Rally at Circuit City puts spotlight on Coleman

What do the Circuit City retail chain and U.S. Senator Norm Coleman have in common? They both are undermining the American dream, participants at a rally said.

Led by national AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff, union members and supporters demonstrated Monday (May 7) outside the Roseville Circuit City store, where 11 employees lost their jobs. They were among 3,400 store employees nationwide that Circuit City fired on March 28, saying their pay was too high. Some were offered the opportunity to re-apply for their jobs at a lower wage.

The fired workers — who don’t have a union — earned about $12 an hour – hardly a princely sum, Acuff said. Their replacements are earning $7.50. Meanwhile, all of Circuit City’s top executives make more than $3 million a year, including President and CEO Philip Schoonover, whose latest compensation package topped $7.5 million.

“Something is terribly wrong. The middle class is being squeezed,” Acuff said. “Workers are everyday being forced out of the middle class. Workers everyday are having outrages like this forced on them . . . The way to change that is through the Employee Free Choice Act.”

That’s where Coleman comes in. The Minnesota Republican, finishing his first term, could be the pivotal vote on the Employee Free Choice Act when it goes to the Senate floor in June. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the legislation in March. President Bush has threatened a veto. So far, Coleman has said he is not in favor of the measure.

The Employee Free Choice Act would be the first major improvement of national labor law since 1935, when Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act to provide most private sector workers with the right to a union. In recent decades, that right has eroded as employers have routinely violated the law by illegally firing or disciplining workers who try to organize.

As workers’ rights have eroded, so has the American middle class, Acuff said. The Employee Free Choice Act would restore some power to working families by making it easier for workers to form unions and negotiate first contracts and increasing penalties on companies that break the law.

“It’s not just a question of rebuilding the labor movement, it’s about what kind of future we will have,” said Acuff.

Matt Gladue, director of the Workers Interfaith Network, said the decline of the middle class “is a problem for the religious community” as churches strain to help the growing number of needy families through food shelves and other services.

“We’re going to go out and talk to the religious community about this issue,” he said.

Unions said they plan to step up efforts to reach Coleman in the next six weeks. Already, his office has been flooded with postcards and the switchboard tied up by phone calls. Union members practiced their chant in front of the Circuit City store: “Norm Coleman – do the right thing!”

For more information
Visit the AFL-CIO webpage on the Employee Free Choice Act: http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/