Employee Free Choice Introduced in House and Senate

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) announce the introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress, above. Below, CWA Local 2204 member Sharon Harrison told the Senate HELP committee that majority sign up at AT&T Mobility made all the difference for her and her co-workers.

Millions of working families are a step closer to having real bargaining rights with the March 10 introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act into the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Representative George Miller (D-Calif.) announced the introduction of the bill, S. 560 and H.R. 1409. Currently there are 223 cosponsors (including Miller) in the House and 40 (including sponsor Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.) in the Senate.

CWA President Larry Cohen thanked Senator Harkin and Representative Miller for continuing to champion the cause of working people and for their leadership on this important legislation. He called on the House and Senate to pass the bill, stressing that only through Employee Free Choice "will we rebuild our economy, increase workers' purchasing power and put the brakes on the extreme income inequality our nation has seen over the past decade."

At a hearing of the Senate Health, Employment, Labor and Pension committee, chaired by Senator Harkin, panels of workers and economists testified that the Employee Free Choice Act is necessary to rebuild the nation's middle class.

Sharon Harrison, a member of CWA Local 2204 in Lebanon, Va., told the committee about her experiences at AT&T Mobility, where workers were able to get union representation through majority signup, after suffering under a previous management that harassed and intimidated workers who wanted union representation.

"Before we had our union, favoritism was a problem. Raises didn't depend on your job performance but whether your manager liked you. That all changed in 2005 when Cingular Wireless, now AT&T Mobility, took over. Cingular had agreed with CWA to remain neutral, to let workers make up our own minds and to recognize the union if a majority signed up. Because of that agreement, we weren't afraid anymore that managers would retaliate against us," she said.