Labor Secretary Tells AFSCME Leaders to Help Pass Employee Free Choice Act

May 14, 2009

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis

Photo Credit: Luis Gomez

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today called on AFSCME members attending the union’s 2009 Legislative Conference to urge lawmakers to support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which will make it easier for workers to form a union without being harassed and intimidated by employers.

The way to “put trust and faith” back into a system of employer-employee relations that has for years favored management “is by making sure we pass EFCA,” Solis told some 700 AFSCME leaders and activists. “So when you go home, make sure you call your legislators and you tell them they will be doing the right thing to allow people to associate” by forming a union.

Solis said the Department of Labor under the Bush administration sustained “dramatic cuts” in funding for programs that favor workers. “We lost so many good people,” she noted, particularly within the Wage and Hour Division – responsible for enforcing laws such as those concerning the minimum wage, overtime, family and medical leave and worker protections – and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, tasked with enforcing federal workplace safety and health laws.

She declared the Obama administration will hire more people in the Labor Department to make sure “all our laws are respected and enforced.”

“So I’m telling you,” Solis added, “there is a new sheriff in town – a sheriff who cares about working-class people, brings respect back into the workplace and allows more people to associate with unions if they want to collectively bargain. I’m talking about EFCA. I’m talking about the opportunities for that bill to pass. And I’m talking about the means for us to strengthen our unions.”