Speech on the Introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act
Speech by Wade Henderson on February 6, 2007.
Thank you. I'm Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights – a coalition of more than 200 civil and human rights organizations. We were co-founded by A. Philip Randolph, who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, America's first black union. And I am honored to be here today with Sen. Kennedy, Representatives Miller and Andrews, and John Sweeny to celebrate the introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Civil rights and labor rights are inextricably connected. That nexus is no where more apparent than on the shop and factory floor, and in office suites across the nation. That's where workers fight for the right to a decent, livable wage and a safe work environment.
This history of shared interest was marked in 1968 by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. only days before his murder when he spoke in Memphis to 1,300 sanitation workers, nearly all of whom were African American, about the dignity of their laboring in the city's sewers and on its garbage trucks.
"So often," he said, "we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."
The importance of a strong labor movement was as apparent then as it is now. The Employee Free Choice Act is needed today more than ever. The reality is that organized labor has been under sustained attack for more than a decade. We have seen a series of court decisions strip workers' rights; we have a National Labor Relations Board intent on weakening the labor; movement, and an Administration that has actively sought to disempower organized workers.
The Employee Free Choice Act will help lift up American workers, and the middle and working classes – many of whom are minority and women workers, but increasingly also white men whose jobs have gone abroad.
The right to unionize has proven to be a boon for working families and our country. Union workers earn 30 percent more than non-union workers. And Union workers are 62 percent more likely to have health care than those who aren't organized...
The Employee Free Choice Act will help further empower workers, giving them the protected right to join together to bargain collectively for better wages, benefits and working environments.
I can't think of a more appropriate civil right. This bill will improve workers' rights, and when you strengthen organized labor you strengthen the larger civil rights movement.
I'm going to turn it over to one of the workers who will benefit from the protections in this bill, Linda Merfeld.
