This is the statement of the AFL-CIO issued on the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Why hasn't the AFL-CIO leafleted the 450 casinos employing over two-million workers left to fend for themselves at the hands of a bunch of mobsters and the Fertitta family together with the likes of Floyd Jourdain, Melony Benjamin and Stanley Crooks here in the United States of America under such Draconian conditions?
Human Rights Day, 2008: U.S. Workers Still Lack the Freedom to Form Unions
by Seth Michaels, Dec 10, 2008
The Employee Free Choice Act, a vital bill to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life, is a top priority for working families in the new Congress. Today, as we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it’s important to remember how crucial it is to protect the right of workers to form unions to protect fair pay, good benefits and a safe work environment.
Around the country today, union volunteers are marking the anniversary by leafleting worksites and getting the message out about the Employee Free Choice Act. In coming weeks, labor councils around the country hold meetings to spread the word about this critical bill to restore worker power and rebuild the middle class.
The Employee Free Choice Act is under heavy attack from CEOs and Big Business lobbyists. One of the country’s largest employers, McDonald’s, is taking the anti-worker side in the fight over the bill.
Crain’s Chicago Business reveals that in a Nov. 25 memo to franchise owners, McDonald’s USA President Don Thompson stakes out the company’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act and asks franchisees to support anti-Employee Free Choice Act politicians. (Sound familiar? That’s because Wal-Mart pulled the same trick with its managers this year.)
Why is McDonald’s trying to block a bill that would restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life? Because it might actually result in workers bargaining for a better life. As Crain’s notes:
With more than 600,000 U.S. restaurant workers, many earning less than $10 an hour, the chain makes an attractive target for union organizers. Unionized employees could demand higher pay and stricter work rules in McDonald’s kitchens.
Apparently, McDonald’s likes the current company-dominated system just fine—it allows them to keep workers in low-paying “McJobs.”
McDonald’s is a member of the National Restaurant Association, a business lobbying group that funds the cunningly misnamed Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, a major corporate front group in the campaign to block the freedom to form unions.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says McDonald’s effort to block the Employee Free Choice Act is an attack on workers and the middle class.
Working people know that the bargaining power they gain through unions for fair wages, better health care, pensions and job security is our nation’s single best tool for creating an economy that works for all—60 million say they’d join a union tomorrow if given the chance. In launching a campaign to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act, McDonald’s has taken direct aim at the customers and communities it serves and is shooting down their best chance at realizing their aspirations for their families and futures.
Crain’s makes the mistake of relying for its reporting on Rick Berman, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist who has built his career around undermining unions, fighting consumer protections and protecting corporate power. Berman is involved with anti-Employee Free Choice Act front groups, and, without scrutinizing his connections, Crain’s takes for granted Berman’s misleading description of the bill. (It’s a mistake that numerous media outlets are making. The Washington Post relied on Berman as a source for a misleading article on the Employee Free Choice Act yesterday, without mentioning his lobbying activities. Economist Dean Baker called the article “incorrect” on the key facts.)
As Sweeney says, the Employee Free Choice Act is about leveling the playing field and giving workers a stake, and the big corporations who are fighting to block it are benefiting from the imbalance of power.
Corporations like McDonald’s and their CEOs hold all the cards in today’s economy and working families are left to struggle with the economy they leave behind. McDonald’s CEO James Skinner took home over $12.3 million in total compensation last year. If he were paid by the hour, he would make nearly 600 times the less than $10/hour pay of many of McDonald’s 600,000 employees.
As we remember the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, let’s speak out against corporations like McDonald’s, who are putting corporate power ahead of the freedom to form unions.
With "at-will hiring, at-will firing" legislation in twenty-eight states, ignored by the leadership of the AFL-CIO; but, understood by every rank-and-file union organizer and activist as being the main and primary impediment to union organizing... when combined with the plight of casino workers employed in the smoke-filled casinos of the Indian Gaming Industry at poverty wages and without any rights ignored by the AFL-CIO leadership, this statement from the AFL-CIO's web site is the epitome of hypocrisy.
When politicians and employers read such statements based upon what everyone knows is a false sense of compassion and concern for working people, no employer will ever fear the AFL-CIO knowing that even with the Employee Free Choice Act the AFL-CIO leadership is nothing but a bunch of big-blowhards that couldn't muster the common sense to organize an escape from a wet paper bag; much less act to empower working people to organize in defense of their human rights at work and in the communities where they live.
For over twenty-years, casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry have been impatiently waiting for the words of these big-blowhard leaders like President John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO to match their deeds.
Again, on the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights we get profound statements not backed up by the allocation of resources to organize in defense of the human rights of working people.
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
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