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This week, as we prepare to celebrate Independence Day and our freedom as citizens, workers throughout the U.S. are stepping forward to demand restoration of our freedom to form unions.
Yesterday in Portland, workers gathered at the United Church of Christ to describe the heavy-handed and often illegal tactics employers used against them when they tried to organize and bargain for their pay and benefits. The workers came together to support labor law reforms at the state and federal level.
Javier Velazquez, a former worker at the Pictsweet mushroom farm in Salem, said, "My co-workers and I suffered under poor, dangerous working conditions, low salaries and many other conditions. When we organized to get a union at the farm, I was fired for organizing activities."
Velazquez later won a lawsuit against the farm for an illegal firing.
Laura Beaulaurier, a nurse at Providence Milwaukie Hospital, faced similar problems when she and her co-workers tried to organize. After the workers voted for the union, the employer used currently legal delaying tactics to avoid coming to an agreement on the first contract. That's a common practice among employers trying to thwart organizing efforts. Often those tactics delay first contracts for years.
Alvero Caldera spoke on behalf of farm workers who are trying to form a union at Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman. He described how the employer punishes workers who speak out. "No one in my family will be hired there," he says. "They only hire people who do not support the union."
The solution to the problem, said Oregon AFL-CIO President Tim Nesbitt, are the labor law reforms incorporated in the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 3619 and S. 1925) and similar reforms at the state level.
The Employee Free Choice Act increases the penalties against employers who harass, intimidate or fire workers for trying to organize a union. It would also change the law so that companies can no longer delay new contract negotiations, as they do now, and require recognition of unions when a majority of workers signs a written request for representation.
Tom Chamberlain, a senior policy advisor to Gov. Ted Kulongoski, brought a message from the governor, who has endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act. "Everyone is entitled to labor rights and protections," he said. "These hurdles should not be placed in front of people trying to organize."
Presidential candidate John Kerry co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act, which protects our rights to form a union. George W. Bush does not support it. Click here for more information and to tell the two presidential candidates what you think of their positions.
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