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America’s labor leaders today hailed passage of the Employee Free Choice Act by the House of Representatives

“Today's vote,” Said AFL CIO President John Sweeney, “marks a momentous turning point in the growing movement to restore our nation's middle-class.  Today, the voices of tens of millions of working people who deserve the right to make a free choice to bargain for a better life have been heard and heeded on Capitol Hill.”

United Steelworker President Leo W. Gerard called the vote “a victory for thousands of workers whose human rights have been violated for years through firings and intimidation by their employers, who have been allowed to ignore their right to form a union with absolute impunity.

“Now,” he added, “we need to impress upon the Senate that the time has come to give workers a right that is enjoyed by workers throughout the free world – the opportunity to freely make their voices heard about forming a union, without fear of retribution.” 

People like Shirley Brown, a housekeeper at Chicago's Resurrection Health Care whose co-workers are afraid to talk about forming a union - even outside of work - for fear of losing their jobs. They are people like Ivo Camilo, a 35-year employee of Blue Diamond Growers in Sacramento, who came to Washington to tell of the fear instilled in his co-workers when he was fired for exercising his rights.  And they are people like Bill Lawhorn, who came to tell of being fired by Consolidated Biscuit in McComb, Ohio for supporting a union - and despite winning his government case against his employer, four and a half years after being fired he has not been rehired or received a cent of back pay. 

Today those workers and millions like them have new hope that they will have the opportunity to bargain collectively for better wages, benefits and working conditions.