The bill would make it easier for workers to form unions and has been vigorously opposed by big business and business-backed front groups.
The bill is one of the labor movement’s top priorities in Congress. Franken’s support has been awaited by the bill’s backers in the U.S. Senate in order to move it forward. Franken could be the 60th vote needed in support of the bill to block a possible filibuster by Republican Senators who oppose it.
During the 2008 Senate campaign, Franken came under attack in a barrage of television ads for his support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
“They were going after him more than anyone,” recalled Bill McCarthy, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, who was invited by Franken to Washington to witness Franken’s swearing-in ceremony. “He didn’t back down then and he didn’t back down now,” McCarthy said.
Franken’s campaign championed the interests of middle class families and maintained that enacting the Employee Free Choice Act was a way to strengthen the middle class, by giving more workers the opportunity to bargain collectively to improve wages and benefits.
Franken made the announcement about signing on as a co-sponsor of the bill at a reception Tuesday evening in his honor at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Franken told the AFL-CIO gathering: “As of about half an hour ago, I became the co-sponsor of my first piece of legislation in the Senate. And it’s something called the Employee Free Choice Act.”
Steve Share edits the Labor Review, the official publication of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation. Learn more at www.minneapolisunions.org
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The bill would make it easier for workers to form unions and has been vigorously opposed by big business and business-backed front groups.
The bill is one of the labor movement’s top priorities in Congress. Franken’s support has been awaited by the bill’s backers in the U.S. Senate in order to move it forward. Franken could be the 60th vote needed in support of the bill to block a possible filibuster by Republican Senators who oppose it.
During the 2008 Senate campaign, Franken came under attack in a barrage of television ads for his support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
“They were going after him more than anyone,” recalled Bill McCarthy, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, who was invited by Franken to Washington to witness Franken’s swearing-in ceremony. “He didn’t back down then and he didn’t back down now,” McCarthy said.
Franken’s campaign championed the interests of middle class families and maintained that enacting the Employee Free Choice Act was a way to strengthen the middle class, by giving more workers the opportunity to bargain collectively to improve wages and benefits.
Franken made the announcement about signing on as a co-sponsor of the bill at a reception Tuesday evening in his honor at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Franken told the AFL-CIO gathering: “As of about half an hour ago, I became the co-sponsor of my first piece of legislation in the Senate. And it’s something called the Employee Free Choice Act.”
Steve Share edits the Labor Review, the official publication of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation. Learn more at www.minneapolisunions.org