THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE

Why do we need new federal legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act?

Americas working people are struggling to make ends meet, CEOs have all the power and our middle class is disappearing.  The best opportunity for working men and women to get ahead is by uniting with co-workers to bargain with their employers for better wages and benefits.

But the current labor law system is broken.  Corporations routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and fire people who try to organize unionsand todays labor law is powerless to stop them.  Every day, corporations deny working people the freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union:

         Employees are fired in one-quarter of private-sector union organizing campaigns;

        78 percent of companies require supervisors to deliver anti-union messages to the workers whose jobs and pay they control;

         And even after workers successfully form a union, 44 percent of the time they are not able to get a contract.

Whats wrong with current law?

            The National Labor Relations Act states:  Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations  It was designed to protect employee choice on whether to form unions, but it has been turned upside down.

            The current system is not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society.  Employers have turned the NLRB election process into management-controlled ballotingthe employer has all the power, controls the information workers can receive and routinely poisons the process by intimidating, harassing, coercing and firing people who try to organize unions.

             On top of that, the laws penalties are so insignificant that many companies treat them as just another cost of doing business.  By the time employees vote in an NLRB election, if they can get to that point, a free and fair choice isnt an option.  Even in the voting location, workers do not have a free choice after being browbeaten by supervisors to oppose the union or being told they may lose their jobs and livelihoods if they vote for the union.

Does the Employee Free Choice Act take away so-called secret-ballot elections?

            No.  The Employee Free Choice Act puts the choice of how to form a union in the hands of workers.  Currently, corporations have that choice.  If one-third of workers want to have an NLRB election at their workplace, they can still ask the federal government to hold an election.

            Elections may sound like the most democratic approach, but the NLRB process is nothing like democratic elections in our societypresidential elections, for examplebecause one side has all the power.  The employer controls the voters paychecks and livelihoods, has unlimited access to speak against the union in the workplace while restricting pro-union speech and has the freedom to intimidate and coerce the voters.

Who supports the Employee Free Choice Act?

            The Employee Free Choice Act has the support of hundreds of members of Congress of both parties, academics and historians, civil and human rights organizations such as the NAACP and Human Rights Watch, most major faith denominations and 73 percent of the American public.  (For a detailed list of supporters, visit www.EmployeeFreeChoiceAct.org.)

Who opposes the Employee Free Choice Act?

             Corporate front groups are waging a major campaign to stop the Employee Free Choice Act. They do not want workers to have the freedom to choose for themselves whether to bargin through unions for better wages, benefits and working conditions.

             The anti-union network includes discredited groups like the Center for Union Facts, led by lobbyist Richard Berman, who is infamous for fighting against drunk driving laws and consumer and health protections, and the National Rights to Work Committee and Foundation, the country's oldest organization dedicated exclusively to destroying unions.