Justice For Workers
Freedom from Intimidation
Today, employers can force workers to attend meetings to listen to political, religious, and anti-union lectures – and fire those who refuse. There is no law against this intimidation and coercion.
ATU Supports:
The Worker Freedom From Employer Intimidation Act, which would give employees the ability to walk away from political or religious indoctrination – and bar employers from firing or disciplining workers who choose not to attend or report unlawful “captive” meetings.
Health Care Coverage Provided by Companies, not State Governments
Since 2000, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen by 6 million, to 45.8 million. Surging costs have prompted employers to drop benefits or require that workers pay more. But while employers’ costs rose by nearly 10% in the last year, workers’ contributions for health costs have almost doubled since 2002.
Our healthcare system is broken, and big companies like Wal-Mart are profiting at taxpayers’ expense. In fact, many employees at certain companies are paid such low wages that they qualify for government programs for the poor and near poor, which means that taxpayers are picking up the cost of health care coverage instead of the employer.
Legislation is needed to prevent large employers from shifting their costs onto workers, taxpayers and other businesses.
ATU SUPPORTS:
1) 1) The Fair Share Health Care Fund Act, which requires large corporations to spend the same per- centage of their payroll to provide health care benefits for their employees as the average large employer in the state, or pay the difference into a state Fair Share Health Care Fund; and
2) The Health Care Disclosure Act, which will allow states to determine which employers are shift- ing their responsibility to provide health care coverage for their employees onto state taxpayers. | 
