Gerard, Bacon: History Shows Why We Need Employee Free Choice Act
In two terrific recent articles, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard and labor journalist David Bacon make the case that the Employee Free Choice Act is legislation that will help our economy work for everyone again.
On the Campaign for America’s Future blog, Gerard takes a hard look at the pattern of corporate hostility to both government oversight and workers’ freedom to form unions and how that fraudulent argument has undermined our economy. Gerard says we need a return to “common endeavor” so working families can counterbalance the overwhelming power of corporations and bargain for a fair stake in the economy. And that means passing the Employee Free Choice Act:
Simply put, employers wield considerable strength, and workers must be able to unionize so wage and benefit negotiations occur on a more even playing field. There’s power in common endeavor.
Frances Perkins: The Woman Behind the New Deal
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On March 25, the AFL-CIO will host author Kirstin Downey who will discuss her new book, The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. The event, at 12:30 p.m., includes a light lunch. Copies of the book will be available for signing. If you’re in the area and can stop by, please RSVP to 202-637-5297. As the review below points out, Perkins’ role in the New Deal has too long been underplayed.
When Frances Perkins stepped into her office as labor secretary, the first-ever woman in a presidential Cabinet, her welcoming committee consisted of this:
A huge cockroach.
It’s a fair guess few had a rougher welcome to a high Washington position than Perkins did in 1933. In a splendid new biography of Perkins, The Woman behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, Kirsten Downey writes:
Some male Labor Department staffers threatened to resign rather than report to a woman.
Beware of the Big Lie Bill
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Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress made their Big Lie into a bill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) introduced the so-called Secret Ballot Protection Act.
Before we go further, let’s clear up the bill’s false implication right now:
The Employee Free Choice Act would not—repeat after me—would not, take away the secret ballot National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process if workers seeking to form a union wanted to use it. The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers made the decision of whether to select a union via majority sign-up (card-check) or via ballot process. Choice is good. That’s one reason why we called it Employee Free Choice—because it would enable employees, not management, to make the decision of how to form a union.
The alleged goal of S. 478 is to:
amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
