Read this post or Union Thugs will get you!

Brothers and Sisters,

I take pride in the MSEA-SEIU and the position our union holds in the labor movement in Maine. A new contract is coming our way and it will come with or without your involvement as only those interested enough to raise their voices and become involved will be heard. I was honored when four years ago and again two years ago you voted me to be one of your Pro-Tech representative on the negotiations team.

Our negotiations team must be about more than SEIU staff and your elected team members. In order to work for the best contract for all of our Union it must be about the members not just a team that forms and then breaks up again in a few months.

Over the past two years the gap between wages and inflation has become ever plainer. How many of you are looking at the coming heating season and trying to figure out what you will have to cut in order to keep oil in your tank? How much does it hurt when you fill your tank?

Labor leaders must place the needs of our members first and not just try to settle their own pet issues. But what is your team supposed to do if they don’t hear from the members? If the members say “Let the Union do it” then your representatives will have to make the best call they can when they are at the table with management. Without your input they will be working in the dark. Your teams need your help, your ideas, your information on working conditions and problems especially in tough times with a State short on money and long on right wing talk shows and editorials.

“Democracy dies in the darkness.” Your dues will not hire professional contractors to build you a contract; they have built you a strong Union structure, but you must be involved if you want it to work. If you’re not there to provide information and support our chances for a good contract could” die in the darkness”.

• Silence before bargaining weakens us as we are try to gather the information needed to enter negotiations for 10,000 employees, threatening the Executive branch contract threatens all the smaller units that rely on us to be strong and lead the way.
• Silence during bargaining will leave you with no input in the negotiations with our employers, will leave your team and your staff on their own to try to guess what is most important to 10,000 employees.
• What can happen? Maybe your team will settle for far less than what the State may have been willing to offer. Maybe they will have to give up items at the table because the State will be able to rightly say there is no real show of interest in a particular proposal. Maybe your proposal will never be made in the first place.
• When the final deal is struck you can be sure that your team members will have done everything they knew how to do but they will be able to do more with your support.

This is your Union and when it is at its best it stands for the principle of one member, one vote and the belief that members must have a seat at the bargaining table and the right to vote on all agreements that affect them. To function in bargaining a Union must involve members at all levels providing rank-and-file workers with the information they need to choose a direction and win good contracts.

Let me be clear. I am running for a place on the Pro-Tech team again this year and I will do everything I know to win a good contract. If called on to make a decision I will make that decision and stand by it.

My determination is not enough, and the experience and skills of all the negotiations team members will not be enough without you. Union members have fought bled and earned a voice in their working conditions and their pay. That voice is the most precious right we have earned. When was the last time a Wal-Mart worker got a chance to vote on working conditions? That voice is the real power of our union.

You can still contact the Union and sign up for the bargaining committee which might take a half dozen Saturdays between now and 2009. You can run for the negotiations team which will take time and effort enough to wear you down, but whatever level of involvement you reach team member or calls to the legislature when this next contract is done you will have tried your best to help your family and your friends.

Please get involved. CALL 1-800-452-8794 and ask how.

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Tom Allen's response to the attack ads

We have to keep getting the message out about the E.F.C.A. Passage of the law will ad protections to employees not take away anything.

Picture the poor woman when the big guy comes along and puts his hand down in a threatening manner. Then picture the real words. "If I see you or hear you supporting a Union, you are fired!" That is the intimidation going on. Don't let Susan Collins ride to another term on lies and her record of being a lap dog for Bush.

