Letter to the Editor

Workers need to consider free choice act

Sunday, May 31, 2009

To the Editor:

Our debt-based economy has been out-of-whack for a long time.

It's too bad that it took a financial meltdown on Wall Street for our policitians to realize that working families have been hurting for years.

While corporation CEO's and their friends on Capitol Hill traded away our good paying jobs, hardworking Americans have seen their wages go stagnant, health care plans disappear and pensions become the exception, rather than the norm.

Now that the winds of change have finally blown across our political landscape, working people are more than ready to stand up and bargain for better benefits in the workplace by forming unions. But all too often, companies rig the elections process and harass workers for supporting a union.

The Employee Free Choice Act would put the power back in the hands of workers to decide how they would form a union either through the ballot process or a majority of signed authorization cards. Thousands of workers have already formed unions through the less divisive majority sign-up process, but only where companies have allowed it.

If we're going to bring a sense of balance back to the markets, then we need to restore democratic values to the workplace.

It's time to make sure that workers have a seat at the bargaining table and pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Sincerely,

James Webster,

Terre Haute