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Momentum Building Across the Nation for Workers’ Freedom to Form Unions |
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Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) joined union members to pledge to continue her support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
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Workers explain to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and workers’ rights board in Burlington, Vt., why the Employee Free Choice Act is needed.
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In New Hampshire, Pittsburgh, Pa., Vermont and across the nation, momentum continues to build for the Employee Free Choice Act.
This morning in Nashua, N.H., Scott Hazzard and Jason Modeski, who work for WMUR-TV in Manchester, explained their long struggle to get a union and a first contract. Although all eligible workers signed a card saying they wanted to be represented by the Electrical Workers, the company still forced a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election, in which the workers overwhelmingly chose the union in 2004.
Even after voting for the union, the workers still faced another fight with their employer: Reaching a first-contract agreement. The WMUR employees contacted Democratic presidential candidates slated to participate in a 2004 debate at the station and got each one to pledge not to participate unless the company reached agreement with the workers. Only then did the station agree to a contract.
Hazzard and Modeski shared their stories with a roundtable of reporters and elected officials, including Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), and described how the Employee Free Choice Act would have made it much easier to get that first contract.
The New Hampshire roundtable was part of a weeklong series of actions around the nation as workers met with members of Congress and community leaders to push for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800). In nearly 100 cities, at news conferences, worker roundtables, rallies and other gatherings across the country, workers and union and community leaders are connecting with more than 130 members of Congress—thanking those who support the Employee Free Choice Act and demanding better from those who don’t. Click here to find an Employee Free Choice Act event near you.
New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie says the week of action is important because “we have to hold our elected representatives accountable.”
America’s middle class is shrinking fast. Wages remain stagnant, personal debt is skyrocketing and health care costs are out of control. A union contract is the best economic program for working people in our nation’s history.
The Employee Free Choice Act would give people the opportunity under the law to be able to make their own decisions about joining a union and to improve their lives
(Click here to see details of the Employee Free Choice Act.) In Pittsburgh today, some 150 people heard Bob Boyle, a member of the United Steelworkers, who lost his job trying to form a union at Osterling’s Sandblasting and Painting Co. As painters, Boyle and the other employees were forced to pay for their own respirators necessary to do their work safely. The company forced the workers to sit in one-on-one meetings while they threatened to sell the operation and eliminate the workforce and managers broke the law by giving more than half of the employees a raise in the weeks leading up to the election. After the election, in which a majority voted against the union, Boyle, who had missed four days of work in 17 years, was fired. His firing, coupled with the serious and pervasive evidence of intimidation and abuse by the employer, caused the NLRB to rule that no fair and free election could be conducted. The workers now have a union—a year later.
In Burlington, Vt., yesterday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joined with a bipartisan group of state and local elected officials and religious leaders to hold a workers’ board hearing on the problems workers face. Sponsored by the Vermont Workers’ Center and the Vermont Living Wage Campaign, the forum focused on the poverty-level wages many workers receive and the loss of good jobs being exported overseas. Several workers pointed out the best way to stop the “race to the bottom” is for workers to be able to join unions without fear—exactly what the Employee Free Choice Act would allow.
One worker, employed by a non-profit agency in Burlington, said 80 percent of his co-workers signed authorization cards in October 2006 and they have been trying to get their employer to agree to recognize the workers’ choice of a union to represent them. Had the Employee Free Choice Act been law, he said, he and his co-workers would now have a union.
State Rep. Mark Larson (D) also explained a bill he has introduced that would permit majority authorization for public-sector workers in the state. In other actions around the country:
- State legislators in Washington State are considering a resolution urging Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) is taking the unusual step of coming to the state capitol to testify in favor of the resolution.
- In Maine, Joe Gaudette, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 714, told Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine.) about a group of 11 dispatchers and clerks at a publicly supported charitable agency that transports the handicapped. The workers all signed cards saying they want a union, but the employer is dragging out every technicality to try and delay recognizing the union.
- In Baltimore, the City Council passed a resolution urging the Maryland congressional delegation to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. The resolution read, in part:
A worker’s fundamental right to choose a union, free from coercion and intimidation, is a public issue that requires public policy solutions, including legislative remedies, as embodied in the Employee Free Choice Act.
- In Milwaukee, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) heard from workers who have been stymied in their efforts to join a union by employers’ tactics of firings and intimidation.
- In Philadelphia, three Democratic members of Congress heard from workers firsthand about why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important to them. Nearly 80 activists representing almost a dozen unions attended the forum where Rosalind Spigel, executive director of the Jewish Labor Committee, presented testimony from Comcast workers in Levittown who are preparing to vote on forming a union next month after a vicious anti-union campaign by the employer.
Editorials and op-eds are coming out in support of workers’ freedom to form unions. The Minneapolis Star Tribune says while business lobbyists have denounced the Employee Free Choice Act as an effort to rig workplace elections in unions’ favor, the legislation
would do the opposite. It would give employees more choice, reduce meddling by unions and employers, and require independent arbitration if the parties are unable to negotiate their first contract.
It’s no coincidence, then, that [the] bill has attracted support from several Republican members of the House and a number of prominent church groups. They recognize, as mainstream America once did, that unions can provide a measure of economic security, reduce inequality and build a nation’s middle class.
In the Los Angeles Times, University of California–Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken writes that when workers try to form a union…
…It’s not just that the playing field is tilted against organizing; unions are locked out of the stadium. Of course, why would companies limit themselves to what’s legal? Penalties for violating workers’ rights are virtually nonexistent.
The Employee Free Choice Act would restore balance to a system that is driven by aggressive employers, anti-union consultants, coercion and fear. Strengthening free choice in the workplace lays the basis for ensuring a more prosperous economy and a more democratic society. It was Studs Terkel who put it this way: “Respect on the job and a voice at the workplace shouldn’t be something Americans have to work overtime to achieve.”
Alec Dubro, writing at TomPaine.com, exposes the true identity of the groups behind the “monumentally misnamed Coalition for a Democratic Workplace,” which claims to be comprised of “rank-and-file workers” from across the country, who want to preserve their right to a secret ballot vote for a union. Actually, Dubro points out, no rank-and-file workers are named in the coalition’s literature, but some 20 or 30 employer groups are, ranging from the American Petroleum Institute to the National Restaurant Association, to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can find no record of any of these groups voicing concern about democracy in the workplace prior to the creation of this cynical ploy. Right now, as a tactic, they’ll take an easily manipulated secret ballot over an NLRB-managed card check. But in their little black hearts, everyone associated with this campaign would even more dearly love no card check, no ballot and no unions. Ever.
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We can use 100 more Bernie Sanders in the Senate