Veterans Groups Go To Bat For EFCA

Adding a new dimension to the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act, a host of veterans groups is launching a new effort to help pass the union-backed legislation.

In alliance with the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council, the 105,000-member VoteVets.org will host events and rallies in a dozen key EFCA battleground states, including Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Indiana, Montana, Maine, and Alaska. Joined by veterans and union officials in those locales, these groups and the campaign as a whole seem likely to add a new element to the debate over the need for easier access to unionization.

Veterans comprise a significant portion of the union community. According to officials at the AFL-CIO, 2.1 million union members are vets, or 14 percent of all union members. Considering the respect they engender at home, having these groups and individuals on the frontlines of the pro-EFCA campaign puts a different type of political pressure on those senators whose position on the bill is still up in the air.

In a press release announcing the new effort, Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets and an Iraq War veteran himself, noted: "The freedom to organize is an American value, one of the many values we veterans fought to protect. Past generations of veterans were able to enter the middle class because unions were there to fight for fair wages and benefits. The Employee Free Choice Act ensures that veterans and civilians in the workforce will continue to get a fair shake, which is why we're proud to support it."

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Comments

[valley boy]

Thank you Gentlemen and Ladies. That's why they call you Veterans.

[BillMelater]

I am a vet and have never been in a union. I support EFCA.

[brandnewstuff]

Thanks Vets! Like many Americans I have Vets in my family-EFCA- please PASS

[WilliamL]

An AFL-CIO org of retired union members who are also Vets?

This is not the VFW or Legion or anything close.

[levee]

Not anything close?

It's just a group of people who served their country as soldiers and then came home to work for a living.

Prestigious enough for me. What's your beef? No flashy acronym?

[teacheng]

Nice.

[WinterParkMom]

Think about this, if there were a union for the banking industry employees, when the bailout happened and companies like boa, citibank, wells fargo, etc decided to cut costs by shedding employees, the union would have been able to fight for some of those employees to keep their jobs and we probably wouldn't have these executives still making millions while the little guys are on the unemployment line. BofA decided to shed about 30k employees and rescind bonuses to lower level employees working their butts off for those bonuses. Had a union been involved, that might have been different. Bank employees need to be aware that this could benefit them.

[4Q-N4Q2]

Wow! Veterans that wore the uniform to protect all of our Constitutional rights, including our right to a secret ballot, support this?

[CaptainObvious]

There's no "right to a secret ballot" in the Constitution.

[patricksmom]

Your ignorance is showing CaptainObvious. No one has ever claimed a right to a a secret ballot in the Constitution. Of course more than 100 years ago, some would have claimed there was no right for blacks to be free or for women to vote. Go back to Rush.

[levee]

This garbage is the essence of EFCA's weakness. Few people understand that the history of the secret ballot has been to provide cover for manipulation by management. All you have to do is reward a small group with a pocket full of coins and you continue to have a non-unionized, abusable and exploitable workforce.

So what recourse, genius, do the people who work - who make the products - have?

The ownership class, with its significant arsenal of resources to intimidate (with the sufficient cover of a secret ballot) is trying to tell you that the hapless worker who is trying to gather the only power he really has - solidarity with fellow workers - is going to be able to "intimidate" people to vote to help themselves?

They don't need any intimidating. No worker could honestly ever be against a union. That's propaganda that has been being sold since the slave days. ("They need their masters").

And if you think the only union there is is one that would demand itself out of a livelihood, then you watch too many mob movies.

[EFCANOW]

Veterans Groups Go To Bat For EFCA

Retirees Groups Go To Bat For EFCA

Religious Groups Go To Bat For EFCA

Minorities Groups Go To Bat For EFCA

Working Mother Groups Go To Bat For EFCA

Middle Class Workers Go To Bat For EFCA

NO SURRENDER NO RETREAT

http://efcanow.blogspot.com/

[ThomasPaineWeNeedYou]

Whoa this could be big Vetrans going to bat for EFCA more of the common man being heard from.
Gee I thought all vetrans were republicans and hardly any democrats ever fight for the country wink, wink, nod, nod, you know, you know.

[jusasoldier]

agreed....if you listen to them...they're the only patriots