Upcoming Meetings
- Executive Committee: Monday, July 6: 5:30pm.
NOTE TIME CHANGE for Independence Day holiday
- Delegates: Monday, July 6: 7pm.
Freedom to Choose a Union & Right to Bargain
Send a letter to Congress about workers' right to organize. Download a letter to Senator Feinstein in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Strengthen Workers’ Rights and We Strengthen the Middle Class
For more than a century, Labor Day has been the time to measure the progress of America’s working families.
On this year’s holiday, we confront a widening gap between rich and poor that previous generations dreamed of closing.
From skyrocketing gas and food prices, to job losses and home foreclosures, it’s clear America is in a recession. But there’s more going on than just a temporary downturn. Working families have been fighting a massive restructuring of our economy over the last three decades, and the past eight years have been the hardest.
Full-time jobs with medical benefits, retirement security, and a path to advancement have been replaced with part-time, no-benefits, dead-end jobs that can be outsourced. Rewards for hard work seem to have disappeared, leaving only risk and danger. Regulations protecting workers (and employers who do the right thing) have been thrown out in favor of “market driven” solutions which reward companies that undercut standards for workers, our communities and environment.
Americans of all races and ages are slipping backwards – earning less, saving less, and owning less. We’re working harder, putting in longer hours each week, and postponing retirement.
Now, more than ever, unions have a critical role to play in lifting working people put of poverty and strengthening the foundation of our middle class.
When workers can organize unions, we have a voice at work and the power of collective bargaining to ensure decent working conditions. We can lift our families out of poverty, have a shot at the American Dream, and secure better wages, health care, and retirement security. And if we are already in middle class jobs, we can stay there.
Women union members earn 33% more than non-union women in the workforce. For African-Americans, the union difference is 37%. For Latinos, it’s 51%. The freedom to join a union means the right to collective bargaining and the opportunity for rebuilding our middle class.
But too often, corporations make the decision for workers about whether to choose a union. When workers try to organize, employers threaten, harass or fire them for exercising this fundamental workplace right. Our labor laws are badly broken, providing little or no penalty for corporate misconduct.
As the fall election approaches, one thing to give workers hope is the opportunity for a new President and Congress to enact the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Act was co-written by East Bay Congressman George Miller and civil liberties icon Ted Kennedy, and is co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee and Jerry McNerney. It provides three simple ways to secure the freedom to choose a union, protect the right to bargain collectively, and level the playing field between worker and corporation.
- Simple majority-sign up process for forming a union: This takes the decision out of the hands of the boss and allows workers to join by signing a petition. The Act removes the incentive for companies to hire expensive, high-pressure consultants to intimidate workers and conduct long, adversarial processes.
- Arbitration of first contracts: Today, after a union is formed, companies drag out negotiations and refuse to bargain.
- Real Penalties: Encourage employers to honor the law by providing penalties – non-existent today – for violations.
Job #1 for our new President and Congress must be to rebuild our middle class and restore opportunity to the millions of Americans who have been cast aside during the last eight years.
After Labor Day, we’ll hear more proposals to fix health care, the energy crisis, and the war – all urgent and important. We ask that our local leaders re-affirm their support for the Employee Free Choice Act to help rebuild the middle class.
As the bell rings to start the final round of campaign season, we know that this year Labor Day is about more than our history.
This year, it’s the start of our future, beginning with the Employee Free Choice Act.