Tell Your Member of Congress to Lead the Fight for the Employee Free Choice Act

Please use the following form to urge your member of Congress who has co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act to take a leadership role in passing this critical legislation.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Lead the Fight for the Employee Free Choice Act

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I am very pleased to learn from the AFL-CIO that you have co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act, which will restore workers' freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life. I hope I can count on you to go beyond co-sponsoring this important legislation and become a leader in getting it passed.

Working people are struggling to make ends meet these days and our middle class is disappearing. The best opportunity working people have to get ahead economically is by uniting to bargain with our employers for better wages and benefits.

But the current system for forming unions and bargaining is broken. Today, when workers try to form unions and bargain, 78 percent of private employers require supervisors to feed anti-union propaganda to the workers they oversee. Half threaten to shut down partially or totally if employees join together in a union. And even after workers successfully form a union, one-third of the time employers don't negotiate a contract. There's nothing fair about it.

The Employee Free Choice Act would give working families an opportunity for a better life, level the playing field for workers and employers and help rebuild America's working class.

I urge you to go beyond co-sponsorship and take a leadership role in passing this important legislation.

Signed by:

Campaign Launched:
February 06, 2007

Background Information

This is it. The battle lines are drawn for workers’ freedom to form unions so they can bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Today, the Employee Free Choice Act was re-introduced in Congress.

The Employee Free Choice Act would restore workers’ freedom to make our own choice about whether to have a union so we can bargain for a better life—without interference from management. In theory, we’ve had that right for decades. But, in fact, the system for forming unions and bargaining is broken. Employers routinely coerce, intimidate, harass, threaten and even fire workers who dare to try.

That’s got to end.

Today, only 38 percent of Americans feel they’re getting ahead financially—and less than a quarter of us believe our children’s generation will be better off. Being able to bargain collectively through a union provides the best way for working people to get ahead economically, to ensure a better future for our children and to rebuild America’s middle class. CEOs may be getting contracts that protect their pay and benefits—but they fight tooth and nail to keep us from having the same opportunity.

The Employee Free Choice Act would strengthen penalties for companies that illegally interfere with workers who try to form unions and bargain, establish mediation and binding arbitration when the employer and workers cannot agree on a first contract and enable workers to form unions when a majority signs union authorization cards.

The Bush administration and corporate special interests have been eroding the power of regular working Americans to get ahead for way too long. The Employee Free Choice Act is our opportunity to level the playing field.