Union Members Put Face on Employee Free Choice

A new grassroots campaign, "Faces of the Employee Free Choice Act," gets underway next week, as more union members, including CWAers, plan visits to members of Congress in Washington, D.C., and in home offices during the Easter recess.

CWAer Chinazo Okolo sends a big Employee Free Choice message.

The campaign features new billboards and building banners that will be displayed throughout Washington, D.C., and in states across the country. Three CWA members are featured on banners in Washington, D.C.,  --  Local 3403 members Chinazo Okolo and Joe Bordelon, and newspaper reporter Sara Steffens of the Northern California Media Workers-CWA who was fired after helping organize a union at a group of Media News newspapers. Banners can be seen on CWA headquarters, the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club and other buildings.

The 50-foot-high banners feature union members with a quote about why Employee Free Choice is so important. The workers featured will join CWA President Larry Cohen, Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Representative George Miller (D-Calif.), "West Wing" actors Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, and others at a March 31 event on the campaign.

Actions also will be held in communities nationwide that demonstrate the growing support for Employee Free Choice and the determination to restore workers' rights in order to help create an economy that works for everyone again.

Despite Senator Arlen Specter's recent flip flop, the campaign to restore workers' rights and make Employee Free Choice the law of the land is in full force. Specter (R-Pa) was an original co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act in 2005 and voted for cloture in 2007, but facing a 2010 primary challenge from the right-wing of the Republican Party, he chose instead to betray working families.

Specter's action "will not defeat us," said President Cohen. "We have educated millions of Americans in our movement and outside about why Employee Free Choice is critical to rebuilding our economy and restoring the middle class and we will go forward."

In other Employee Free Choice news, The Wall Street Journal has admitted that its editorial page and all the other opponents of the bill haven't been telling the truth about it – conceding that it would not take away the right of workers to a secret-ballot election. "The bill doesn't remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act," the editorial admits, after making bogus claims that unions were trying to do just that.