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House-approved bill is major step in rebuilding our nation's middle-class

Media Advisory for Tuesday, March 27

On Tuesday, March 27, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hear testimony from workers and labor law experts on the urgent need to restore workers' free choice to form unions to bargain for better wages and benefits.

"It's no secret that a union contract is the best economic uplift program for working people in this country," said Errol Hohrein, former Front Range Energy employee who was fired after he and his fellow workers formed a union to improve their working conditions.  "What the bill does is restore the choice to bargain for a better life for people like me who have been robbed of that choice."

The bipartisan Employee Free Choice Act, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) in the House, would strengthen penalties for employers that violate workers' freedom to make their own choice about a union.  Passed by the House earlier this month, the bill would allow a neutral party to determine a first contract if the company and employees cannot reach an agreement.  It would also enable workers to form unions when a majority of workers sign authorization forms designating the union as their bargaining representative.

More than half of America's unorganized workers say they would form a union tomorrow if given the chance, according to recent opinion research by Peter D. Hart Research.  But, as workers will testify at the hearing, companies routinely harass, coerce and threaten workers to keep them from forming unions, and the law is helpless to stop it.  One out of five union activists are likely to be fired when they try to form unions, according to a new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

For more information on the Employee Free Choice Act, visit www.employeefreechoiceact.org.

WHO:   Prof. Cynthia Estlund, labor and employment expert,
            NYU School of Law

            Errol Hohrein, former employee, Front Range Energy,
            Colorado (USW)

            Economist Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute

WHAT:  Hearing on the Employee Free Choice Act before the
            Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

            Committee ("The Employee Free Choice Act:
            Restoring Econic Opportunity for Working Families")

WHEN: Tuesday, March 27 at 10:00 a.m. EST

WHERE: Capitol Hill, 430 Senate Dirksen Office Building

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