ATU Action Weekly Update - 2/26/07

• House to Act on Employee Free Choice Act This Week
• ATU Locals Participate in Week of Action Events on EFCA
• ATU Urges Congress to Protect TSA Screeners' Bargaining Rights

The U.S. House will begin consideration this Thursday on the Employee Free Choice Act.  Floor consideration of the measure follows a week of events in members' home districts last week and numerous briefings and press conferences to promote the bill early this week.

If passed, the Employee Free Choice Act would make the process of choosing a union more fair by:

• Establishing stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
• Providing mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
• Allowing employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.

Currently, if employees present an employer with union authorization cards signed by a majority, the employer can demand a secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). But the NLRB election process is broken because it enables employers to intimidate, coerce and harass workers and drag out the process indefinitely.

If your Member of Congress is already a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, click here to send them a thank you email and to ask them to take a leadership role in passing this legislation.

If your Member of Congress is not a co-sponsor, click here to urge them to support this important legislation.

ATU Locals Participate in Week of Action Events on EFCA

Across the country last week, ATU members joined thousands of other union members in participating in events with Members of Congress to highlight the need for the Employee Free Choice Act.

In Palm Beach, Florida, ATU Local 1577 President/Business Agent Dwight Mattingly stood by Hazel Pagan, an employee of MV Transportation, as she spoke about the working conditions at MV and the difficulty in forming a union for the employees.  Employees are being forced to work overtime and on days off, with no paid vacation days, holidays or even sick days.  Employees who complain about these conditions, or who refuse to work on their day off, are disciplined or fired.  According to Sister Pagan, the Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier for employees to form a union and fight for better working conditions.

Sister Pagan's story is similar to the stories told by hundreds of other hard working Americans who stood up last week to urge their Member of Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.  For more coverage of these events, go to:  www.employeefreechoiceact.org.

ATU Urges Senate to Protect TSA Screeners' Bargaining Rights

As the Senate prepares to consider the 9-11 Commission Recommendations bill (S. 4) next week, the ATU is joining with several other unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), in sending a letter to each Senator asking the them to oppose any amendments to the measure that would strike or weaken language which provides Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners with collective bargaining and other civil service protections.

Last week, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted in favor of an amendment by Senator Joseph Lieberman granting collective bargaining and other labor rights to 45,000 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs).  This amendment is identical to the one included in the House version of the bill.