IBEW 1837's Pete Compagna and Matt Beck (far left of photo) join rally outside Portland office of Sen. Olympia Snowe.Monday and Tuesday, June 18 & 19, local workers and labor and community leaders across Maine and New Hampshire gathered outside the offices of our U.S. Senators to call on them to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act -- legislation that would make it more difficult for employers to thwart workers’ efforts to form unions to bargain for better wages and benefits. Members of the New Hampshire and Maine AFL-CIOs and Central Labor Councils, community activists and workers will gather for rallies in Manchester, New Hampshire and Augusta, Bangor, Lewiston and Portland in Maine.

“The middle class is under attack in this country,” said Edward Gorham, President of the Maine AFL-CIO. “For decades, unions have helped working men and women improve their wages and win access to health insurance and other benefits for themselves and their families. If they really care about the middle class, Senators Snowe and Collins should step up to help Maine working families who are struggling to make ends meet and support the Employee Free Choice Act. And for the working poor in our state, a union job is their best shot at a better life. After all, unions are our nation’s best anti-poverty program.”

Approved by the House in March and with a vote in the U.S. Senate looming this week, the Employee Free Choice Act would give working people back their freedom to form and join unions by stiffening penalties on employers that violate the law. The bill restores balance to the system of forming unions and bargaining by giving workers, not bosses, the option of deciding how they will choose whether to form a union – either through ballot elections or majority sign-up, a process that enables people to form unions when a majority of employees indicate in writing they want one.
More than half of people who don't already have a union say they would join one tomorrow if given the chance, according to national research by Peter D. Hart Research Associates. Yet employers routinely harass, intimidate and even fire workers who try to form a union, and labor law is helpless to stop them. 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.

"I often speak to workers who would like to join our union, but they are afraid of what might happen to them if they do," said IBEW Local 1837 Organizer Matt Beck. "That is just plain wrong, and the Employee Free Choice Act will change that."

For more info. on the Employee Free Choice Act, click here.