Sign the Online Card and Let Your Senators Know You Support the Employee Free Choice Act

Sign the Online Card to let your senators know you support the Employee Free Choice Act. Our goal is to collect 1,000 signed online cards in each state, combine them with the thousands that are being collected in communities across the country and deliver them all to the U.S. Senate. We need your help to reach this goal and to send a clear message in support of working families.

America's middle class is disappearing, good jobs are vanishing and health care coverage and retirement security are slipping out of reach. To get ahead economically, working people 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. Corporations routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire workers for trying.

The Employee Free Choice Act would change that by restoring workers' freedom to form unions and bargain—without management interference.

Please sign the Online Card and let your senators know you support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: I Support S. 1041, the Employee Free Choice Act

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I recently participated in the AFL-CIO Working Families Network's e-Activist campaign to collect 1,000 signed Online Cards in each state in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (S. 1041).

The system for forming unions and bargaining is broken. But you can fix it and help improve the lives of working families.

America's working people are struggling to make ends meet, and our middle class is disappearing. The best opportunity we have to get ahead economically is by uniting with co-workers to bargain with our employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions.

More than half of U.S. workers--nearly 60 million--say they would join a union right now if they could.

Every day, corporations intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire people who try to organize unions and bargain. This is an urgent crisis, blocking our free will and our ability to get ahead.

The system has to be changed to give all working people the freedom to make our own choice about whether to have a union and bargain for better wages and benefits.

The Employee Free Choice Act would restore workers' freedom to form unions and bargain by (1) strengthening penalties against companies that coerce or intimidate employees, (2) establishing mediation and binding arbitration when the employer and workers cannot agree on a first contract and (3) enabling employees to form unions when a majority signs authorization cards.

Again, I urge you to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Signed by:

Campaign Launched:
May 23, 2007


Background Information

Union members know the best way for working families to get ahead is by bargaining collectively and gaining a union contract. Union members earn better wages, get better benefits and have better working conditions. We also have a real voice on the job, and the strength of millions of brothers and sisters gives us a powerful voice in the community and the nation.

But the system for forming unions and bargaining for a better life is broken. It has been perverted by employers who use it to intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire workers who want to join together with their colleagues for a better deal. A fair deal.

The Employee Free Choice Act will restore a level playing field for workers. It will strengthen the penalties against companies that block workers’ freedom to choose for ourselves whether to form unions and bargain. It will bring in mediation and arbitration when employees and employers cannot reach a first contract. And it will allow working people to form unions when a majority signs authorization cards—without the conflict, disruption and intimidation employers routinely inflict on us now.