Barack Obama: Obama Calls for Passage of Employee Free Choice Act

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Bill would protect workers’ right to organize, strengthen employer violation penalties

June 20, 2007 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today called for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the right to choose to sign up for a union that would be established once a majority opted in. The bill, of which Obama is an original co-sponsor, is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate tomorrow.

The text of the statement is below:

“All across the country, middle class Americans are anxious about their future. In a global economy with new rules and new risks, they find themselves competing against workers abroad who lack fair pay and benefits. Today, individual workers in Illinois and throughout the country often don’t have the power to challenge employers who are cutting wages at the same time as they are dropping their healthcare and retirement benefits.”

“The current process for organizing a workplace denies too many workers the ability to exercise their right to do so. The Employee Free Choice Act will allow workers to form a union through majority sign up and card checks, and strengthen penalties for those employers who are in violation. The choice to organize should be left up to workers and workers alone. It should be their free choice.”

“Organized labor helps keep the American middle class intact, and it provides workers with basic guarantees - wages that can raise a family, preventative health care coverage and treatment for the sick, a retirement that is dignified, and working conditions that are safe. It will be working Americans, united and organized, that will help us restore a sense of shared prosperity and security to this nation.”

Source: Senator Barack Obama