June 11, 2009 12:10 AM UTC

Colorado Businesses Pledge Support for Employee Free Choice Act

•  
• by: ranr

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

“This isn’t an either/or proposition between the interests of workers and the interests of shareholders.  That’s the old argument.  The new argument is that the American economy is not and has never been a zero-sum game.  When workers are prospering, they buy products that make businesses prosper.”

— President Barack Obama, Jan. 30, 2009

Today, more than 150 small businesses released a “directory” featuring businesses that support the Employee Free Choice Act.

“It’s time our economy worked for everyone again,” said Terri Monley, owner of Gate City Moving in Denver. “We have a fundamental economic problem: The middle class is disappearing in America. Congress needs to pass the Employee Free Choice Act because it is one of the most important steps we can take to strengthen our middle class and turn our economy around.”

“As a business owner, I believe that workers should have the freedom to bargain with employees for good wages, health care and the opportunity to retire with dignity,” said Diana Ortiz, owner of Colorado-based Ortiz Enterprises, LLC, and advisory committee member of Business Leaders for a Fair Economy, a national group of more than 1,000 businesses who have come together to support the Employee Free Choice Act. “Better wages mean that the whole community has more money to spend and to build our economy.” Ortiz’s business was recently named “Small Business of the Decade” by the Pueblo Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The facts speak for themselves: when workers can unite for a voice on the job, they make one-third more in wages and are 52 percent more likely to have health care. More people, with more money, invariably support small businesses. In this economic crisis, we have a duty to support entrepreneurs and start-up companies in building sustainable, long-term successful businesses, rather than being forced to compete against irresponsible companies in an unwinnable, low-wage race to the bottom. Nearly 40 leading American economists, including Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Kenneth Arrow, have issued a joint statement calling for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act as a critical step towards rebuilding our economy.