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AFL-CIO urges Coleman to condemn anti-worker advertising
“The Sopranos” run on HBO ended a year ago, but mobster Johnny Sacramoni appeared on Minnesota television recently in anti-union ads paid for by the business-backed “Coalition for a Democratic Workplace.”
The Minnesota AFL-CIO has called on U.S. Senator Norm Coleman to denounce the ad and its attack on the Employee Free Choice Act, federal legislation that would make it easier for workers to form unions.
In the ad, actor Vince Curatola from “The Sopranos” is cast in character as a mob boss who criticizes Coleman for opposing the Employee Free Choice Act and then praises “my pal Al,” U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, who is running against Coleman.
“We condemn these ads,” said Steve Hunter, secretary-treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, speaking at a news conference Tuesday at the State Capitol. “We find these ads clearly wrong and furthermore they are demeaning to workers and to their unions and to our fellow union member, Al Franken.”
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Hunter added that the ad stirs up tired stereotypes of union leaders as union bosses linked to organized crime. “Somehow they’re trying to tie Al Franken to negative stereotypes of union leaders,” Hunter said.
(The Minnesota AFL-CIO has endorsed Franken in the U.S. Senate race).
The announcer in the ad states that “Norm Coleman says keep the secret ballot for union organizing elections” while adding that “Franken says eliminate the secret ballot for workers.”
But, Hunter said, the message in the ad is “deceptive and inaccurate” and a false characterization of the Employee Free Choice Act, which Coleman opposes and Franken supports.
Since 1935, Hunter explained, federal law has provided two routes to union recognition: when a majority of workers in a workplace sign union authorization cards or when a majority of workers vote for union representation in an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.
Under current law, however, the employer can refuse to recognize the signed authorization cards. Instead, the employer can insist on an NLRB election. Then, “they use the election process to intimidate employees,” Hunter noted. “We don’t think that’s a fair and democratic way to have an election.”
The proposed Employee Free Choice Act gives workers, not employers, the choice to decide whether union authorization cards or an NLRB election determine union recognition, Hunter said. The legislation would recognize a union if a simple majority of workers in the workplace sign union authorization cards. Hunter emphasized that the legislation does not eliminate secret ballot elections: an NLRB election would take place if 30 percent of the workers in the workplace requested an election.
“The sad fact is that Senator Coleman understands this,” Hunter said. “We ask him to condemn the ads.”
Commenting on the ad’s use of a character from the Sopranos, a reporter asked Hunter, “do you find anything humorous here?”
Hunter replied: “I don’t find it humorous when you talk about workers’ rights.”
Hunter’s request to Coleman: “I would ask the Senator to say ‘thanks but no thanks’ [to the group paying for the ad] and ask them to take the ad off the air.”
Similar ads have appeared in other states with close U.S. Senate races, Hunter said.
Comments
Coleman's Sopranos ad is reason to eliminate him in GOP Primary
This Norm Coleman ad Soprano’s political advertisement stirs up tired stereotypes of union leaders as union bosses linked to organized crime. “Somehow they’re trying to tie Al Franken to negative stereotypes of union leaders”
Norm Coleman’s insult of the Minnesota Worker like this can not be accepted and that he always votes with industries who donate heavily to his re-election regardless of how detrimental it is to the working families back in Minnesota!
I urge every union worker, your friends and family to in the Sept. 9, 2008 GOP Senate Primary to vote for Jack Shepard just as a tool to eliminate Norm Coleman and his $15,000,000 in donations from Big Business which will enable him to literally buy his re-election by producing hundreds of political advertisement which are misleading and distorts the facts about Al Franken:
We can remove Norm Coleman from the Minnesota U.S. Senate Race by voting for Jack Shepard in the GOP Primary on Sept. 9, 2008 so Al Franken is guaranteed of getting elected our next U.S. Senator in the General election with Norm Coleman’s name on the ballot!
Al Franken who will support the workers of Minnesota who are struggling in these hard economic times, who Norm Coleman compares to the Mafia Mob bosses.
"Employee Free Choice"
The Employee Free Choice Act is just a way for dying unions to extort money from poor working people. They would go to a business and and then intimidate people into signing union cards. Unions don’t have anybodys interest in mind but their own. I was forced to join a union when I got a job at the airport. Over the nine months I worked there they stole $500 from me in dues. About eight months into the job I was told the position I was working in was being eliminated I asked my boss if I needed to look for a new job. He said no they had work for me. When the position was eliminated they just let me go no notice or anything. They then hired new employees to fill the other positions. I went to the union and they just said too bad. They didn’t care because they had more initiation dues to collect. Unions are useless and anyone that joins one is a moron.
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