Jacksonville, FL – On May 17, 150 union members from around north Florida and southern Georgia gathered outside the Hyatt Regency Riverfront Hotel here to expose a top-secret meeting of CUE – the Committee for a Union-Free Environment. Corporate bosses are trying to stop the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) from passing in Congress, an event that one union buster referred to as “Armageddon.” Unions like the Teamsters, Boilermakers, Electricians, Metalworkers, Carpenters, Plumbers and community and student supporters attended.

After a march through downtown Jacksonville, the workers and their families crowded around the entrance to the Hyatt Regency, demanding that the union busters come out and face people they were trying to suppress. The demonstrators had come to Jacksonville to support the Employee Free Choice Act. The protest exposed the secret anti-union meeting for what it really was: A disgusting example of how corporate America's interests are in stark opposition to the interests of the majority.

Local press arrived on the scene to film and interview the workers’ disruption of the secret meeting. Dustin Ponder, recently fired for organizing a union at a restaurant in Gainesville, asked one of the union busters, “Have your kids ever had to work a minimum wage job?” The union buster was speechless.

The rally succeeded in exposing the otherwise hidden agenda of the corporate big shots attending the meeting and was met by the employees of the non-union Hyatt Regency with enthusiastic fists in the air and shouts of solidarity. It was clear that they, too, wanted the right to organize for better wages, health care, paid vacations and dignity at work. As participant Ben Dictor of Gainesville told the corporate fat cats, “We teach your children, we cook your food, we build your houses and we'll dig your graves.”

#JacksonvilleFL #News #EFCA #EmployeeFreeChoiceAct #CommitteeForAUnionFreeEnvironment

Milwaukee, WI – Angry labor unionists and their supporters protested here, May 19, against Republican hit man Karl Rove. The conservative lobbying group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) invited former Bush aide Karl Rove to speak against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). EFCA promises to make it easier for workers to form unions with less interference and dirty tricks from bosses. Unions and workers are demanding this new amendment to the National Labor Relations Act that will make forming a union a simple democratic choice.

The Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce conference was closed to the public and the press, but 150 workers showed up at 8:00 a.m. outside to make their voices heard. Workers held signs in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act and chanted, “What do we want? Free Choice! When do we want it? Now!” The bosses at the WMC would not speak to the media, but passed out literature that opposed the EFCA.

The Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce is also opposing a measure that would make Milwaukee the third U.S. city to win paid sick days. The paid sick days ballot initiative passed in November with an astounding 69% mandate and would give all workers in Milwaukee nine paid sick days each year, a huge victory for all workers.

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