Subject: No Room on the Fence

From: Tom Vilsack <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 17:17:34 -0400

Dear David,

I wanted to make sure you saw David Broder's column on the
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).  The entire column is
included below for you to read, but first I want to
underscore the importance of this issue, and the attention
it has received.

The EFCA will ensure American workers can unionize if they
want, and it's our responsibility to make sure it passes
Congress. This past Wednesday, I joined leaders from the
labor movement and the Democratic Leadership Council to
express our unified support for the legislation.  It wasn't
your typical publicity event; it represented the mutual
commitment from two major segments of the Democratic Party
that have had their share of differences in the past.

The EFCA will modernize our laws to give all our workers the
tools to succeed and prosper in the global economy.  But
more than that, it will foster a sense of security that
nothing but a steady, quality job can offer.

I meet hard-working people every day who feel increasingly
uneasy in the face of pension insecurity, rising energy
costs and the need for affordable healthcare.  Even worse,
too many feel that they must face these fears alone.

Unions offer a way for working families to find strength -
and hope - in numbers.  We owe it to our hardest working
friends and neighbors to make sure they can join together in
the workplace if they choose.

The EFCA is only a few votes short in Congress, and that's
why any attention it gets now is crucial.  There's no room
on the fence anymore; the well-being of America's working
families is a stake.

Thank you for taking the time to help with this important
legislation.

Best,

Tom Vilsack

PS:  Here is David Broder's Washington Post column, if you
are interested in reading it or forwarding it to your
friends:

Vilsack's Labors For Unity

By David S. Broder Sunday, September 10, 2006; B07

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801663_pf.html

The anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, and President Bush's
speeches on his anti-terrorism strategy have placed the
issue of personal security in the public eye. Iowa Gov. Tom
Vilsack, a Democrat, offered a different perspective on the
question during a visit to Washington last week.

Vilsack said that the people he met on his just-completed
annual walk across Iowa voiced concerns about security that
were directly linked "to a feeling that they are in this
alone," trying to cope by themselves with forces larger than
they can manage.

It is not that Americans have lost their self-reliance, he
said, or their willingness to help their neighbors. But the
bigger institutions on which they once thought they could
rely -- the government, their employers, their unions -- are
now either unreliable or entirely absent. When federal,
state and local officials left the victims of Hurricane
Katrina stranded in their flooded homes for days, it
symbolized a fundamental breach of trust. When giants such
as General Motors and Ford laid off thousands of workers
while other companies walked away from the pensions they had
promised retirees, it removed another prop to confidence.
And when unions increasingly lost their ability to organize
and represent workers, the sense of isolation became even
stronger.

All that leads Vilsack to the conclusion that the key to
rebuilding national confidence and a sense of security lies
as much within the nation and its economy as it does in
stabilizing Iraq or in devising new safeguards against
international terrorism.

That conviction underlies the rather surprising press event
Vilsack orchestrated one day last week in his role as
chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. He
brought together traditional antagonists in intraparty
battles: the leaders of the DLC, the longtime home of the
Clintons and other Democratic moderates, and the leaders of
organized labor. On stage with Vilsack were Al From, the
combative DLC chief executive, and Jerry McEntee, the
equally tempestuous president of the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees, plus John Sweeney,
the president of the AFL-CIO, and Anna Burger, the head of
Change to Win, the coalition of unions that broke away from
the AFL-CIO last year.

It was remarkable enough to see the feuding labor people
together, but adding From was really tempting fate. He is an
outspoken advocate of open-trade policies that are anathema
to much of labor and has argued fervently for years that
Democrats should not be beholden to their union allies. In
turn, union leaders have viewed the DLC as a front for
crypto-Republican, pro-business policies.

When Vilsack became chairman of the DLC last year, it raised
eyebrows because unions have been a backbone of his support
in Iowa. But he said he wanted to try to heal the breach,
and he quickly began a series of private conversations with
labor leaders, followed by joint sessions of DLC staffers
and union operatives.

The upshot was the news conference, where the DLC formally
endorsed a bill called the Employee Free Choice Act that is
high on labor's wish list.

The legislation, which enjoys broad support from
congressional Democrats, would require employers to
recognize and bargain immediately with any union once a
majority of employees have signed certifiable cards
requesting union representation. Now, after the cards are
presented, employers can demand a formal secret-ballot
election before granting such recognition, and union
spokesmen claim that intimidation and threats often cost
them certification. Last year, Sweeney said, only 70,000
workers were able to form unions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce dismissed the intimidation
charges when I called but readily acknowledged it is
fighting the legislation -- ostensibly because secret-ballot
elections are necessary to protect workers' choices.

The DLC endorsement is just symbolic; most DLC adherents in
Congress already are listed as co-sponsors. But all the news
conference participants credited Vilsack for bringing the
two sides together, and they said the dialogue will continue
in coming months.

It has a double significance. For Vilsack, a long-shot
candidate for the 2008 presidential nomination, it is the
strongest proof of his ability to be a successful power
broker.

And for the Democrats, it holds important potential. For
most of the past decade, the DLC and its adherents have
supplied the best policy thinking for the party while the
labor movement has supplied most of the grass-roots
organization and effort.

For the first time, you can see mind and muscle working
together, a healthy development for the Democrats.

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