Resolution to Support the
Employee Free Choice Act HCR 16 - Freedom of Representation
As you probably know, working people are struggling to
make ends meet these days and our middle class is
disappearing. By all accounts, this is a major problem here
in Ohio. The best opportunity for working people to get
ahead economically is to unite and bargain with employers for better wages and benefits. But the current system for forming unions and bargaining is broken.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bi-partisan bill, The Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800), which would restore workers’ freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union and bargain for a better life—without interference from management. The bill is now before the U.S. Senate (S.1041). In Ohio, House Concurrent Resolution 16 (HCR16 - Rep. Yuko) has been introduced in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Employee Free Choice Act provides for recognition of a union when the majority of employees confidentially and
voluntarily sign authorizations, offers mediation and binding arbitration to resolve first contracts and strengthens penalties for violations during organizing and first contract efforts.
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 has long allowed employers to recognize a union when the majority of workers sign authorization cards designating the union as their
bargaining agent. The right to form a union, however, has been eroded over time, resulting in increasing employer harassment, discrimination and sometimes termination for workers taking initial steps toward forming a union. Twenty-five percent of
private-sector employers illegally fire at least one worker for union activity during organizing campaigns.
real life case: After working as a forklift driver at Consolidated Biscuit Co. in McComb, Ohio for 11 years, Bill Lawhorn, joined by three quarters of the company’s workers, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union representation election. Bill was fired for his part. The NLRB ordered him to be reinstated but after five years of delay tactics by the company Bill is still out of work.
