Posted on 11/25/2003 5:14:16 PM PST by chance33_98
EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT -- (Senate - November 24, 2003)
[Page: S15805] GPO's PDF --- Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on Friday, I was pleased to introduce the Employee Free Choice Act, which is sponsored by 24 Members of the Senate.
For decades, labor unions have led the fight for the 8-hour day, and the 40-hour week, for overtime pay, for the minimum wage, for safe and healthy workplaces, for health insurance, for retirement security, and many other basic rights. Millions of union members in communities across America benefit today from the long hard battles of the past.
Union workers earn wages 25 percent higher than nonunion workers. Union workers are more than four times as likely to have a secure pension plan. Union workers are 40 percent more likely to have health insurance coverage.
These and many other longstanding benefits of union membership are undisputed. But too many workers who want to be members of a union are unable to do so. The reason is clear. Too often, employers discourage it in any way they can.
For years, illegal employer tactics have been common whenever employees attempt to form a union. Each year, employers are charged with over 20,000 instances of violating workplace labor rights. In over half of these claims, a worker was punished or even fired for union activity. A recent survey found that employers illegally fire employees in one quarter of all union organizing drives.
Even employees who manage to form a union often can't get a contract, because employers refuse to bargain. Only half of the unions who win an election are able to get a first contract.
Often, companies hire expensive consultants and launch campaigns to intimidate workers and keep them from supporting a union.
Anti-union companies often give their managers pamphlets with titles like ``A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free.''
They close down departments that succeed in unionizing. Employers spy on workers and use one-on-one confrontations to intimidate workers or break the union.
Too often, Federal labor laws intended to protect workers from coercion have no teeth. If workers are fired, they may not get their jobs back for years. At most, the employer will owe back wages. Companies treat such payments as just another cost of doing business.
America's workers deserve better. American democracy deserves better.
That is why we are here today to introduce the Employee Free Choice Act. Free Choice means: the freedom to associate freely in the workplace; the freedom to choose your own labor representative; and the freedom to bargain for better wages, better health care, and other benefits.
Our bill recognizes a specific right of workers to choose a union through a process called a card check. If a majority of employees sign a card asking for representation by a union, the employer must comply.
The bill also requires employers to come to the table to negotiate a first contract. And it levels the playing field for employees who are attempting to organize a union or obtain a first contract. It provides for court orders to stop employers from firing or threatening these workers. The bill also puts real teeth in the law by strengthening the penalties in current law for workers that support a union.
These protections are long overdue. For too long, we have acquiesced in the anti-labor, anti-worker, anti-union tactics that are far too prevalent in the workplace. We like to think that workers are free to join a union, but too often that basic aspect of freedom is denied in our modern society, because hard-line corporate managers succeed in denying a fair choice by workers.
At a critical time like this when we are fighting for the basic freedoms of other peoples in other lands, we cannot fail to take a stand for the basic freedoms of the millions of American workers who depend on us to protect their rights at home.
An employer now has the right to recogonize a union on the basis of signed cards. The employer who is dedicated to pretecting his employees' rights (as well as his own), will turn down such a demand and insist on a secret ballot election.
i.e., wait and see if Bush doesn't introduce his own Republicans Love Unions Plan!
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