New Orleans, LA
When working people, their unions and their communities join together in public forums to share their goals and hopes for a voice at work, their efforts are strengthened.
Time and time again, workers have shown they can overcome employer hostility when the public gets involved and urges a free choice about joining a union. Broad public support helps embolden co-workers to fight for the freedom to join a union.
During 7 Days in June in 1999, 15,000 people across 38 states spoke out for the freedom to choose a union in hearings, forums, rallies and outreach to the news media. At events around the nation, working people spoke a common theme: to have a voice at work means higher living standards, stronger communities and better products and services.
Making the freedom to choose a union a public issue works: coast to coast, many workers' organizing efforts were strengthened, new unions were formed and employer hostility was often reduced or its effects muted.
7 Days in June this year will be bigger and better, with Executive Council members joining events around the country.
As workers educate and inform the public, we lay the foundation for changing the rules—community norms and labor laws—so they protect the freedom to choose a union. The AFL-CIO urges all unions, central labor councils and state labor federations to engage leaders in their communities around workers' freedom to choose a union every day, and to make a special public outreach from June 10-17—this year's dates for 7 Days in June.