Obama and Clinton talk about the Employee Free Choice Act

[Omaha Steve]

Run time: 00:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojww-mCjTtA   Posted on YouTube: April 25, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: May 25, 2008 By DU Member: Omaha Steve Views on DU: 498

 

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec03042008l.cfm


The Employee Free Choice Act: Million-Member Mobilization

Our Bargaining Rights: Worth Working For, Our Bargaining Rights: Worth Voting For

Due to massive efforts by the affiliates of the AFL-CIO, allied organizations, faith-based organizations and local, state and federal elected officials, we passed the Employee Free Choice Act in the House of Representatives in 2007 and won a bipartisan majority in the Senate. We proved there is majority support for labor law reform in both the U.S. House and Senate.

Now, opponents such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Right to Work Committee, the Center for Union Facts, the Heritage Foundation and hostile employers have mounted a huge no-holds-barred attack to stop workers from having their rights restored. They will say they are defending the secret ballot and speaking on behalf of workers. We need to show that workers can speak for themselves and America’s workers will fight for the Employee Free Choice Act.

The opposition will not win: The Employee Free Choice Act will become law.

As our economy heads into recession and more working families are falling behind, it is more important than ever that the Employee Free Choice Act become law. Our middle class is struggling to maintain living standards. Wages are stagnating, workers are losing their homes to foreclosure, health costs are skyrocketing and more and more workers are losing pension benefits. Income inequality is at its worst since the 1920s. America’s workers must regain their bargaining power to maintain and expand the middle class.

The American middle class was created by the ability of workers to form unions and bargain collectively after the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. More and more Americans are beginning to understand that collective bargaining can promote broadly shared economic growth and prosperity, higher wages, better jobs, better and more extensive health care coverage, retirement security and respect for workers on the job.

America’s workers need the Employee Free Choice Act now because the system for forming and joining unions in this country is badly broken. Workers today who want to form unions, a fundamental human right, are routinely forced to suffer through vicious, protracted campaigns of intimidation, surveillance, threats and even firings. America’s workers can no longer afford to have their freedom to form unions and bargain collectively denied. The AFL-CIO will fight to enact the Employee Free Choice Act until it becomes law.

To enact the Employee Free Choice Act in the 111th Congress, we will deepen and broaden our grassroots movement for reform. We will help elect larger pro-working family majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress and a president who will work for and sign the Employee Free Choice Act into law.

The affiliates of the AFL-CIO commit to getting at least 10 percent of our members to sign up in support of workers’ rights. We are committed to collecting 1 million pledges, many with photos and other indications of personal support.

As passage of the Employee Free Choice Act becomes more likely, the opposition is certain to increase the ferocity of its attacks. Though obviously based on greed, our corporate opponents are positioning themselves as the defenders of the rights of workers. But hidden behind their rhetoric is the desire to perpetuate a broken system that actually denies workers the right to bargain collectively for higher wages, better benefits and a better life for themselves and their families.

To combat the coming assault from the corporate community, we must accelerate our efforts to restore the freedom of America’s workers to form unions and bargain collectively for a better job and a better life. To do this, we resolve as follows:

* Every national and international union commits to getting 10 percent of its members to sign up in support of workers’ rights, as many as possible with pictures and other expressions of personal support. We commit to collecting 1 million pledges. We will present 1 million signatures to our new president and our new Congress and demand that they take action. We will demonstrate to the public that we are moving forward. We will show our employers that we are on the offensive.

* Through the Labor 2008 program, we commit to expand the existing majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. We will come to the assistance of incumbents who have demonstrated their commitment to the Employee Free Choice Act; champion congressional challengers who demonstrate their commitment to the Employee Free Choice Act; build the institutional capacity of the Employee Free Choice Act movement in targeted states; and conduct public events and activities to promote the Employee Free Choice Act in all 50 states.

* Through the Labor 2008 program, we commit to elect a president who not only will agree to sign the Employee Free Choice Act into law, but who will commit to lead the movement for workers’ freedom to form unions and who will navigate this legislation through Congress.

* Every national union, state federation, central labor council, trade department, constituency group, local union and allied organization commits to massive membership education about the assault on collective bargaining, the assault on the middle class and the assault on our unions—and what it means to America. We must educate, mobilize and enlist our members in the movement to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

* Every segment of the labor movement commits to engage and cultivate more allies, religious leaders, civil rights leaders, academics, think tanks and other opinion leaders to speak out about the importance of restoring the freedom to form unions to build a just society.

* We will continue to help educate lawmakers at every level about the obstacles to workers’ freedom to bargain with their employers for better wages and benefits. We commit to hold elected officials accountable and convert supporters into warriors who will help lead the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. · We commit to integrate the movement for the Employee Free Choice Act with our other ongoing efforts to turn around America—to promote health care reform, good jobs and an economy that works for all.