One Eve of Vote, Senator Kennedy's Home State Expresses Overwhelming Public Support for Employee Free Choice Act  

Nearly 100 state legislators, 4 city councils from Massachusetts show public support for AFL-CIO's top legislative priority and Urge Passage of Unionization Bill 

With the United States Senate expected to vote on the Employee Free Choice Act tomorrow, Tuesday June 26, 2007, state legislators and city officials all over the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have vowed their support for the Employee Free Choice Act. This outpouring of support from the home state of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is the lead sponsor of the Senate bill, demonstrates that, from the top of Congressional leadership like Senators Kennedy and John F. Kerry, to the most local of elected officials, Massachusetts respects the rights of workers to organize. Massachusetts legislators and local elected officials join the growing support of over one thousand elected officials from around the country who want this bill passed in the United States Senate and sent to President Bush to become the law of the land. On March 1, 2007, the United States House passed the same bill by a margin of 241-185. The House bill was introduced by California Democrat George Miller and co-sponsored by an additional 233 members of the House, including all ten members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation. In keeping with his six-year assault on workers and organized labor, President Bush is expected to veto the bill. 



If passed, however, the Employee Free Choice Act will provide workers with an additional route to union representation in their workplace. The bill states that if a majority of workers sign Union Authorization cards, then they can begin to be represented by the union of their choice, and the employees can collectively bargain with their employer through their union. Currently, workers must go through the arduous and employer-chosen process of a National Labor Relations Board election in hopes of achieving union status and collective bargaining agreements. NLRB elections can take months and even years, a period of time during which employers have harass, intimidate, threaten, and even fire workers for their support of bringing a union into the workplace. 



The Employee Free Choice Act will restore some of the power and dignity to American workers who have, for too long, have been denied this right to organize purposefully and systematically by union-busting employers. Collective bargaining is one of the staple elements of the Labor Movement, as it allows workers to stand together to demand the best wages, benefits, and working conditions possible from their employer. Without the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain, employers can easily exploit and manipulate their workforce while driving up their own profits. The American Middle Class has always been at its strongest when union density was at its highest. With unionization under attack for over thirty years by employers the struggles of the American Middle Class match the struggle of workers to try and form unions. The Employee Free Choice Act will help reverse the trend in America where too few elites are getting more than their fair share of the nation's prosperity, while hard-working Americans are left struggling by with stagnant wages, rising housing, energy, and health care costs, and uncertainty about the future and their ability to retire with dignity. 



Nearly one hundred state legislators have signed their support for this bill by signing the following letter urging Congress to pass it into law. These officials, and the city councils of Boston, Cambridge, Malden and Revere who passed resolutions in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, have shown great courage and leadership by adding their voices to the thousands who have already voiced their support for American workers. Big business and corporate interests have already voiced their opposition to this bill and have begun a campaign to sway Senators to vote against this bill so that they can keep their profits as high as possible while marginalizing the working men and women who toil every day to make their companies millions. We will soon see whether these Senators have the same kind of courage to stand up against these corporate interests as the co-signers of the following letter. These officials publicly lent their voice of support for the Employee Free Choice Act and support the working men and women of the United States. 



To learn more about this legislation visit http://www.employeefreechoiceact.com/. 



Below is the letter the state legislators signed onto, which urges Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. The names of co-signers follows.  



June 25, 2007 



Dear Members of Congress, 

As elected officials, we ask for your support of the "Employee Free Choice Act", introduced by U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy and U.S. Representative George Miller.  This legislation provides for recognition of a union when the majority of employees voluntarily sign authorizations, offers a mediation and binding arbitration to resolve first contracts, and strengthens penalties for violations during organizing and first contract efforts.

            The freedom to form and join unions is a fundamental human right protected by 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 right for which millions of Americans have struggled. The freedom to form unions is of special importance to the civil and women's rights movements because unions help ensure adequate wages, health care coverage and retirement security. It was the right to form a union that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was supporting during the Memphis sanitation strike when he was assassinated in 1968. Unions also help to reduce the wage gap for women and people of color, and can prevent arbitrary and discriminatory employer behavior.

            The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 has long allowed employers to recognize a union when the majority of workers sign authorization cards, designating the union as their bargaining agent.  The right to form a union, however, has been eroded over the last several years, resulting in increasing employer harassment, discrimination, and sometimes termination for workers taking initial steps toward forming a union. Twenty-five per cent of private-sector employers illegally fire at least one worker for union activity during organizing campaigns. Even where workers successfully form unions, employers often refuse to bargain fairly with the workers. Moreover, 92% of employers illegally force employees to attend mandatory, closed-door meetings against the union. The Employee Free Choice Act will protect workers form these abuses, provide for first contract mediation and arbitration, and establish meaningful penalties when employers violate workers rights.

