CWA Seizing 'Once in a Generation Chance' to Pass Employee Free Choice

As the big push to pass the Employee Free Choice Act in 2009 gets underway, CWA local leaders from around the country meet with staff at headquarters this week for a strategy session.

After decades of a steady decline in worker bargaining rights, CWA leaders and others say the 2008 elections have finally opened a window of opportunity to restore Americans' organizing and bargaining rights and rebuild the country's tumbling economy.

"This is make or break for us and for our kids and our grandkids in terms of what kind of America we are going to leave for them," said Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American Rights at Work, speaking to a roomful of CWA local leaders and staff at an Employee Free Choice Act strategy session this week.

Bill Samuels, AFL-CIO legislative director, called the first few months of 2009 "a once in a generation chance" to restore balance to a system that lets employers break what's left of labor law without the risk of any penalties.

The workshop brought together local CWA leaders from states with U.S. senators who are considered only "soft" supporters or are undecided. The key message they are taking home to members, who will be asked to contact their senators, is that bargaining rights are critical to a strong economy and history proves it.

CWA President Larry Cohen quoted from a letter than economist John Maynard Keynes wrote to Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Keynes told him that cutting wages and jobs – as employers are doing today – was exactly the wrong thing to do and that, "I regard the expansion of collective bargaining rights as essential."

In the 1940s, a decade after the National Labor Relations Act, the United States had the world's largest percentage of organized workers – 35 percent -- and the economy was booming. Today, the labor laws that built America's middle class have been eroded and the economy is as bad as it's been since the Great Depression. "That's no coincidence," Cohen said.

The challenge is helping Americans make that link, at a time when cable pundits and some Republican lawmakers are pointing fingers at U.S. auto workers and trying to blame unions for the industry's collapse.

"In Germany, every single BMW worker – including half their board of directors – is a union member," Cohen said. "In Japan, every single Toyota worker up through supervisors is a union member. In Korea, every single Hyundai worker up through supervisors is a union member. In fact, the standard of living for Hyundai workers in Korea today is higher than for GM workers in Detroit."

The workshop addressed ways to talk about the crisis in Detroit, which opponents are trying to tie to the Employee Free Choice Act. Recent ads are trying to lead Americans to believe that other industries will suffer if unions are strong and healthy.

The Senate Republicans whose votes killed a bridge loan for the automakers last week are so determined to kill the Employee Free Choice Act "that they're willing to see 3 million jobs lost to do it," Samuels said, referring to an estimate of the number of jobs in auto manufacturing and dependent businesses that could be lost if Detroit doesn't get some help soon.

Speakers pointed out that the $14 billion relief bill that failed -- even after industry leaders laid out detailed plans for restructuring -- is pocket change next to the $700 billion for Wall Street that was given without its CEOs having to submit any plans to Congress.

While the Chamber of Commerce and its front groups attack the Employee Free Choice Act with $100 million in advertising, CWA, other unions and American Rights at Work have built a strong coalition of progressive allies that are talking to their members and members of Congress.

From the Sierra Club to the NAACP to religious, health and social justice organizations, leaders and legislative staff are meeting regularly with American Rights at Work for the specific purpose of passing Employee Free Choice, Cohen said.

Together the allied groups represent tens of millions of Americans, many of them having no ties to unions but who are coming to understand that they are an essential part of a strong economy.

"A lot of members of Congress tend to think of the Employee Free Choice Act as a labor bill," CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill said. "We want to shift their thinking so they understand that this really is a way to rebuild America."