While at the America’s Future Now conference, I attended a very moving panel on the Employee Free Choice Act and workers’ rights generally.
Larry Cohen of the Communications Workers of America union said that U.S. laws contain the worst repressions of workers’ rights in the democratic world. He and other speakers referred to the fight for workers’ rights as the major civil rights battle of our time.
As a progressive movement we have lots of reasons to care about the outcome of the EFCA and other labor battles. Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights spoke about the many strong links between labor and the civil rights movement since the beginning. Union members not only earn higher wages, are more likely to have health care, and enjoy greater well-being at work, they also vote more progressively than non-union members and are active allies in many other progressive movements.
At Traction’s spring happy hour, MaryBe McMillan of the NC AFL-CIO asked us to take action on the Employee Free Choice Act by thanking Sen. Kay Hagan for her initial support of the bill. The message I got from the panel was that we need to KEEP talking to Sen. Hagan as well as our Representatives in the House to ask them to support (or continue to support) the EFCA. The AFL-CIO has one way to get in touch with your legislators here , or you can call or send a hand-written letter. Any way you do it, it’s important that we speak up now for labor rights.
Are you going to take action? Have you done it already? Let me know in a comment or email to cara@getTraction.org!