Ad	Facts
CLAIM: “Since 2001, one group has been involved in embezzlement and racketeering, and been the target of more than 2000 criminal investigations, and 600 indictments. Now the same group is planning to expand its power base. Who has this record of corruption and embezzlement? Organized Crime? No. It’s organized labor.”	Organized Labor is NOT Organized Crime. There Are 67,000 Union Members in Maine. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are approximately 67,000 union members in Maine. Union members in Maine make up over 11 percent of Maine’s workforce. [BLS, 2007] Employee Freedom Is Targeting Democrats All Over The Country And Has Already Run Ads in Maine. Employee Freedom Is Affiliated With Center For Union Facts – Both Anti-Labor Groups That Have Been Running Ads In Multiple States. Both anti-labor groups have been running ads in Colorado, Oregon and Maine against Democratic candidates for Senate. [KUSA 9 News, 6/18/08] Employee Freedom Has Launched Similar Negative Partisan Attacks Against Tom Allen. Last month, Employee Freedom ran full page ads in Maine’s largest newspapers attacking Tom Allen for his support of the Employee Free Choice Act. [PolitickerME, 6/12/08]
CLAIM: “Today labor bosses have a new scheme to target you and your money. They want to change the law to make it easier to pressure you into joining their union. Under their plan, you will lose your right to a private vote. Instead of being able to make your choice about joining a union using a private ballot, union bosses can come to your home to pressure you to make a binding decision to pay dues.”	Employee Free Choice Act DOES NOT Eliminate The Secret Ballot. The Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the ballot-election process. The act adds another option, the majority sign-up process, in which workers seeking to form a union could sign cards indicating their desire to do so. Majority sign-up is much faster than the government-run balloting process and leaves less time for employers to harass and intimidate workers so they will back off from joining a union. [HR 800 text of legislation; WCCO CBS 4, Fact Check Segment, 7/9/08] The Employee Free Choice Act Has Bi-Partisan Support In Both The House and Senate. The Employee Free Choice Act has bi-partisan support in the Congress – with 46 co-sponsors in the Senate and 233 Representatives in the House. [HR 800, introduced 2/5/07; S 1041, introduced 3/29/07] Research Shows That 60 Million Americans Would Join A Union If They Could. According to a December 2006 poll, 60 million American workers say they would join a union if they had the option. [AFL-CIO, “The Union Difference: Union Advantage by the Numbers.”]
CLAIM: “Incredibly, they say this is a better process than a private vote.”	Employee Free Choice Act Adds Extra Protection For Workers Seeking To Join A Union. The Employee Free Choice Act would reform the nation’s basic labor laws by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation. It also would provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes and establish stronger penalties for violation of the rights of workers seeking to form unions or negotiate first contracts. [HR 800 text of legislation]
CLAIM: “Tell Tom Allen to stop supporting union schemes to take away private votes at EmployeeFreedom.org.”	Tom Allen Has ALWAYS Supported Protecting The Rights of Workers. Tom Allen Supported Employee Free Choice Act. Tom Allen voted for the Employee Free Choice Act, which required employers to recognize a union if a majority of the employees sign "authorization cards" for the union. The bill eliminated the current right for employers to require an election as a second step before the union could be recognized, thereby easing the ability of unions to organize workers. Unions contended that many employers demand an election in order to have time to coerce workers to reject the union, while employers maintained that only a secret-ballot election can accurately gauge worker support for unionization. The measure also provided for a first labor contract to be imposed through binding arbitration if the employer and union cannot reach agreement within 120 days. [H.R. 800, Vote #118, 3/1/07; CQ House Action Reports Legislative Week February 26, 2007; Associated Press, 3/1/07] Tom Allen Voted To Protect Collective Bargaining and Due Process Rights. In 2004, Tom Allen supported an amendment to the Defense Department funding bill that would have prevented the Pentagon from moving ahead with a plan for a new personnel system aimed at streamlining civil service rules and revamping union bargaining rights. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged rewriting of the department's personnel rules arguing that managers needed more freedom over the pay, discipline and deployment of civilian workers in fighting the war on terrorism. Yet the Bush Administration’s own director of the Office of Personnel Management skewered the plan, warning that it diminishes hiring preferences and other protections for veterans and may go too far in replacing collective bargaining with union consultation. The amendment to stop the plan failed 202-218. [HR 4613, Vote #283, 6/22/04; Washington Post, 6/23/04; Washington Post, 5/17/04] Tom Allen Opposed Bush’s Ability to Deny Homeland Security Employees Right to Unionize. In 2002, Tom Allen voted to give employees the right to unionize if they were included in new homeland security proposal. According to the AFL-CIO, “As part of his homeland security proposal, President George W. Bush insisted on the right to deny collective bargaining rights to the workers slated to become part of the new government department. He threatened to veto any legislation that protected the workers’ current right to unionize. The House passed an amendment to the bill that would expand presidential power to deny employees the right to unionize.” [HR 5005, Vote #358, 7/26/02; 2002 AFL-CIO Scorecard] Tom Allen Voted Against Legislation That Would Allow Employers To Fire Those Who Sought Union Representation. In 1998, Tom Allen voted against legislation that would allow employers to refuse to hire, or fire, those who sought employment to organize workers to join a union. [HR 3246, Vote #78, 3/26/98]

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Employee Free Choice Act and the real Union Thugs

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Publish Post

The employee free choice act is the subject of a series of slick vicious lying ads.

The real problem is not the lies; the problem is that they are so well done that voters that are not familiar with the E.F.C.A. could be taken in by the lies.

The current ad makes a point of showing a “union thug” scaring an old lady into signing a card check form. Union thugs are going to be forcing other workers into signing these forms. I work with a lot of Union members many of whom are women over sixty years old. Many of these women are active in the Union as stewards and as organizers and have been involved it many organizing campaigns so it is only logical to think that they will be at the front lines when it comes to bringing the truth to unorganized workers.

I started trying to picture how this would play out in an attempt to organize a group of truck drivers or loggers.

Is this what the well paid out of state money is trying to tell us to be afraid of? Granny black belt?

This is the first of a series of short articles on the E.F.C.A.

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