Don't Stop Workers Choice

We are close to enacting Federal Legislation that will improve workers' rights to form a union. The Georgia Legislature is trying to preempt that legislation by a proposed Georgia Constitutional Amendment. We heed to stop this attack on workers' rights.

HR 22 and SR 108 would take away a right that employers and employees currently have. The constitutional amendment does not guarantee any new right. If secret ballot elections had been fair and free and secret and guaranteed unions and employees would gladly endorse the process.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

First let's make one thing perfectly clear; the Employee Free Choice Act will not in any way impact secret ballot elections for union officers. The Act only addresses union organizing campaigns and how they are conducted.

Opponents of employees having a free choice about unions will stop at nothing: threats, intimidation, distortion, half-truths or outright lies. The first lie is that Big Labor Bosses are trying to take away workers'right to vote in union representation elections. Corporate CEOs and consultants with ostrich skin briefcases and alligator boots effectively stole the "right to vote" from working people 30 years ago.The right to vote is in and of itself a lie just like the right to work lie.

Anyone that has ever been involved in a union organizing election will tell you that the right to vote is a rare thing indeed. But the fact is that the proposed Employee Free Choice Act in no way suppresses workers' right to vote.

For the 73 year history of the National Labor Relations Act secret ballot elections and card check recognition (majority signup) have been legal ways of establishing a union in the workplace. For those 73 years employers have decided which method to use. Under the Employee Free Choice Act the employees get to decide.

HR 22 and SR 108 would take away a right that employeers and employees currently have. The constitutional ammendment does not guarantee any new right. If secret ballot elections had been fair and free and secret and guaranteed; unions and employees would gladly endorse the process.

The threats are the same as you would likely hear from the company during a union organizing campaign. In TV, radio and print media ads opponents of Employee Free Choice say that if the Employee Free Choice Act passes companies will go out of business, the economy will be devastated, companies will move over seas. Well, come to think of it all of those things are happening now to union and nonunion companies alike.

Where the distortion comes in is the employers and their well paid front groups don't really care about anyone having a right to vote. What really rattles them to the core about the Employee Free Choice Act is twofold; one is that when employees vote or use majority signup to get a union they will actually get a contract. In over twenty percent of the successful organizing campaigns a contract settlement is never reached. Under the Employee Free Choice Act a contract will be reached within six months by negotiations, mediation and or arbitration.

And two is that when employers violate workers right to organize under the Employee Free Choice Act there are actual penalties, not like current law where they get by with posting a notice that they won't do it again; which of course they will because they only have to post a notice admitting that they did it again.

So a real workers choice, real contracts and real penalties is what has gotten the opponents of workers choice so fired up.

The proposed constitutional amendment does not insure that workers have a fair and secret ballot. What it does is prohibit workers from getting a union by majority signup.

It's time to give workers a choice. If we screw it up as bad as big business has screwed it up then maybe in 73 years we can give the choice back to them but we ought to at least have the opportunity to make that choice.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
January 21, 2009

Background Information

Working families are struggling to make ends meet. Wages are dropping, health costs are rising, pensions are disappearing, and we are in danger of losing our middle class.

Under today’s broken laws, it is extremly difficult to bargain for better wages, while CEOs demand contracts for themselves and get golden parachutes for driving their companies into the ground.

Workers need new laws that level the playing field and ensure the freedom to form unions and bargain for better wages and benefits. Union members make 30 percent more and are 52 percent more likely to have health care and nearly three times more likely to have defined-benefit pensions than nonunion workers.

With the free choice to form unions, working people can counterbalance corporate power and make our economy work for everyone again, not just the CEOs.

KeY PoINTs

Our economy is in shambles, and the wage gap between corporate executives and working people has never been wider. Corporations and CEOs hold all the cards in today’s economy, and working families are left to struggle with the economy that is left behind.

Unions are the single best tool to create an economy that works for all. Workers who belong to unions earn 30 percent more than nonunion workers. They are 52 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage and nearly three times more likely to have definedbenefit pensions.

More than half of U.S. workers—nearly 60 million—say they would join a union right now if they could. But not enough get the chance because of today’s company-dominated system that robs workers of their freedom to make their own decision. Companies routinely intimidate,harass, coerce and fire people who try to form unions. This is an urgent problem for workers, blocking their free will and their ability to improve their economic well-being.

The benefits of economic growth can never be broadly shared unless working people regain the free choice to bargain with their companies for a better life.

www.EmployeeFreeChoiceAct.org

Response to Attacks on Employee Free Choice

Argument: Why do you want to eliminate secret-ballot elections?

Your facts are wrong. The Employee Free Choice Act does NOT eliminate elections. We are supporting the Employee Free Choice Act because it gives working people the freedom to make their own decision about whether and how to form a union. Working people are struggling to make ends meet—

it’s simply not right that CEOs get million-dollar paychecks while working people cannot afford the basics. The Employee Free Choice Act will allow more people to bargain for health care, better wages and better working conditions. That helps rebuild our middle class and create an economy that works for ALL. The Employee Free Choice Act gives the choice of whether and how to form unions to the WORKERS. Under the current company-dominated system, corporations can insist that employees organize unions through so-called elections on company terms, even when a majority of workers have already said they want a union. The result is intimidation, coercion and firings—a so-called election that looks more like the fake elections in dictatorships. Workers long have had the right to form unions through majority sign-up, and many enlightened companies like AT&T Mobility and Kaiser Permanente have recognized that it’s a fairer, less conflict-ridden way for the will of the workers to be determined.

Majority sign-up helps companies, too, because employees are more satisfied and productive when they know they are respected.

Argument: But opponents say that what unions are trying to do—get rid of elections—is undemocratic.

First, let’s get the facts straight. The Employee Free Choice Act does not get rid of elections. It insures that workers can choose either of two ways to join together in unions so they can bargain for better wages and benefits. It allows workers to have a union once a majority of employees in a workplace signs authorization cards indicating they want to form a union. Or the workers can choose an NLRB-supervised election, although those elections have been proven to be distorted and unfair. The choice is made by the WORKERS. What could be more democratic?

Argument: At a time when our economy is in crisis, the last thing we need is more unions to eliminate more jobs.

An economy built on income inequality—where CEOs have all the power and working families do not share the benefits of economic growth and do not have money to spend or save—is not an economy that can succeed. That’s the problem we’re seeing now—a consumer economy built on low wages and debtthat is bound to fail. There has not been greater income inequality between the wealthy and working people at any point since the Great Depression. When workers form unions, their jobs go from Wal-Mart jobs to middle class supporting jobs with health care and retirement security. Years of deregulation, privatization and anti-union forces have created the mess we’re in now. Academics and economists agreethat unions help strengthen the middle class—which is good for our economy and our country.