Artist:
Rabble Rousers

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by Bill Collins

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This tune is from the Rabble Rousers' New Hard Times CD. It is about the fight in Congress to enact the the Employee Free Choice Act.

In 2007 the bill passed the House of Representatives by 241-185. It gained majority support in the Senate, but was blocked by a filibuster.

It is the most important legislative proposal in seventy years because it will give workers the freedom to choose a union and bargain collectively.

The National Labor Relations Act has become a barrier to workers’ rights. Companies intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire people who try to organize unions. Workers are fired in a quarter of private-sector union organizing campaigns and most workers who try to form unions are subjected to repeated, coercive one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors. Even after workers successfully form unions, 44 percent of the time they can’t get a contract.

The Employee Free Choice Act remedies these problems in three specific ways:

Resources

Kim Moody: 'Card Check' Takes a Hit

Jane Slaughter: Employee Free Choice Act: Fight of a Lifetime?

AFL-CIO: The Employee Free Choice Act

Wikipedia: Card Check

1. It requires that when a majority of employees has signed authorizations designating the union as its bargaining representative, the union will be certified by the NLRB.

2. It provides that when an employer and newly formed union are unable to bargain their first contract within 90 days, either party can request mediation by the FMCS. If no agreement has been reached after 30 days of mediation, the dispute is referred to binding arbitration.

3. New, tougher remedies will provide more protection for workers’ rights.

a. Civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation can be assessed against companies found to have willfully or repeatedly violated employees’ rights during an organizing campaign or first contract negotiations.

b. It increases to three times back pay the amount a company is required to pay when an employee is discharged or discriminated against during an organizing campaign or first contract negotiations.

c. It requires the NLRB to seek a federal court injunction when there is reasonable cause to believe a company has discharged or discriminated against employees, threatened to do so, or engaged in conduct that significantly interferes with employee rights during an organizing campaign or first contract negotiations.

Support the Employee Free Choice Act!

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It seems they're up to their old tricks
Again they're putting in the fix
The union busters up to their old games
Although the law is stacked for them
They have to stack the deck again
They're dealing off the bottom just the same

Chorus:

What do we want?
A card count, card count, card count!
What do we want?
A card count, card count, NOW!

The CEOs are getting paid
A thousand times what the workers made
If it's too much it never is enough
But if workers try to organize
To bring that pay gap down to size
The Labor Board makes that decision rough

Chorus

But workers, though the board's a joke
Stay organized, don't give up hope
Don't let the union busters keep you down
Just keep the pressure on - some day
When honest work draws honest pay
We'll run the union busters out of town

Chorus

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Personnel: Bill Collins, lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, backup vocals; ELF: lead and rhythm guitar, backup vocals; Gary (Chops) MacConnie, banjo, mandolin, backup vocals; Ray DeVaryo, drums, washboar4d, tambourine, backup vocals; Andy Merck, bass, backup vocals; Digger & Bronwyn Kanitz, backup vocals; Stefan Ulrich, head engineer; Marten Ulrich, second engineer; Gabriel Wunderlich assistant engineer; Tammo Lüers, producer; Tim Shapland (Sworn Liars) and Ole (Dimple Minds), preproduction assistance.

Photo: Corbis Bettmann

Buy the 'New Hard Times' CD.

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