A decade ago a similar Bill was introduced to protect workers right to organize called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which labor and its allies have since been fighting for but..
A massive multi-billion dollar big business campaign and a Senate filibuster led by Republicans beholden to those businesses doomed the EFCA.
Along with rallying support for a living wage beginning with a fight for $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, a new Bill introduced by Senator Sanders The Workplace Democracy Act (S 2142 |pdf) with its companion in the house (H.R. 3690) , would allow employees to form a union through the card check process, as opposed to holding a secret-ballot elections.
1 in 5 employees who try to organize a union is fired, according to Sanders.
"We will no longer tolerate CEOs who fire workers for exercising their constitutional right to form a union,”
Sanders said.
"We will no longer tolerate CEOs who threaten to move their plants to China or other low-wage countries, if workers vote in favor of a union. We will no longer tolerate CEOs and managers who intimidate or threaten pro-union workers.”
Sanders has progressive co-sponsor support:
Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Martin Heinrich (N.M.).
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) is introducing a companion bill in the House.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka weighed in:
The labor movement sees the new bill as the most significant chance workers have yet of literally re-writing the laws so that it will no longer be just corporations that determine the economic future of Americans.
"For tens of millions of American working people who live in poverty and every family on the wrong side of income inequality, the Sanders-Pocan legislation is our best road map to shared prosperity and a real chance at the American dream,"
Trumka said today in Washington.
The announcement of the new bill follows the introduction last month of what the labor movement also considers an important bill - the WAGE Act introduced by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.
That legislation updates the National Labor Relations Act, which became law during the New Deal, by increasing workers' legal protections when employers retaliate against them for speaking out on the job.
— emphasis added
Dealing with upper management set against this kind of progress while assembling Union endorsements certainly is a good thing — taking direct action in concert with the workers themselves and continuing to hammer away at an intransigent congress is what gets the job done in the end — imo
— Labor Union strength now and in the upcoming years is vital for all workers, union members or not, and for preserving our democracy — Kudos to all who are working to make that happen