Congress will vote soon on the Employee Free Choice Act, federal legislation designed to give workers a fair, direct path to forming unions.
Studies show that unionized workers get better pay and benefits than their non-unionized counterparts. If you care about the gap between rich and poor, you should call your members of Congress and tell them to vote for the EFCA and to lobby their colleagues to vote for it, too. Business groups are spending millions to try to kill the EFCA. Details are at www.americanrightsatwork.org.
A panel discussion on the legislation (H.R. 1409 and Senate Bill 560) took place on April 14 at the UMass Amherst Campus Center. Participating in the panel were Stephanie Luce, director of the Labor Center at UMass-Amherst; Harris Freeman, a professor at the Labor Center; and Jon Weissman, the coordinator of the non-profit group Western Mass Jobs with Justice. (Though the event took place as this edition of the Valley Advocate was headed to press, our online readers, for whom we publish the online version of the Advocate on Tuesdays, may still be able to attend. The event is free and open to the public. For details call Ryan Quinn at 978-578-2201.)
On April 20 at 7 p.m. at a private residence in Northampton, there will be a discussion with Steve Early and a representative of the newly formed (with help from Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn) National Union of Healthcare Workers. Early was a CWA union representative for 27 years in Massachusetts. He is a lawyer, labor journalist, and author of a new book, “Embedded With Organized Labor.” This event is also free and open to the public. For details call Dan Clawson at (413) 545-5974 or e-mail Early at lsupport@aol.com.
This piece is reprinted with permission from www.ValleyPost.com.
