Obama: Strengthening Workers’ Rights to Organize Shouldn’t be Controversial
From Connie:
Strange how little this has been in any news?
Barack Obama - U.S. Senator for Illinois - obama.senate.gov Tuesday, June 26, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ben LaBolt 202-228-5511
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today released the following statement on the Senate’s failure to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give recognition to a union once a majority of workers sign up:
“Many middle class workers in Illinois and throughout the nation are losing their jobs to workers overseas who lack fair pay and benefits. In today’s global economy, with new risks and new rules, helping American workers compete and protecting their basic rights to healthcare coverage, retirement benefits, and safe working conditions must be a priority.”
“I am disappointed the Senate failed to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Strengthening our workers’ right to organize shouldn’t be controversial. It will be working Americans, united and organized, that will help us restore a sense of shared prosperity and security to this nation.” ============ Senate Republicans block bill making it easier to form U.S. labor unions
www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/26/america/NA-GEN-US-Senate-Unions.php
The Associated Press Tuesday, June 26, 2007 WASHINGTON: Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a bill that would allow U.S. labor unions to organize workplaces without a secret ballot election.
Democrats were unable to get the 60 votes needed to force consideration of the Employee Free Choice Act, ending organized labor’s chance to win its top legislative priority from Congress.
The final vote was 51-48.
The outcome was not a surprise, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, saying for months that he would stop the legislation in the Senate. The White House also made clear that if the bill passed Congress it would be vetoed.
The House of Representatives passed the bill in March.
Democrats and labor unions pressed for a vote in the Senate in hopes of rallying their voters in the 2008 elections, where they hope to win the White House and increase their majorities in the House and Senate.
“We will keep coming back year after year after year, ” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat.
The Republicans also plan to use the vote for election-year campaigning, with corporations and businesses being the top opponents to the legislation.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a fundraising video last week asking people to contribute in order to help stop the Employee Free Choice Act.
“Republicans will remind our constituents about the fact that Democrats proposed to strip workers of their voting rights, ” McConnell said.
The legislation was a litmus test vote for organized labor and businesses, strong supporters of Democrats and Republicans respectively. “Today’s vote shows us who is standing with workers and which politicians are in collusion with corporate America to destroy the middle class, ” Teamsters President Jim Hoffa said.
Business associations, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also plan to grade lawmakers based on their vote. “The Chamber will include votes on, or in relation to, this issue in our annual ‘How They Voted’ scorecard, ” warned R. Bruce Josten, the top U.S.
Chamber of Commerce lobbyist, in a letter to Congress.
The bill would require employers to recognize unions after being presented union cards signed by a majority of eligible workers on their payrolls. Under current labor law, a company can demand a secret ballot election supervised by the federal government after being presented the union cards.
The bill’s proponents say years of Republican control of the White House and Congress have given corporations and businesses the upper hand when it comes to union elections. Obstacles to organizing are a major reason union membership has dropped from 20 percent of wage and salary workers in 1983 to 12 percent in 2006, they say.
Unions complain that employers have greater access to workers during secret ballot campaigns and claim that corporate threats, intimidation and eventual firings have become common for union activists. By dragging out the election process, companies often succeed in wearing down union enthusiasm, they add.
Employers contend that union recognition elections prevent just the reverse from happening. Using only a card check system, they argue, would enable union organizers to use their knowledge of who did and didn’t sign cards to intimidate reluctant workers.
In the 2004 elections, organized labor gave $53.6 million (•39.8 million) to Democratic candidates and party committees in a losing effort to capture both the White House and Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That number rose to $57.5 million (•42.7 million) in 2006, when Democrats successfully took the House and Senate from the Republicans.
But businesses, which oppose the Employee Free Choice Act, donate largely to the Republican Party. Business concerns gave $122 million (•90.6 million) to the Republican Party in 2004 and another $81 million (•60.1 million) in 2006 for national elections, the Center for Responsive Politics said.
The bill number is H.R. 800.
For bill text: thomas.loc.gov
White House veto message on H.R. 800: www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/110-1/hr800sap-s.pdf
National Republican Senatorial Committee video: www.nrsc.org/videos/CardCheck
AFL-CIO ad on Employee Free Choice Act: www.youtube.com/watch?vSCRPMq0xmIg
Center for Union Facts ad on Employee Free Choice Act: www.youtube.com/watch?vTu4oj_2E1jE