President's Perspective
The Employee Free Choice Act Deserves Everyone's Support

“Anybody who works for somebody else deserves to be in a union.”

It’s a profound notion.

Want to know where I found it? On the first page of my daughter’s coloring book.

Granted, the book is called “U Is for Union.” But the principle is valid regardless of where it's applied.

One potential application is the Employee Free Choice Act. When it was introduced in Congress on March 10, it signaled a potential leveling of the playing field for unions and employers.

Look at the three main benefits of the Employee Free Choice Act:

* After a majority of workers sign union-representation cards, it is the employees – NOT the company – that exercises the free choice as to whether to have the employer recognize the cards (and the union) or to submit to an election. That’s why it’s called “Employee Free Choice.”

* If the workers and the employer cannot come to terms on a first contract within three months, the parties submit to binding arbitration.

* Any employer who fires a worker for union activity during a representation drive is liable for triple back wages – similar to that granted in most civil court decisions.

Promoting the Employee Free Choice Act falls well within our local's “Green Zone” guidelines that permit the Guild to back legislation that promotes labor rights and First Amendment rights. (For more on the Green Zone policy, watch this space.)

Our parent union, the Communications Workers of America, is mobilizing its members to ensure passage of the bill, writing supportive letters to members of both houses of Congress, regardless of whether they’ve declared for or against it, or are still sitting on the fence.

Make no mistake. We in the Guild, and we in the local in particular, will continue to organize workers regardless of whether the Employee Free Choice Act is passed. I believe, though, that the Employee Free Choice Act will make organizing easier. It has the potential to be the most significant act of pro-labor legislation in our working careers; anybody who was working when the National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935 and is still on the job can differ with me on that.

For the time being, my daughter is treating “U Is for Union” like a storybook. I invite you to give the unorganized the workplace-storybook ending they deserve by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.