‘Employee Free Choice Act’ Events Set for Feb. 19-23

More than 130 members of Congress will join workers, union leaders, and community activists at press conferences and other events in cities across the country Feb. 19-23 to demonstrate support for the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007. The bipartisan bill, introduced in the House by Reps. George Miller (D-CA), Robert Andrews (D-NJ), and Peter King (R-NY), would fix a broken process in which employers brazenly intimidate, harass, and fire workers who want to form unions.

“I encourage APWU members to participate in these activities and to join the movement to protect workers’ rights to seek better pay and benefits,” said APWU President William Burrus.

“The bill would stiffen penalties against employers that violate workers’ freedom to make their own choices about joining a union,” Burrus said. The bill also would recognize workers’ freedom to form unions when a majority of employees sign forms designating the union as their bargaining representative.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research recently estimated that employers fire one in five workers who actively advocate for a union. A December 2005 study by American Rights at Work found that 49 percent of employers studied had threatened to close or relocate all or part of the business if workers elected to form a union. In 2005, more than 30,000 workers received back pay from employers that illegally fired or otherwise discriminated against them for their union activities. 

Rep. Miller, chairman of the House Education & Labor Committee, said families are facing much higher costs for many of life’s basics, such as healthcare, education, transportation, energy, food, and housing. “There are different factors contributing to this middle-class squeeze, but there is no question that one critical factor contributing to the squeeze is the difficulty that workers experience when they want to earn the right to bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”

Opponents of the Free Choice Act (H.R. 800) are trying to deny workers’ rights to choose for themselves whether or not to form a union, Miller said. “Why is it that critics of this bill don’t trust American workers to make their own choices?” he asked.

Andrews, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, said, “The reality is that workers in unions earn 30 percent more in wages than non-union workers and 80 percent of union workers have health insurance while only 49 percent of non-union workers do. Unfortunately, coercive employers determined to obstruct any effort to allow workers to organize have eroded these basic underpinnings of middle class life: decent wages and benefits.”

Burrus said passing the bill would require a long-term commitment. “It took 10 years — and many presidential vetoes — before the Family and Medical Leave Act was signed by President Clinton,” he noted. “This is an important goal; it is worth fighting for.”

To see a list of events, visit http://www.unionvoice.org/aflciopolitics/efca_events.html. For more information about the Employee Free Choice Act, visit www.employeefreechoice.org.