DEMOCRATS DELIVER FOR AMERICAN WORKING MEN AND WOMEN-- EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT PASSES THE HOUSE

On Thursday 13 Republicans abandoned their reactionary leaders and joined all but 2 Democrats-- anti-Labor/business whores Boren (OK) and Taylor (MS)-- to pass George Miller's Employee Free Choice Act, H.R. 800 by a healthy margin of 241 to 185.

The immense hatred of working Americans the Republicans harbor was demonstrated by a last ditch effort in the House to kill the bill, by McConnell's vow to derail the bill in the Senate and by a Bush threat to veto the law if it gets through the Senate. George Miller was on fire when he slapped down the Republicans for trying to kill this bill.

I don't know, maybe you have been doing business so long where you have been paying back your supporters, you think that's the way everybody does business. And that's why you've got people heading down toward the courthouse and that's why you lost your leadership because they were paying back their supporters. Now, I know it's hard to change your stripes. Some of you may be wearing stripes. The fact of the matter is that's not the way we do business, ladies and gentlemen. But that's your language and that's your habit and that's the way you ran the congress. It was pay to play. Pay to play.

 
In short, the bill eases union organizing efforts that had been guaranteed by law until the laws were amended by Republicans at the behest of the powerful business interests that have, simply put, bought them. The Republican rear action fight was led by arch-reactionary Buck McKeon (R-CA), one of the most anti-worker Republicans in the whole Congress. He was as unsuccessful in his attempts to sabotage this bill as he was in trying to sabotage the bill to allow for more needy students to get help in financing college educations. The need to defeat Republican senators and to elect a Democratic president become clearer by the day. Even at their worst, the Democrats are overwhelmingly better than the Republicans in every way that matters for ordinary Americans.