The United Steelworkers union (USW) gathered on Capitol Hill late last week to lobby Congress in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, for government-run health care, and against unfair trade treaties.
USW's Rapid Response legislative conference was a three-day event which featured speeches from several lawmakers as well as an outdoor pep rally. A major concern of the USW discussed at the conference is the Employee Free Choice Act or HR 800, which was passed by the House on March 1 but faces the threats of a Senate GOP filibuster and a promised veto from President Bush.
HR 800 is a pro-union bill which legalizes card-check recognition of unions after verification that they received signed election authorization cards from a majority of workers in the unit they target in organizing drives. It also increases the penalties for labor law-breaking to $20,000 per violation in addition to triple back pay for injured workers, mandate mediation, and arbitration if the two sides can't reach a first contract within 120 days.
The USW also supports HR 676, the single-payer government-run universal health care bill, which would build on Medicare and extend it to all. The bill, written by veteran Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), would also eliminate private insurance companies and their overhead costs, which speakers said range up to 40 percent of total health care spending. Before the pep rally, USW leaders attended a congressional hearing on this subject.
Speakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also condemned what many consider unfair trade practices carried out by the Bush administration. Of particular concern, Mr. Bush wants to push through trade pacts with Colombia, Peru, Panama and Korea and renew his "fast track" authority, which expires June 30, to bargain such pacts, without worker rights.
Sen. Sanders told the rally attendees, "Some of my colleagues up there"--gesturing to the Capitol behind him-- "talk moral values and family values. But it is not a moral value or a family value to shut a plant and move to China, where they (workers) make 30 cents an hour."