A Step toward Greater Right to Organize for Workers
Feature Story by Shayna Wareing - 3/2/2007
On March 1, the House of Representatives passed a bill (241-185) that labor leaders and civil rights groups are calling the most important labor law in 50 years.
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will allow workers to join or start a union by signing a card or petition, and contains stronger penalties for employers who violate labor laws. It also allows for arbitration and mediation to aid in settling contract disputes.
"The future looks a little brighter to all Americans who have watched corporations celebrate record profits, but have themselves been shut out of the party, left with stagnant wages and facing soaring costs," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. "A union card is the single best ticket into the middle- class and, thanks to the Employee Free Choice Act, working people may finally have the chance to be part of a union."
Civil rights groups said that passage of the bill is critical because some employers continue to violate labor laws with impunity. The EFCA will create stronger restrictions and greater penalties for such violations.
Labor groups say that it is important that the ability to unionize be strengthened because the current system too easily allows employers to intimidate and dissuade workers from unionizing.
According to an AFL-CIO poll conducted by Hart Research, 51 percent of private-sector employers threaten to shut down partially or totally if workers win union representation. The poll also found that 25 percent of private-sector employers fire at least one worker for trying to organize a union.
"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," said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in his speech when the bill was introduced.
LCCR said in a February 27 letter to the House that the ability to bargain for better wages, benefits and working condition is the "best opportunity for working people to get ahead economically."
"Federal labor law would finally, and again, assure that workers who want collective bargaining are able to have it. And it would guarantee that collective bargaining would be conducted effectively and efficiently and would result in a contract," said Nancy Schaffer, associate general counsel of the AFL-CIO, in her testimony to the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions.
Though the EFCA passed overwhelmingly in the House, proponents of the bill are pushing hard for Senate action. Some observers like the Center for American Progress believe that conservatives in the Senate will make passage much harder. Vice President Dick Cheney has stated that President Bush will veto the bill, which would be his first veto since he vetoed stem cell research in July 2006.
