efforts unions are mounting in Montana.
Montana has been hit hard by a series of recent severe storms coupled with runoff from mountain snow melt. The combination has caused serious flooding across the state. Forty-eight of the state’s 56 counties have declared flood emergencies and federal disaster declarations have been issued for 31 counties, plus four American Indian reservations.
The central Montana town of Roundup has been completely submerged in floodwaters. In northeast Montana, there is massive flooding in the town of Glasgow. The Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana has been devastated by floodwaters displacing hundreds from their homes, and forcing more than 50 families to live in a gymnasium.
The Montana State AFL-CIO is working with coalition partners Montana Organizing Project, Forward Montana, along with central labor councils and union members throughout the state to coordinate a response effort to bring supplies to those in need and protect homes and other public buildings from water damage.
Fighting for Real Reform on Capitol Hill and Across the Country
Today and tomorrow, more than 100 union leaders and activists from around the nation are visiting their senators and representatives to let them know they urgently need to pass health care reform—the right way.
The exact shape of the Senate’s bill is in flux right now, and the union leaders are pressing members of Congress on three key issues:
• Inclusion of a public health insurance option;
• Making sure employers do their part in providing health care for employees; and
• Stopping a new tax on working family health benefits.
Union activists are also bringing thousands of handwritten letters to members of Congress to let them know their constituents want reform and are worried about a tax on benefits.
Why We Fight for Employee Free Choice
Union members across the country are fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life. We know how union membership has improved our lives and communities—and we want to help other workers have the same options. Check out the videos here in which two union members describe how their experiences having a union at work inspired them to get involved in the Employee Free Choice Act campaign.
Justin Nickels, a member of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 204 in Arkansas, talks about what having a union has meant to him in workplace safety and dignity on the job:
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Op-Ed Highlights: Building Worker Power
Here are two great op-eds on the continuing fight for the Employee Free Choice Act.
In North Carolina’s News & Observer, Arne Kalleberg, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, calls the Employee Free Choice Act an “effective tool” for workers to improve their own lives and communities.
The Employee Free Choice Act, Kalleberg says:
…would help to level the playing field by giving workers a real opportunity to decide whether or not they wish to be represented by a union. Studies by sociologists and economists have demonstrated conclusively that unions raise wages and benefits for working people and protect them from discrimination and unsafe workplaces.
It would provide some ballast to out-of-control business lobbying influence and it would help us to resume the long American march toward a more humane and democratic society. It protects America’s employees’ freedom to choose whether or not to form a union and provides them with the opportunity to improve their economic situation.
Montana Company Demanded Workers Sign Document Saying They Wouldn’t Form a Union
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In Great Falls, Mont., a former manager has come forward to say that her company tried to compel workers to revoke their own freedom to form a union.
The Great Falls Tribune reports that Keri Gorder, who spent eight years working at the Cost Cutters hair salon in Great Falls, left after being asked to pressure employees into signing a one-page agreement that would nullify future attempts to form a union. The hair salon’s parent company, Regis Corp., wanted to compel employees to sign the agreement, which would nullify any future authorization on their part to form a union and get the chance to bargain for a better life.
Authorization cards are a standard, legal feature of both the majority sign-up process and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process. They’re how workers show their interest in forming a union, and they’re an essential part of exercising this basic freedom. When a corporation—which controls workers’ jobs, hours and working conditions—tries to intimidate employees into revoking their own rights, it’s a sign of a broken system.
Op-Ed Highlights: What Employee Free Choice Means for Workers, Economy
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Congress is still on recess, but the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act continues across the country and in the media. Here are two great op-eds that explain why we need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
Netsy Firestein, director of the Labor Project for Working Families, writes in the San Jose Mercury News that the freedom to form unions and bargain will help workers provide for their families:
America’s working families are locked in a time vise. Our work hours are getting longer, our paychecks and benefits are shrinking, and we are struggling to raise and care for our families. The surging unemployment rate is only adding to our anxiety about holding down a job while juggling work and family responsibilities.
24-Hour Vigil Highlights Busy Week of Action for Employee Free Choice
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| Louisiana union members are among the thousands who are rallying in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. |
Supporters of the freedom to form unions and bargain, including faith and civil rights groups as well as union members, are holding a 24-hour vigil outside Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s office to encourage her to support the Employee Free Choice Act.
This vigil, which began last night, is one of more than 200 grassroots events across the nation this week in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. With rallies, roundtables, phone banks and worksite visits, workers are encouraging members of Congress back in their home districts this week to vote in support of workers and a fairer, stronger economy. Senators across the country have received tens of thousands of letters and phone calls from union members and allies, and that momentum is building this week.
Acuff Debates Chamber Honcho as Employee Free Choice Gains Momentum
As part of the national campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act, the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff has been traveling the country to get out the message and help unions mobilize. On his recent trip to Indiana, he got a chance to debate with one of the bill’s most prominent opponents—Randel Johnson, a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—at the Indiana University law school. It was a great opportunity to explain why we need new law to protect workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain.
Acuff tells the powerful story of rising worker productivity that hasn’t been matched by improvements in wages. Instead, workers face rising heath care costs and economic insecurity, which have led to unsustainable debt, the collapse of purchasing power and, ultimately, the current economic crisis. What happened, Acuff asks, to cause this imbalance?
There has been a systematic, strategic assault on workers, on unions and on the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively. We’re the only democracy in the world today where workers do not have the fundamental freedom to form unions and bargain collectively.
They have the freedom, guaranteed in the law, if they’re willing to risk their car, their house, their livelihood and their job. Last year more than 29,000 workers were retaliated against or fired for trying to exercise that legally protected union activity. Our law has no teeth: 40 percent of all the workers who jump through all the hoops to form a union will never get a first contract, will never get the fruit of collective bargaining.
The Fight for Employee Free Choice, in Arkansas and Around the Country
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| Stewart Acuff speaks to the Arkansas AFL-CIO state convention about the Employee Free Choice Act. |
Community members around the country are taking action in support of workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain, including small business owners in Madison, Wis., and Trinidad, Colo., as well as religious leaders in Shreveport, La. Union members and allies of workers in Jacksonville, Fla., and Jonesboro, Ark., also are turning out in big numbers for town hall meetings to urge passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Former Rep. Pat Williams, who represented Montana in the U.S. Congress for more than a decade, says the Employee Free Choice Act is critical to restoring a free workforce and a strong economy:
“We have to re-empower workers to bargain collectively with their employers. Who said freedom stops at the workplace door? Who said democracy stops there? People need to have a choice.”
Veterans Keep Up the Pressure for Employee Free Choice
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Montana military veterans visited Senate offices in Missoula, Billings and Great Falls over the past week, encouraging Sen. Jon Tester to support the Employee Free Choice Act, a critical bill to restore the freedom to form unions and bargain. And veterans from Alaska to Maine are joining this important fight.
Their actions are all part of a nationwide grassroots campaign focused on giving workers a choice in how they form unions, ending widespread intimidation and firing of workers who are seeking to form unions, and making sure that workers who choose a union can get a fair first contract.
Dorsey Roland, a U.S. Army veteran and member of Letter Carriers (NALC) Local 4319, wrote a new op-ed published in the Anchorage Daily News describing why veterans are getting involved with the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act. Roland says the bill is about fairness for workers, accountability for corporations and an economy that works for everyone:
According to a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs, 18 percent of veterans recently back from tours of duty are unemployed. And of those who are employed, 25 percent earn less than $21,840 a year. That is wrong. Veterans have sacrificed too much to be left in the cold.
