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U.S. Sen. Kennedy hears testimony from USW witness

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) received its first hearing in the U.S. Senate yesterday when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee took testimony on legislation that he plans to introduce for restoring economic opportunity for working families.

“It’s time to return to a world where workers obtain their fair share of the nation’s economic growth,” Sen. Kennedy said. “The best way to do so is to give them a stronger voice in the workplace. Unions mean the difference between an economy that is fair and an economy where working people are left behind.”

U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (left), chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, thanked Errol Hohrein, newly-organized USW member at Front Range Energy in northern Colorado for his testimony on the Employee Free Choice Act.

Witnesses at the hearing included Errol Hohrein, a lead organizer employed at Front Range Energy Co. in northern Colorado, who was fired within days of the USW being certified as the bargaining agent for the workforce at the ethanol plant in January. Others on the witness panel were Cynthia Estlund, professor, New York University Law School and Laurence Mishel, president, Economic Policy Institute.

Hohrein described to the senate committee how once the company found out about the USW organizing campaign, “management began trying to intimidate us, targeting those of us who were active union supporters.” He testified, “They forced us to attend meetings, where they slammed the union and where we were not allowed to say much. Following one meeting, I was written up for insubordination. They threatened that if our campaign was successful, our paychecks may suffer.”

A boilermaker for more than 20 years, Hohrein said, “Despite Front Range Energy’s intimidation tactics and other efforts to keep us from organizing, we won our union. But for me, victory was short-lived. I was fired.” He declared labor law in this country is broken. “What the Employee Free Choice Act does is restore the choice to bargain for a better life for people like me who have been robbed of that choice.”

Sen. Kennedy said the Employee Free Choice Act “will fix our broken system by leveling the playing field for employees in three critical ways. It supports the right of workers to choose their own representative. It requires employers to come to the table to talk. And it puts real teeth in the law by strengthening the penalties for discrimination against workers who favor a union.”

EPI’s Mishel told the hearing , “The Employee Free Choice Act will help restore the purchasing power of average Americans and lift the living standards of the 90 percent of Americans who have endured the middle class squeeze.” Law Professor Estlund testified, “In a world in which employers, who own and control the workplace and on whom employees are inescapably dependent, the law must stand solidly behind employees who seek to exercise that right.”

The U.S. House passed the Employee Free Choice Act on Mar. 1 by a vote of 241-185. Currently the USW and the AFL-CIO are advocating for additional Senate co-sponsors with a national campaign of support letters, postcards, resolutions and community roundtables to build support for a floor vote.