Dem aims fiery speech at Republicans for Union bill [VIDEO]

Posted by Elana Levin at 7:51 AM on March 6, 2007.

Got Union?

A lot of American workers may soon be able to answer "yes" to that question because the Employee Free Choice Act Bill has just passed the House. The bill would help workers unionize without being subject to as much intimidation from their bosses as they are right now. A study by The Center for Economic and Policy Research showed that one in five union activists can expect to be fired during an organizing campaign. That's probably why 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could.

The Employee Free Choice Act would:

*Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
*Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
*Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.

Nathan Newman clarifies some myths about the EFCA being circulated by anti-worker groups.

The action on the House floor was very exciting. Speaker Pelosi's staff compiled some of the hottest video clips from the speeches on the House floor (yes I just said the words "hot" and "congress" in the same sentence - watch them and you will too).

One of my favorite lines was delivered by Chairman George Miller.

"We're here today to talk about whether or not workers will simply have the choice to exercise a right that has been in the law for 70 years … A right that is part of the National Labor Relations Act but is revoked by employers arbitrarily with out reason and without purpose. "

MissLaura on Daily Kos has a nice summary of the bill's passage and its implications for workers. And DMI wrote a statement about the Employee Free Choice Act which you can read here.

Tagged as: employees free choice act, unions

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.