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The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO
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Harrisburg PA 17101 • 800-242-3770

PA AFL-CIO PRESS RELEASE

July 14, 2004                                             

Workers to Speak at Hearing Held by U.S. Senator Arlen Specter

Workers Asking Senator Specter to Co-sponsor the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would help ensure workers’ freedom to form unions in America.

Workers will testify about the opposition they faced when they tried to form a union and voice their support of the Employee Free Choice Act at a public hearing conducted by U.S. Senator Arlen Specter on Friday, July 16, 2004 at 200 P.M. in Room 140, the House Majority Caucus Room, of the State Capitol. 

Eileen Connelly, Executive Director, Pennsylvania State Council, Service Employees International Union, Josie Rudkinger, Certified Nursing Assistant and SEIU member; Arlene Brockel, United Steelworkers of America; and Sarah Fox of the National AFL-CIO will provide specific examples of how employers coerce and intimidate workers to prevent them from forming a union.

When workers form unions to win affordable health care, job safety standards, and a say in their working conditions, employers routinely fight to block workers – by lying to them, intimidating them, spying on them, and even firing them.

These types of tactics are so widespread that Human Rights Watch call the denial of workers’ freedom to form unions in the U.S. a fundamental human rights issue.  In one-quarter of private-sector cases where workers form unions, at least one worker is illegally fired, according to Cornell University’s Kate Bronfenbrenner.

Currently, more than 235 Members of Congress are co-sponsors of new bi-partisan legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act, which will allow workers to form unions without the grueling obstacles they currently face.

Workers will be asking Senator Specter to become a co-sponsor and to help gain additional support in the Congress.

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