remarks by John J. Sweeney, President AFL-CIO
The Employee Free Choice Act is the most significant labor law reform in our generation. It is critical to bringing America's economic system back into balance and freeing us from the modern-day era of the Robber Baron.
For three decades, we've valued corporate profit over people and CEO pay over people's pocketbooks. The results of this absurdity are clear: 8.5 percent unemployment (and still rising). Investors who asked us to bend the regulatory rules and then drove the banks and housing market into the ground. We haven't seen this level of income disparity since the Great Depression. Our labor laws are broken, and people have lost the freedom to improve their lives through unions. When working people lose collective power, there is no real counterweight to corporate greed.
Today's economic crisis for working families, the perverse imbalance that caused it and the demands of the people and our leaders all tell us the time is now to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, take back America's economy and make it work for everyone. Seventy-three percent of the public supports it, as do President Obama, Vice President Biden and the leadership in Congress.
Change of this magnitude is not going to be easy. We've seen a multimillion-dollar ad blitz by corporate front groups hell-bent on maintaining the unfair status quo and derailing the Employee Free Choice Act. We've seen their despicable lies, distortions and political attacks.
Of course passing the Employee Free Choice Act will be hard.
It is and will continue to be hard for members of Congress to stand up to corporate deep-pocket lobbyists and do the right thing. Our job is to make sure enough of them have the backing—and the backbone—to do it.
Across the country, thousands of working people are calling and writing personal letters to their U.S. senators and representatives—thanking those who have co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act, urging others to support the bill and telling still others—Sen. Arlen Specter comes to mind—that they can't claim to be friends of working families if they oppose this legislation.
As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the coyly named front groups engage in the fight of their lives, our toughest work is yet to come. You've read about at least one so-called compromise proposal, written by corporations and for corporations in an attempt to take real labor law reform off the table. We're about to see more compromises put on the table and they all must be judged by whether they adhere to these three basic, nonnegotiable principles. Labor law reform must:
- Provide workers a real choice to form unions and bargain for a better life, free from intimidation;
- Stop the endless delays in negotiating a first contract;
- Create real penalties for violating the law.
It won't be easy—but this is the right time to restore the democratic right of working people to build a better life through collective bargaining and create an economy that works for everyone.
Read More about the Employee Free Choice Act
This is a major attack on our Union. Attached is a letter from Northeastern Federation General Chairman Hurlburt to Amtrak where he vehemently rejects Amtrak plan to use contractors for this work. Brother Hurlburt further informs Amtrak that we consider this effort to be a unilateral abrogation of our agreement.