            When workers try to form unions, all too often they are harassed, intimidated, and even fired for their support of the union. These attacks on workers' rights, for which there are only weak- if any- remedies, 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 workers who need unions the most are often those who have the least chance of achieving the benefits of unionization.

            We strongly urge you to support the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would begin to reinstate the right to form unions that Congress protected for American workers over 65 years ago.

                                                Sincerely,

Robert J. Haynes, President, Massachusetts AFL-CIO

Edward Augustus, Senator, Worchester

Jarrett Barrios, Senator, Cambridge

Robert Creedon, Senator, Brockton

Cynthia Creem, Senator, Newton

Benjamin Downing, Senator, Pittsfield

Susan Fargo, Senator, Lincoln

John Hart, Senator, South Boston

Robert Havern, Senator, Arlington

Patricia Jehlen, Senator, Somerville

Brian Joyce, Senator, Milton

Thomas McGee, Senator, Lynn

Joan Menard, Senator, Fall River

Mark Montigny, Senator, New Bedford

Richard Moore, Senator, Uxbridge

Michael Morrissey, Senator, Quincy

Robert O'Leary, Senator, Cummaquid

Marc Pacheco, Senator, Taunton

Pamela Resor, Senator, Acton

Karen Spilka, Senator, Ashland

James Timilty, Senator, Walpole

Steven Tolman, Senator, Brighton

Geraldo Alicea, Representative, Charlton

Willie-Mae Allen, Representative, Mattapan

Ruth Balser, Representative, Chestnut Hill

John Binienda, Representative, Worchester

William Brownsberger, Representative, Belmont

Jennifer Callahan, Representative, Sutton

Thomas Calter, Representative, Kingston

Linda Dean-Campbell, Representative, Methuen

Christine Canavan, Representative, Brockton

Stephen Canessa, Representative, New Bedford

Robert Correia, Representative, Fall River

Geraldine Creedon, Representative, Brockton

Steven D'Amico, Representative, Seekonk

Robert DeLeo, Representative, Winthrop

Paul Donato, Representative, Medford

Joseph Driscoll, Representative, Braintree

James Eldridge, Representative, Acton

James Fagan, Representative, Taunton

Mark Falzone, Representative, Saugus

Michael Festa, Representative, Melrose

Barry Finegold, Representative, Andover

Jennifer Flanagan, Representative, Leominster

John Fresolo, Representative, Worchester

Anne Gobi, Representative, Spencer

Denis Guyer, Representative, Dalton

Patricia Haddad, Representative, Somerset

Lida Harkins, Representative, Needham

Kevin Honan, Representative, Brighton

Frank Hynes, Representative, Marshfield

Rachel Kaprielian, Representative, Watertown

Jay Kaufman, Representative, Lexington

John Keenan, Representative, Salem

Peter Kocot, Representative, Northampton

David Linsky, Representative, Natick

Barbara L'Italien, Representative, Andover

Elizabeth Malia, Representative, Jamaica Plain

James Marzilli, Representative, Arlington

Allen McCarthy, Representative, East Bridgewater

James Miceli, Representative, Wilmington

Michael Moran, Representative, Brighton

James Murphy, Representative, Weymouth

Patrick Natale, Representative, Woburn

Harold Naughton, Representative, Clinton

Robert Nyman, Representative, Hanover

James O'Day, Representative, West Boylston

Matthew Patrick, Representative, Waquoit

Sarah Peake, Representative, Provincetown

Vincent Pedone, Representative, Worchester

William Pignatelli, Representative, Lenox

Denise Provost, Representative, Somerville

Angelo Puppolo, Representative, Springfield

Kathi-Anne Reinstein, Representative, Revere

Robert Rice, Representative, Gardner

Pam Richardson, Representative, Framingham

Michael Rush, Representative, West Roxbury

Byron Rushing, Representative, Boston

Rosemary Sandlin, Representative, Agawam

John Scibak, Representative, South Hadley

Carl Sciortino, Representative, Somerville

Stephen Smith, Representative, Everett

Christopher Speranzo, Representative, Pittsfield

Joyce Spiliotis, Representative, Peabody

Thomas Stanley, Representative, Waltham

Ellen Story, Representative, Amherst

David Sullivan, Representative, Fall River

Walter Timilty, Representative, Milton

Timothy Toomey, Representative, Cambridge

Eric Turkington, Representative, Falmouth

Cleon Turner, Representative, East Dennis

James Vallee, Representative, Franklin

Joseph Wagner, Representative, Chicopee

Brian Wallace, Representative, South Boston

Martin Walsh, Representative, Dorchester

Steven Walsh, Representative, Lynn