Turn Around America

Mobilization Coordinator, Sacramento Central Labor Council

The American economy is failing working families and our country is headed in the wrong direction. The AFL-CIO has established a great campaign – Turn Around America – that addresses how we got into this economic mess and what we need to do to get out of it. Turn Around America focuses on mobilizing a million members to support the Employee Free Choice Act and electing leaders who will work for working families. 

Enacting the Employee Free Choice Act through the next President and Congress is essential in turning around America. America can not continue to follow the same failed economic policies.

To put today’s economy into perspective, we should remember that our economy did not always work the way it does now. When the middle class was built in the years after World War II, the economy generally worked for all of us. During this period, real family incomes doubled – the most rapid improvement in living standards in history. Incomes for the poorest families increased even faster than those of the richest families, so incomes became more equally distributed. However, since 1973, the pattern has been very different. More than half of all economic growth since 1973 has gone to the richest 10 percent of America’s families, most of it to the top one percent. Also, over the past three decades productivity of American workers has continued to grow, yet wages have stagnated. Average wages today are only 15 percent higher than average wages in 1980, despite a 67 percent increase in productivity. As the percentage of workers in unions declined during this period, workers lost power and the ability to protect their living standards. Rebuilding union membership is essential to rebuilding the economy. 

Across the country, union members are mobilizing to collect 1 million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act – national legislation that will break down the barriers faced by workers when forming unions and bargaining for better wages, benefits and working conditions. The Employee Free Choice Act would:

1. Strengthen penalties for companies that coerce or intimidate employees trying to form unions and bargain;
2. Establish mediation and binding arbitration when the employer and workers cannot agree on a first contract and
3. Enable employees to form unions when a majority signs authorization cards.

When workers try to form unions to improve their lives, most companies do everything they can to stop them. The current company-dominated system for forming unions allows corporations to coerce, intimidate and even fire workers who are trying to form unions. Over 90% of employers involved in organizing campaigns force workers to attend mandatory closed-door meetings against the union. In 25% of organizing campaigns at least one worker is fired for union activity. In more than half of organizing campaigns companies threaten to close their plants after a successful election. Nearly half of employers do not agree to a contract after workers form a union under the NLRB process. These are only a few of the disturbing numbers. We must level the playing field and the Employee Free Choice Act is essential in getting this done. Building density in the labor movement through the Employee Free Choice Act will raise the living standard of today’s union members as well as that of workers who become members in the future.

In 2008, America is going to decide if it wants to keep moving in the wrong direction or if it’s time to Turn Around America. Electing more leaders (like Barack Obama) who support the Employee Free Choice Act is essential. John McCain opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. A McCain presidency would mean a continuation of economic policies that have exported good jobs and brought us record home foreclosures, record debt and record misery. We must elect Barack Obama and provide him with a larger working families majority in Congress. 

Between now and November the Sacramento Central Labor Council will be reaching out to local unions regarding the Turn Around America campaign. We will be making presentations directly to local union meetings (when possible), getting members to sign in support of the Employee Free Choice Act and getting members involved with our election activities.