Employee Free Choice Act

I am a member of a union. It works well most of the time. There are things that could be improved. Things that need to be changed. But at the end of the day, union membership is the only sure way that workers are protected.

As I figure out the voice, tone and topic this blog will present, it makes sense to focus on the spin the Anti-Union side takes and relate personal stories (the good and the bad) of Unions, the leadership and the organizers.

The following is from the AFLCIO web site:
THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT

* Find out whether your representative voted for the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800).
* Find out whether your senator is a cosponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act (S. 1041).
*
Read the text of the Employee Free Choice Act.
*
Download a summary of the bill (PDF).

It’s Time to Restore Workers’ Freedom to Form Unions

America’s working people are struggling to make ends meet these days and our middle class is disappearing. The best opportunity working people have to get ahead economically is by uniting to bargain with their employers for better wages and benefits. Recent research has shown that some 60 million U.S. workers would join a union if they could.

But the current system for forming unions and bargaining is broken. Every day, corporations deny workers the freedom to decide for themselves whether to form unions to bargain for a better life. They routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire workers who try to form unions and bargain for economic well-being.

The Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800, S. 1041), supported by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, would level the playing field for workers and employers and help rebuild America’s middle class. It would restore workers’ freedom to choose a union by:

* Establishing stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
* Providing mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
* Allowing employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.

I am certain I will make a few folks (both sides of the debate) uncomfortable with what I have to say. That is a pitfall of "fair and balanced".

So once a month or more, I will be posting stories, documents, and focusing my attention on the people that are making a difference for the benefit of all, rather then personal gains.

I may also set up a website for some aspect of whistleblowing. Time to weed out corruption.

Is this a diary, a dialogue or a soapbox? I still have not decided. I would like to think that this site is read by at least one other person (actually I know it is, but...). If it is not, no biggie there either.

Unions that are in the news this month (good and bad):

WGA/ Writers Guild of America East - Writers Guild of America West

Studios brace for life without scribes

Prospect of WGA strike has studios on edge

By DAVE MCNARY

Even as the winter holidays loom, Hollywood's facing 2007 with an unmistakably grim directive: Start stockpiling.

The town's coming down with a fresh, infectious case of strike-itus.

Despite recent pronouncements by WGA West prexy Patric Verrone and exec director David Young that there's no need to be concerned that negotiations won't start until the summer, the prospect of a strike has lit a fire under producers and execs. (more)

Double-Cross at the WGA

If you write for TV or film in Hollywood, your check might never be in the mail

By Dennis McDougal

Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - 9:00 am

One day last June, Teri Mial warned Beth Paolozzi that she’d best keep her mouth shut about an ongoing federal Department of Labor investigation of the Writers Guild of America West — or she’d have to kill her. .. (more)

SAG / AFTRA


AFTRA Nominees Call for Equal Pay, Residuals
May 10, 2007
By Lauren Horwitch
Twenty-one nominees for American Federation of Television and Radio Artists board seats have launched a campaign urging the union's leaders to stop "undercutting" actors' fees and residuals secured by the Screen Actors Guild's Basic Cable Contract. The group, known as AFTRA Artists, is calling attention to longtime debate among actors with both SAG and AFTRA memberships: that AFTRA's individual contracts with cable TV shows secure pay and residuals for actors far below those set under SAG's cable agreement. (more)

SAG, AFTRA at war over cable TV

Beef focuses on provisions for free re-runs

By DAVE MCNARY

Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television & Radio Artists are battling each other once again, this time in a jurisdictional dispute centered on cable TV.

More than 20 members of SAG's Membership First faction -- which took control of the guild board two years ago -- have banded together as AFTRAartists to run for slots on the AFTRA national board, the Los Angeles board and as delegates to the national convention.

Their beef focuses on provisions for free re-runs (dubbed "exhibition days") on 30 cable shows covered by AFTRA such as "Dirt," "Zooey 101," "Hannah Montana" and "The Sara Silverman Show."

The group says AFTRA should only sign deals that are equivalent to SAG's. AFTRA's contention is that if the shows are shot on digital, either union can go after the program since that area has never been defined and that AFTRA should make these deals with cable networks to avoid producers going non-union. (more)

Out of time. I'll post later in the week.