Communist Party, USA: Resolution Endorsing the Employee Free Choice Act

Whereas, The National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935 to guarantee workers in the United States the right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions and mandates that workers and their employers bargain in good faith about wages, benefits and other working conditions once the workers have formed a union; and,

Whereas, it has been incredibly weakened over the years, and often manipulated by anti-union companies often forcing workers to wait years to hear the results of their union election, and even longer for an actual contract with their employer; and,

Whereas, the National Labor Relations Board, the agency responsible for enforcing the Act, has become more and more incapable of implementing these labor laws let alone punishing employers when they violate them; and,

Whereas, the Employee Free Choice Act, bi-partisan legislation in Congress, will help begin to fix the broken process through which workers form unions by speeding the process that certifies whether a majority of workers at a company want to form a union, speeding the process of negotiating a first union contract, increasing penalties for employers who violate workers’ rights, strengthening protections for workers’ freedom to choose a union by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation, and by providing for mediation and arbitration of first-contract disputes;

Be it resolved that the Communist Party, USA endorses the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1696 and S. 842), and encourages its members to fight for the passing of this legislation until it passes.