Hoffa: The Right Choice

By Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa


As this year's election draws closer, we are going to hear a lot about how to improve our economy here in Michigan and across the U.S. After eight years of President Bush's policies, our government will need a plan to restore our economy to an engine that benefits all Americans, not just the wealthiest.

The Employee Free Choice Act, a law that would boost the power of America's workers, should be a key component of our economic overhaul. It has the potential to revitalize our middle class. Our next president should make signing it into law a top priority.

Simply put, the Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier for workers to form a union at their workplace. In turn, more workers could negotiate as equals with their employers for fair wages, benefits, working conditions and retirement security for them and their families.

Under the Employee Free Choice Act, if a majority of workers at a workplace decides to sign cards stating that they want to join a union, then they have a union. The law would also provide a path for negotiating a contract with their employer and truly holds an unscrupulous employer accountable if a worker is intimidated or unjustly fired.

Union membership can make a major difference for a family. On average, workers who have a union at their workplace earn 28 percent higher wages than non-unionized workers, are 62 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage, and are four times as likely to have a pension. Our nation's history clearly shows that union membership is the best route to improving workers' pay rates and benefits. Unionized workers have a unified voice and the power to make a difference in their workplaces.

Unfortunately, unionization rates have declined significantly from their peak in the 1950s, when economic distribution was much more equal than it is today. Then, the middle class thrived in part because more workers were union members. There is a correlation over the past few decades. Unionization rates have decreased, just as income disparity and companies’ aggression against workers who seek to form a union have increased.

Today, the majority of CEOs have labor contracts that detail their obscene pay rates, stock options and golden parachutes—they wouldn’t work a day without their contracts. Yet CEOs and their corporations coerce and intimidate their employees who want to form a union in order to negotiate much more modest labor contracts.

Of course, not all companies do this—upstanding employers exist and they deserve respect. However, a 2005 study by the University of Chicago found that 30 percent of employers fire pro-union workers; 49 percent threaten to close a work site; 82 percent hire union-busting consultants to fight organizing drives; and 91 percent force employees to attend anti-union meetings one-on-one with supervisors.

These are the repercussions workers endure if they try to form a union today. Intimidating or firing a worker simply because he or she is exercising their right to form a union is un-American, as are coercive one-on-one meetings between a manager and an employee he or she supervises. Yet these one-on-one meetings are legal under our current, company-dominated system. In these meetings, employers use their supervisory power to coerce—after all, a supervisor has great power over an employee's working conditions.

The Employee Free Choice Act ensures that the person who conducts a worker's job evaluations, sets his or her compensation, and even determines whether he or she keeps their job doesn't decide whether workers should form a union: workers make that decision.

Considering the skyrocketing costs of gas, energy and food, working people are losing ground, not to mention health-care coverage, retirement security and jobs. They need the strength that union representation provides. As more workers across the country form unions, workers will have the strength to improve their wages and protect their benefits. There is strength in numbers, and if more workers are free to join unions then union members will be able to bargain more effectively with employers.

Good paying jobs with affordable health care and a secure retirement are pillars of the labor movement. All Americans should have the means to secure these benefits. As a key state in this year's election, we will have opportunities to talk to candidates for president and congress about this vital piece of legislation. We need to tell them that it's time to restore the American middle class. It's time to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.