Nationwide - March 26 - Across the country, working people are ramping up their grassroots efforts to show the importance of passing the Employee Free Choice Act for a balanced economic recovery. Over the next few weeks, thousands of workers will participate in dozens of rallies, letter writing parties, roundtables, and other events to show their outrage against our corporate-dominated economy and the broad public support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Grassroots activists will be talking to their communities and their Representatives through letters, phone calls, and emails communicating the importance of passing the Employee Free Choice Act in states from California to Maine, Florida to Alaska. In Pennsylvania, workers are calling and writing Sen. Specter to ask why he turned his back on working people; they are gathering to greet him with their questions when he arrives home from Washington this week.

In the coming days, workers will gather in public meeting places and town squares to express outrage at corporations for creating the house-of-cards economy and calling for an economy that works for everyone through health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Next week, union members will hold roundtables with small business owners, showing that many small businesses recognize that workers’ freedom to bargain means stronger communities and consumers. Owners will discuss the corporate campaign and their opposition to the campaign being waged.

“My business is a family shop. We all work together because if the business is successful, then the employees are very successful, said Jim O’Malley, owner of Print & Copy Center in Pittsburgh, Penn. “We have common goals that we work towards.”

“At this moment, our economy urgently needs for workers to regain the freedom to bargain with their employers,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Working people across the country are joining with community members to call on passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, vital legislation that will restore workers’ freedom to form and join unions and bargain for fair wages and better benefits without intimidation.”

Religious, civil rights, and women’s groups will also continue to join union members in calling for the Employee Free Choice Act, pointing out that when women and people of color are in unions, they earn better wages and benefits and are much less likely to experience discrimination.

The actions lead up to the two weeks of Congressional recess, where workers and community members will meet with Representatives and deliver hand-written cards showing support for this vital legislation.