There’s a Smarter, More Effective Strategy
To Promote the Employee Free Choice Act

The AFL-CIO has announced a “massive drive” to mobilize one million union members to press the next Congress into passing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). In launching this “unprecedented e ffort,” the Executive Council is asking each of the international union affiliates to pledge that 10 percent of its members will participate in the campaign.

All that union members are supposed to do is to sign cards, and send e-mails and faxes that will be collected by the AFL-CIO campaign and then sent to the next Congress [the 111th] and president when they are sworn in. For the convenience of union members, the “AFL-CIO Blog” says: “You can show your support for the Employee Free Choice Act by clicking here to sign our online card.” That’s all there is to it.

The problem is that the EFCA campaign is not new. It was initiated by the AFL-CIO about three years ago, with repeated requests that union members send e-mails, letters and phone calls to their representatives in Congress. Some union members sent two and even more e-mails calling for “a level-playing field” so that labor would have a fair chance to organize. EFCA passed the House by a substantial margin but failed in the Senate by nine votes to force a vote on the measure. Even if it had passed, President Bush had sworn to veto it.

Lawmakers must regard it as bizarre that the only people who are pushing for passage of EFPC are among the 16 million who are already in unions. Why are there no groups of unorganized workers pressuring Congress for the right to join a union, since they would be the ones to benefit if the legislation were passed? There ought to be a better strategy for promoting the EFPC than an identical message on a postcard‹especially in the nearly one year before the next Congress is installed

I would offer the following two suggestions. First, assign the 10 percent of members from each international union to reach out to as many of those 50 million workers who say they want a union, and convince them that EFPC is their best bet to join. Get as many individuals and groups among the unorganized to put pressure on their representatives to approve Employee Free Choice. If this campaign is successful, AFL-CIO and Change to Win will be winning countless converts to the labor movement.

Second, the EFCA must be framed in broader terms as a fight for fundamental civil rights, to end the denial of free speech and freedom of association to working men and women by their employers. A well-run campaign could draw support for EFCA from civil rights groups and a variety of liberal, fair-minded-minded individuals and organizations.

It would be a serious mistake for labor to rely on a postcard campaign to win congressional approval of EFPC. Conservative Republicans and their corporate and right-wing allies will be spending enormous amounts of money to defeat the measure. The National Right to Work Committee will challenge the legality of EFPC and do everything possible to delay and emasculate it by amendments and drawn-out court suits. And it is also possible that the new Congress may not conceive an Employee Free Choice Act with the same high degree of priority as unions do.

If a postcard campaign, even with more than one million signatures of union members, is not enough to win congressional approval, what else does the AFL-CIO propose? If labor leaders remains silent about considering alternative strategies, they will bear major responsibility if EFPA is defeated.

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