Facts about the Employee Free Choice Act

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The Employee Free Choice Act  

 Background

The Employee Free Choice Act is bipartisan legislation introduced by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Peter King (R-N.Y.). It passed the U. S. House of Representatives, 241-185, on March 1, 2007, and gained majority support in the U.S. Senate on June 26, 2007, but was blocked by a Republican filibuster.

The best opportunity for working men and women to get ahead economically is by uniting with coworkers to bargain with their employers for better wages and benefits. These are tough economic times – soaring gas and food prices, home foreclosures, unaffordable health care, and shattered retirement security. Wages for working men and women have stagnated while pay and bonuses for CEOs have sky-rocketed.

The Employee Free Choice Act is the most important legislative proposal in seventy years because it will remove unfair barriers to union representation and collective bargaining so that workers can get their fair share and improve jobs and benefits for everyone. It will help workers achieve the American Dream by giving them the freedom to choose a union and bargain collectively. It will mean that the economy can work for everyone again.

Current federal labor law – the National Labor Relations Act – has become a barrier to workers’ rights. Companies intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire people who try to organize unions. Workers are fired in a quarter of private-sector union organizing campaigns and most workers who try to form unions are subjected to repeated, coercive one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors. Even after workers successfully form unions, 44 percent of the time they can’t get a first contract. This is an urgent crisis for workers, blocking their free will and their ability to bargain for a better future.

Click here to find out the provisions of the EFCA bill.