Bringing The Battle For Free Choice To Boss HQ

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Chanting “Employ free choice, without it no voice,” hundreds of workers joined labor allies and community groups from across the country yesterday at a spirited rally outside the US Chamber of Commerce headquarters in downtown Washington. “This rally is about the freedom to choose,” Fredo Serrano (l) - a registered nurse from Las Vegas - told Union City. “Without a union, we saw our benefits being chipped away at little by little until we had nothing left,” Serrano said, adding that the Employee Free Choice Act “is about fairness and justice for all Americans, not just the small few at the top. It’s time to take care of America’s future, by protecting workers and allowing them the right to organize if they so choose.” Recent reports indicate that major employer groups - including the Chamber of Commerce and associations for the restaurant, hotel, manufacturing, retail and financial industries – last year alone spent a combined $138 million on federal lobbying to fight increases in the minimum wage and push for restrictions on family and medical leave. - report/photo by Adam Wright