Worker Voices Ring Out at Capitol

Kelly Beringer, a registered nurse at West Suburban Hospital in Chicago, had come a long way since having to meet clandestinely in a closet with colleagues worried about being seen with “the troublemaker” who was organizing her fellow nurses. Tuesday afternoon she was front and center at a packed forum on Capitol Hill as part of the 2-day “Going Global” organizing conference that began on Monday. An impressive roster of Congressional leaders attended the forum – attended by the media and hundreds of organizing conference attendees -- including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Edward Kennedy, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Also testifying was vet John Lindner, a field technician at Verizon Business in New York City. After “an overwhelming majority of us signed union cards to join the CWA and the IBEW” last March, Lindner testified that instead of recognizing the union, Verizon subjected workers “to one-on-one meetings with our supervisors trying to intimidate us, mandatory meetings where the bosses try to convince us not to be for the union, and complete disrespect for our right to choose a union voice on the job.” Beringer and Lynch were part of several panels of workers and labor leaders from around the world who testified about what happens when workers try to organize. “I have served several tours of duty in both Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Lindner. “My country called me to serve, telling me that I had to fight to protect freedom here in the U.S. Imagine the irony of returning home, and telling me that my freedom to join a union is being denied.” While the content of the testimony was as might be expected – workers want to organize, companies and countries fare better when they do, and employers relentlessly (and often illegally) oppose these efforts – the pomp of a Congressional forum in the marble and oak-paneled Senate hearing rooms lent a new weight and urgency to the issues raised. The Going Global conference was organized by the Council of Global Unions and hosted by the AFL-CIO. Registered Nurse Kelly Beringer (standing), Verizon tech John Lindner (seated, right), & Victor Baez, General Secretary, Organizacion Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores. Photo by Bill Burke/Page One