Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Support the Employee Free Choice Act


Over at Huff-Post, Mark Weisbrot wrote about it:
While it hasn't gotten much attention, one of the most important issues that our elections this November could decide is the future of organized labor in the United States. This is important not just for the 15.7 million workers who happen to be in unions, but for the vast majority of the entire 154 million-member U.S. labor force. The wages, benefits, and working conditions of most employees are affected by collective bargaining even if they don't have a union. For example, employers who want to keep unions out will sometimes have to offer their workers such amenities as health insurance.
(...)
Reform legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act would give employees a fighting chance to regain some of their lost rights. This bill would mandate that an employer recognize the union if it obtains the signatures of a majority of employees. There would be no need for the long and costly - especially to the workers who are fired - election campaign.

A poll by Global Strategies Group this month found that 68 percent of middle-class Americans support the Employee Free Choice Act. Polls also indicate that tens of millions would join a union if they had the choice.
(...)
This law would probably change Americans' lives more than any legislation since the New Deal brought us Social Security. The political influence of millions of new union members would also bring us closer to such basic reforms as universal health care. It's all long overdue."
Obama says, if president, he'd sign it.
It passed the House, last year, 241-185.
But that won't get it through the Senate, where the Pukes have used the cloture threat to prevent a vote and suck ass for their corpoRat paymasters.
So the question is, if he has any, will a President Obama actually devote political 'capital' to the passage? It will need 60 votes in the Senate. Will the Dims 1) have the numbers and, if they have 'em, 2) will they actually do the deed? Cuz it's easy to be "for" legislation that has no chance of passage. So, if he's actually insatalled in the Office, this could be an early test of Obama's leadership in his wing of the Party...

Me? Given its wide-ranging potential for expanding union power in the work-force, I'd say "Don't hold your breath; or at least have somebody standing by with oxygen.

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