Remember to Thank a Union

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If you've got the weekend off. If you've got health care for your family. If you consider yourself part of the middle class, even if times are tough...thank a union.

In the words of two plain-spoken Maine Republicans, America needs the Employee Free Choice Act [no matter what George McGovern and Warren Buffet may say]. America needs workers who are protected by the bargaining power of unions.

Who brought us the weekend? Unions. Who rose with unions? The middle class. It just makes sense. Tens of millions of workers would join a union if they could. The problem is that if they try, and their employer resists, workers have only about a 20 percent chance of success.

This is because the current system for forming a union is unfairly tilted in the employer's favor.

That's just wrong. It's un-American and one more example of greed and power run amok.

So while you're out and about this weekend, one of the 90% still employed but enjoying your weekend...do more than thank a union. Drop a note to your congresspersons and ask them for speedy passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

This appeal in honor of my original hero union man, my dad, a lifelong member of the IBEW, and for my son who just learned that picket lines and striking for workers' rights aren't just the stuff of dissertations, but real life challenges whatever the outcome.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette