I want to share this flyer supporting the Employee Free Choice Act (pdf) from the Communications Workers of America:
Why do 46 million people in the U.S. have no health insurance? Why do fewer than 50 percent of workers have any kind of pension?
The answer : Because just 12 percent of U.S. workers have collective bargaining rights – and less than 8 percent in the private sector. It’s no coincidence. As the percentage of workers covered by collective bargaining rights in the United States has dropped, from a high of 35 percent, so has the quality of our health care, retirement security, vacation and other leave policies, and worklife issues.
The rest of the industrialized world – and many developing countries – have laws and public policies to promote collective bargaining. The United States is going in exactly the wrong direction. The predictable result: working and middle class people are losing ground.
Here’s something else to think about. Countries with full bargahing rights and positive worker policies – like France, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, to name just a few – also have higher productivity than the United States.
What do you think? The AFL-CIO has more.
