The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Press Conference on Employee Free Choice Bill Launch

Speech by Wade Henderson on November 13, 2003.

My name is Wade Henderson, and I am Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). LCCR is the nation's oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, with more than 180 member organizations. The LCCR has fought for every major civil rights law that has been introduced since 1957, and we are proud to be here today to fight for the important civil rights law that Senator Kennedy and Congressman Miller are putting forward.

Since its inception, LCCR has supported the rights of workers to form unions in order to obtain decent wages and benefits and safe working conditions, to fight discrimination on the job, and to have a voice in the workplace, in the community and in our nation's civic life.

We believe that the freedom to form or join a union is a fundamental civil right based on our constitutional freedom of association, our nation's labor laws, and international human rights laws, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a civil right that millions of Americans have struggled for; and a right that Dr. King was supporting during the Memphis sanitation strike when he was assassinated in 1968.

The freedom to form unions is critically important to the civil rights movement because unions can prevent arbitrary and discriminatory employer behavior and because unions help to close the income gaps for women, people of color, and other groups facing disadvantage. But paradoxically, history has shown that taking the initial steps toward forming a union often means being willing to face increased harassment, discrimination, and even termination.

Employers too often respond to attempts to form or join a union with intimidating one-on-one pressure sessions, threats that the workplace will close or move, illegal firings, and calls to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Most Americans believe such employer tactics are wrong; but far too few know they are routine.

These attacks on workers' rights occur all too frequently among the most vulnerable workers of our society, including women, the working poor of all races, and recent immigrants. As a result, those economically deprived workers who need unions the most are often those who have the least chance of achieving the benefits of unionization.

We must, therefore, as an urgent matter of civil rights and equality, put an end to employer abuse of workers who attempt to assert their rights in the workplace and begin restoring the right of workers to join unions. The Employee Free Choice Act is a historic opportunity to achieve that goal and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights pledges to unequivocally support this important legislation.