Arlene Holt Baker, AFL-CIO wrote:
A Union Story
From: Arlene Holt Baker, AFL-CIO [peoplepower@aflcio.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 12:42 PM
To: Tom Chambless
Subject: A Union Story
Dear Tom,
Across America, people are filled with a renewed hope that their future holds the promise of an economy that works for everyone.
The elections in November put working family activists – together with the new leaders we elected – closer to the promise of an economy that works for all of us. One of the ways to collect on that promise is by workers being able to freely form and join a union and have a voice at work. We can do this with the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which will restore workers’ freedom to bargain for better health care, secure pensions and fair wages.
Help me spread the truth about the Employee Free Choice Act by contributing to the Turn Around America Media Fund today.
I know what being a part of a union and being able to bargain collectively for wages, hours and working conditions can do to improve the lives of workers and their communities. I can recall vividly my days as a union organizer with AFSCME when clerical workers in the City of Los Angeles decided they wanted a union. I saw those clerical workers, through their union, bargain for good wages and pay equity, flex time and safe working conditions.
Over the course of more than two decades, I have kept up with many of the workers I met on my first organizing campaign. I have heard their stories of how it was thanks to their union they were able to buy their first car, their first home, were able to afford to send their children to college, continue their own education and to retire with dignity and security. For the unionized workforce, there are tens of thousands of stories like theirs.
Help more workers achieve their dreams. Contribute to the Turn Around America Media Fund today.
Please help spread the truth about the Employee Free Choice Act.
In Solidarity,
Arlene Holt Baker
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President
P.S. There are 60 million working Americans who say they would join a union today if they had the opportunity. I am asking you to please join me in giving them the chance to form their union and in time be able to tell their stories about the union advantage and the dreams their union helped them fulfill. Please contribute today.
It is a pity that we have to re-fight this particularly hard fought battle. The right to democratically choose representation was won when the Taft-Hartely Act amended the National Labor Relations Act (or Wagner Act) in 1947 allowing
sight checks of union authorization cards for a union to be certified as the collective bargaining representative.
United Auto Workers
Non-union auto workers in Toyota plants in America’s south make $45 per hour once all benefits are included. Union represented auto workers in Detroit make $55 per hour after
adding in the benefits.The right-wing argument that union craft workers should bargain away their wages and benefits in order to keep the company afloat is baseless. Japan is having its troubles, but the employees still get paid $45 per hour. This argument is nothing more than a race to the bottom. Next, the employers will ask the workers to give them their homes and place their children in servitude.
Arlene Holt Baker,AFL-CIO,Employee Free Choice Act,join a union,AFSCME,organizing,Turn Around America Media Fund
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