Employee Free Choice Act Filibustered by Senate Republicans

Latest from the Senate floor: Senate Republicans have carried out their threat to filibuster the Employee Free Choice Act. The Senate held what's called a cloture vote to stop the Republican filibuster; 51 Senators voted for the bill - enough to pass the bill in a regular vote, but not enough to end the filibuster.

Both of New York's Senators voted for the Employee Free Choice Act. But that's not enough to overcome opposition from Republicans to a bill that would restore the freedom of American workers to join unions. Workers routinely face intimidation from employers when they try to form a union. In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union. Listen to YouTube clips of workers talking about their experiences trying to form a union in their workplace at the AFL-CIO blog.

Today's Reading: Rise and Fall of the CIO–ALP

Political Power and Social Theory is a series of books collecting academic topics in political science and social theory. Volume 18, Part II, focuses on "Opposition Politics in America" and includes a piece on the American Labor Party. Formed in the 1940s by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the American Labor Party rose to prominence in New York. Check it out, with thanks to Google books.

Employee Free Choice Act Vote Next Wednesday

The Employee Free Choice Act is headed toward a Senate vote next week on Wednesday. The bill has already passed overwhelmingly in the House. Almost all of the New York House delegation voted for it - Tom Reynolds (R-NY 26) and John Kuhl (R-NY 29) were the only New York Reps in opposition - and New York's Senators support the bill. But whether the bill will pass the Senate is in doubt. Find out more about the opposition.

Why is this bill so important? Workers routinely face intimidation from employers when they try to form a union. In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union. Passing this law will restore American workers' freedom to join unions. And that will help workers improve their lives.

Don't think that's an issue? Listen to Greg Mendez's story.

Greg Mendez is an office systems coordinator at New York's Pace University. In 2004, Mendez and his co-workers sought to form a union with the New York State United Teachers/AFT. They wanted a transparent salary structure and grievance procedure in place of the university's arbitrary system of pay raises and promotions. In response, the university hired anti-worker consultants to run meetings several times a day. Union supporters who tried to speak up at these meetings were publicly attacked. "People got nervous, really nervous," says Mendez. "You would have thought we were trying to overthrow the government." Three years later, Pace University workers still are fighting the administration's campaign of intimidation.

And there are plenty more workers with stories just like Greg's.

In the end, it's all about workers making better lives for themselves and their families. Tell your U.S. Senator to pass the Employee Free Choice Act - and then, even more importanly, tell your friends in other states to take action. And when you've done that, take the poll.

Restore the Right to Bargain for a Better Life

American workers are struggling to make ends meet and keep the vanishing middle class alive. But workers routinely face intimidation, harassment, and exploitation from employers when they try to form a union to bargain for a better life. It's a startling statistic: In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.

The House has already passed the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill aimed at restoring American workers' freedom to join unions. Almost all of New York's representatives voted in favor of the bill; Thomas Reynolds (R-NY 26) and John Kuhl (R-NY 29) were the exceptions.

In the next two weeks, the Senate will vote on this legislation. Supported by a bipartisan coalition in both houses of Congress, the Employee Free Choice Act would allow working people to bargain for better wages, benefits, and work environments. Unions have long been the cornerstone in the fight for fair working conditions, and it is essential that we restore this most fundamental right. The Employee Free Choice Act would:

• Strengthen penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form unions, including companies that illegally coerce or intimidate their employees
• Provide a neutral third party to mediate and arbitrate contract settlements between companies and newly certified unions
• Establish majority sign-up, which would force companies to recognize unions if a majority of employees sign union authorization cards

Resolutions in support of the Employee Free Choice Act have been passed in eight states and introduced in nine more. At the federal level, the bill is backed by a bipartisan coalition of 281 Congressmen, including 27 New York representatives and both senators. Here is why we at the Working Families Party support it...

