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Montana military veterans visited Senate offices in Missoula, Billings and Great Falls over the past week, encouraging Sen. Jon Tester to support the Employee Free Choice Act, a critical bill to restore the freedom to form unions and bargain. And veterans from Alaska to Maine are joining this important fight.
Their actions are all part of a nationwide grassroots campaign focused on giving workers a choice in how they form unions, ending widespread intimidation and firing of workers who are seeking to form unions, and making sure that workers who choose a union can get a fair first contract.
Dorsey Roland, a U.S. Army veteran and member of Letter Carriers (NALC) Local 4319, wrote a new op-ed published in the Anchorage Daily News describing why veterans are getting involved with the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act. Roland says the bill is about fairness for workers, accountability for corporations and an economy that works for everyone:
According to a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs, 18 percent of veterans recently back from tours of duty are unemployed. And of those who are employed, 25 percent earn less than $21,840 a year. That is wrong. Veterans have sacrificed too much to be left in the cold.
These negative trends are the result of corporate America’s assault on working people. Corporations have actively eroded the freedom of workers to form unions and bargain together with their companies for fair wages, better benefits and job security. This fleecing of America cannot continue unchecked.
When workers try to form unions, employers routinely harass, intimidate and even fire them. Unless we restore the ability of working people to have a voice on the job and to bargain for fair wages and better benefits, the middle class will continue to shrink.
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