Published: April 08, 2009 05:12 pm         

FlASHPOINT: Public should solidly support Employee Free Choice Act

The verdict is in. Corporate greed has thrown this economy so far off-balance that its fundamental stability is now at stake. The only irony is that the jet-setter corporate royalty was the last to figure out that the party has long since been over.

Working people have been living in an economic crisis for years, taking on longer hours, second jobs, credit cards and toxic loans just to stay afloat. Even though worker productivity has soared over the last 25 years, families have struggled to maintain their toehold on the middle class.

This debt-driven, feed-the-rich economic policy has finally come home to roost. America lost over 2.5 million jobs last year and millions more are at stake. Indiana’s unemployment rate nearly doubled to 9.2 percent as the state shed over 100,000 jobs last year. Foreclosures are at an all-time high. Health care costs are spiraling out of control.

We need to make significant, lasting changes to make sure that our economy will work for everyone once again.

Our new president has already demonstrated a commitment to working families by fighting wage discrimination and extending health care to millions of uninsured children. He has a plan to address Wall Street’s culture of entitlement by implementing new rules for the financial sector.

A few weeks ago, both houses of Congress introduced the Employee Free Choice Act — a critical piece of legislation that will restore workers’ freedom to choose how to form a union and bargain for better lives.

Unions are our nation’s single best ticket to the middle class. Workers who have a union are much more likely to have health care and pensions and earn a living wage. Unions also give working people real job security, a hot commodity these days.

The Employee Free Choice Act would level the playing field for workers who want to be able to sit across a bargaining table with their employer. Instead of being forced to go through a company-controlled balloting process, workers would be able to form a union when a simple majority of them at their workplace signs authorization cards.

Both the ballot system and the less-divisive majority sign-up method are already legal and currently in use — they have been for 73 years. The difference is that today, your boss decides how you get to form your union. The Employee Free Choice Act would remove that corporate veto power and strengthen penalties for companies that violate their employees’ rights.

President Obama has pledged to sign this act into law because he understands that we can’t have a strong middle class if working people don’t have the power to bargain collectively. A new Gallup poll shows that a solid majority of Americans support legislation that will make it easier for workers to form unions.

However, company managers routinely harass and intimidate workers who try to get organized. In one out of four organizing efforts, according to Cornell University research, at least one worker is fired for supporting the union. Even if workers form a union, their employers won’t negotiate a contract nearly half the time.

No CEO would work without a contract, so why should we? While corporate executives fired thousands of employees and took billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts, they continued to cash in on lavish compensation packages and outrageously high bonuses.

Corporate executives have already amassed millions of dollars to defeat this critical legislation. On a recent conference call, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus suggested that any retailer who refused to donate to their cause, “should be shot.”

As long as workers are denied a seat at the bargaining table, corporate greed will continue to run roughshod over our economy. The Employee Free Choice Act will give workers the power to bring a measure of democracy back to the workplace.

As our government strengthens its oversight of the markets through regulations from above, workers can be the eyes and ears on the ground. Standing together, we can hold these corporations accountable and make our economy work for all of us.



John Sweeney is the president of the AFL-CIO. Ken Zeller is the president of the Indiana State AFL-CIO.