A Message from President Rick Icaza

It's all Connected

This is an important year for Union members.

Not only do we have many of our contracts coming up for negotiation, but it is also an election year -- and therefore a reminder of how closely our wages, benefits and fortunes are linked to the occupants of every level of office from the Oval office to the City Council chamber.

How does it all connect? You can see the fruits of our political involvement at the State and local level in overtime after eight hours, family and medical leave, and many other laws. But there is a more pressing example: our current negotiations and the pending Employee Free Choice Act.

Our contracts with Rite-Aid and CVS drug stores expire in July. One of the problems we face in negotiations like these is that portions of the store employees are not unionized. This is often the result of the employers purchasing smaller, non-union stores that are re-branded, and then actively engaging in anti-union campaigns to prevent workers from joining our union.

The more members we have, the more strength we have at the bargaining table. If all the workers don't -- or in this case, can't -- stand together in negotiations, we aren't as strong as we could be.

Because of our efforts in the political arena, we've managed to elect a Congress and Senate that understand this, and other needs of working families. That's why they have introduced and will pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Employee Free Choice Act would make it much easier for workers to gain union representation in their workplace. It is a fair, common-sense law that favors working families over CEOs.

But one final hurdle remains to this common-sense reform. A pro-business, anti-working family President. President Bush has indicated that he intends to veto this law, and we can expect the same from Republican John McCain.

That's why we need to work hard to send Barack Obama, a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, to the White House in November.

Then, with majorities in the Congress and a pro-working family Democrat in the White House, we can reform these anti-worker laws, organize our brothers and sisters currently denied representation, and negotiate from a position of unity and strength.

It is all connected. Voting, wages, benefits and working conditions. If you want to guarantee our strength to fight for your wages, it is simple: Get Out and Vote.