Workers And Their Unions Rally For Employee Free Choice Act - 06/19/07

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on June 18, 2007 - 4:33pm
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By Doug Cunningham

Thousands of workers and their unions are rallying in the nation's capital today to urge the Senate to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It's a labor law reform that wipes out employer anti-union intimidation, letting the majority of workers join unions by simply signing government-certified union cards. Lee Mabry is a Coonecticut worker who saw what his employer did when workers tried to exercise their legal right to join a union under today's laws.

[Mabry]: "They refused to let us pass out leaflets. They spied on us with video cameras. They threatened to close the plant, they physically assaulted a union supporter. They fired two of my co-workers. And one of them, which was planning to testify against the company, was even threatened at gunpoint.”

Mabry says current labor law is a toothless lion that doesn't really protect the rights of workers to freely join unions. He says the U.S. Senate needs to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to put teeth into the legal rights of workers to choose unions. Republicans are claiming they can block the labor law reform because Democrats won’t have the 60 votes needed to pass it.