Action Needed to Win VT Employee Free Choice

Please call, and send a message, to ask your State Representatives to support the Vermont Employee Free Choice Act. H. 353, public sector card check.

Vermont's middle class is disappearing, good jobs are vanishing and health care coverage and retirement security are slipping out of reach. To get ahead, working Vermonters need the freedom to choose for ourselves whether to join together in unions to bargain for better wages and benefits. But the current system for forming unions and bargaining is broken.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Urge support for VT Employee Free Choice Act

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I'm writing to urge you to support HB 353 - the Vermont Employee Free Choice Act. This legislation would permit Vermont state employees to create a union through a simple process of majority authorization.

This would mean that when the majority of employees at a worksite sign authorization cards, the Vermont Labor Relations Board verifies the cards and the workers are then able to collectively bargain with their employer.

Collective bargaining is the best way for Vermont's working families to get ahead and ensure a better future for our children. Workers covered by collective bargaining agreements are more likely to have livable wages, quality health care and secure retirement than workers who do not have that right.

I hope that you will support this important piece of legislation.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
March 16, 2007


Background Information

 The Vermont Employee Free Choice Act would permit state employees to organize a union through a simple process of majority authorization. This would extend the protection to Vermont public sector employees that private sector employees will enjoy under the Employee Free Choice Act, just passed by the US House of Representatives.

  • Currently, even when a majority of workers sign a card stating they want a union, there is often a long and costly election process during which employees may be threatened and intimidated into withdrawing their support for a union.

  • Employers often run vicious anti-union campaigns between the time that a union files for an election and the election - these campaigns can include one-on-one meetings between supervisors and workers, mandatory meetings called by management to try and convince workers that a union is a bad idea, anti-union leaflets, etc. Unions certified through majority authorizations have fewer anti-union campaigns.

  • Workers should be able to freely decide if they want to bargain collectively with their employer, and should be able to freely choose to form an organization to do this. Anti-union campaigns insert the employer into what should be a decision made by workers.

  • Vermont should take the lead in setting good public policy on the issue of majority authorization and collective bargaining. The public sector should serve as a model for the private sector where the abuses and intimidation of workers seeking representation is often much worse.

Similar legislation extending the employee freedom of choice to public employees has been passed in six other states. It is law in a majority of Western European nations and Canada.