Current labor law is severely biased towards employers. Under the National Labor Relations Board's current rules, penalties against employers for violations are spineless, while unions suffer greatly for their infringements. Since the current penalties are so weak, companies regularly use coercion and intimidation to draw out union election processes for months. By forcing companies to recognize unions and by implementing harsher penalties against employers who break laws, the Employee Free Choice Act would be a major step in leveling the playing field.

Why We Fight: Employee Free Choice Act

Yesterday, the U.S House of Representatives passed the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would restore workers' freedom to form unions so they can unite to bargain for better pay and benefits for themselves and their families.

In a nutshell, the Employee Free Choice Act would:

1. Require employers to recognize a union if a majority of workers sign authorization cards saying they want union representation.
2. Provide mediation and arbitration if there's a dispute over the first contract.
3. Strengthen penalties for companies that illegally intimidate employees to prevent them from forming a union.
   

This bill has been in the House for years, but the Republican Congressional leadership refused to allow it to come up for a vote. Now, with Congress out of Republican hands, legislation that helps working families is moving again.

And that brings us to Representative Randy Kuhl (NY-29).

Back in the days when the Employee Free Choice Act wasn't coming up for a vote, Rep. Kuhl said he supported it. He even co-sponsored the bill. Then, a few days after he won re-election by 2 points in 2006, Kuhl took his name off the bill.

If you were holding out hope that Kuhl would do the right thing and vote for the bill, you were disappointed yesterday. Kuhl voted against the Employee Free Choice Act, one of only two New York Representatives to vote against the bill (Tom Reynolds was the other).

So why did Randy Kuhl tell the working people in his district he would vote for the Employee Free Choice Act and then turn around and vote against it? Kuhl's not saying (though some are speculating that he fears a Republican primary challenge from an opponent even further to the right than he is), but his vote shows that we still have work left to do to make sure New York's Congressional delegation stands up for working families.

The Fighting 29th and Rochester Turning have more.

Technorati tags: Working Families Party | Labor Law | Unions

'It's a risk, rather than a right, to join a labor union'

There's a great report at TomPaine.com written by Alec Dubro on a panel discussion organized by the Economic Policy Institute and convened in Washington today. Here are some highlights (but go read the whole thing if you can):

The leadoff hitter was probably the nation’s best-known progressive economist, New York Times columnist and Princeton professor Paul Krugman. He made two points that need to be instilled in every reader and TV news viewer, as well as every business reporter:

1. The United States is "pretty good at generating overall growth," but that doesn't translate into broad prosperity.

2. "We did not realize it until we lost unions how crucial they are to our well-being."

. . .
Audience member Ann Hoffman, formerly of the garment workers union, noted that in the 1930s and early 1940s, garment workers earned higher wages than did auto workers, "because they'd had a 30-year head start in unionization."
. . .
Tom Kochan, co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed up by citing some familiar but essential facts: At least 20 percent of workers who try to organize their fellows wind up fired; that labor law in its current form is a disgrace; that at the moment, "it's a risk, rather than a right, to join a labor union." He also said that the proposed Employee Free Choice Act now in Congress, which would ease unionization, "is just a first step in encouraging productive labor-management cooperation."
. . .
The final speaker was Harley Shaiken, University of California at Berkeley professor of geography specializing in unions, trade and Latin America.
. . .
We've come a long way down from there, said Shaiken, and car makers don't think in terms of societal good any more. He said that Toyota plants in the U.S. were paying slightly above the wages negotiated by the UAW in American plants, but now that the domestic auto makers are escaping from their contracts, Toyota has a new strategy. Despite being an extremely profitable enterprise, Toyota circulated a memo, leaked to Shaiken, saying that since they don't have to contend with a vigorous UAW, they intend to "cut wages dramatically."

Nevertheless, Shaiken said that six of the 10 most efficient auto plants in the U.S are union shops—including the joint GM-Toyota plant in Fremont, California. "Competitiveness," he said, "goes beyond just cost, and cutting wages can cut productivity."

More to come on the Employee Free Choice Act.