TRNN Video: The Fight for a New Union Law

Washington, DC, July 13, 2009 --(PR.com)-- In the latest video with Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers' Union, Gerard lays down the basics of a successful Obama Presidency. Gerard tells TRNN Senior Editor Paul Jay that President Barack Obama's measure of success in the White House will be partly determined by the outcomes of two issues: health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.

"At this point, I believe in [Obama]. I trust his values, but I'm also a combination of sympathetic and nervous," Gerard tells TRNN. "I don't think there is a president in the history of this country in the last 150 years since Abraham Lincoln that has inherited as big a mess as [Obama] has inherited. Every single piece of the economic equation is broken, so I understand that turmoil."

"I also understand that on two fundamental issues, this President will be judged. One of them is, did he fight for the Employee Free Choice Act? Because the labour movement and the working class all across [the board] fought for him to become President," Gerard says. "They want the right to form a union. And the other thing that will be a factor in his next election, and the election of the Democratic party, will be quality of health care reform. I think at some point he is going to have spend political capital on those [issues]."

At a town hall meeting on May 14, 2009, President Obama stated that he was in support of the EFCA. "I think what we have to do is find ways in which the core ideas of the Employee Free Choice Act is preserved, which is how do we make it easier for people who want to form a union to at least vote and have an even playing field? How do we do that and at the same time have enough votes to pass the bill? That's what we are working on right now," Obama said.

Gerard reiterated that President Obama originally campaigned on a platform supporting union and workers' rights. "The leadership are with us. The leadership have been very supportive. In fact, during the campaign, President Obama make it very clear that the choice to choose the union was the worker's right, and that collective bargaining is part of democracy."

Gerard tells TRNN that the Democratic party has been slow to respond to the negative and distorted publicity that the EFCA has been receiving in the media. "When it comes to the Employee Free Choice Act, one of my huge disappointments, is that once again the Republicans mis-characterized the legislation, and Democrats were too slow off the mark to break the myth. And they ran with the myth that the Employee Free Choice Act somehow diminishes someone's right to a secret ballot vote, which is the absolute unmitigated lie of that piece of legislation."

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