CEOs, corporate lobbyists and their anti-worker allies are terrified of losing their total control in the workplace. They're afraid that if workers have the freedom to bargain, they'll be able to get a fair share of the prosperity they've created--health care, pensions and fair wages. Their panic is showing in the overheated rhetoric they use to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act. Here are just a few of the highlights:
“I believe that the Employee 'Forced' Choice Act is the greatest threat to the workplace in American history.”
—Former Rep. Newt Gingrich
Reported in The Hill, April 9, 2009
“I am appalled...I will not rest until this bill is dead.”
—U.S. Sen. John Ensign
Quoted in The Hill, March 10, 2009
“This bill is a mortal threat to American freedom and we will never forgive somebody who votes for cloture or for passage.”
—Former Rep. Newt Gingrich
Speaking at Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 27, 2009
The battle over Employee Free Choice will be “a firestorm bordering on Armageddon.”
—Randel Johnson, vice president, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 29, 2008
“This is the demise of a civilization…if a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election…he should be shot.”
—Bernie Marcus, former CEO of Home Depot
Quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 18, 2008
“It changes the balance of power that is struck in labor law.”
—Richard Berman, on the Employee Free Choice Act
The Washington Post, Oct. 18, 2008
“We’re going to crush labor as a political entity.”
—Grover Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform
Reason Magazine, February 1997
“It would completely change the economics of union organizing.”
—U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue on the Employee Free Choice Act
Remarks delivered to Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, July 21, 2008
“We like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.”
—Lee Scott, former CEO of Wal-Mart
BusinessWeek, Nov. 5, 2008
The Employee Free Choice Act is “the road to poverty” and would “quickly put our American way of life at risk.”
—Gary Shapiro, president, Consumer Electronics Association
