Hoffa: Stop False Ads About Employee Free Choice Now!

Teamsters President Urges Local TV Stations To Pull Commercials

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today said that anti-union commercials running on local television stations are false and should be taken down.

Anti-worker groups funded by big corporations are spreading misinformation about the Employee Free Choice Act, which is expected to be introduced in Congress soon.

A corporate front group called the “Employee Freedom Action Committee” paid for blatantly false television commercials in Arkansas, Nebraska and North Dakota.

“These ads are dishonest and should be taken down now,” Hoffa said. “It does not serve the public interest to run commercials that lie about legislation important to working families. These ads are funded by big corporations that don’t care about employee freedom, they just care that their employees don’t join unions.”

The ads state, incorrectly, that the Employee Free Choice Act will force workers to pay union dues. Nebraska, Arkansas and North Dakota are right-to-work states, where it is illegal to deny a job to people who refuse to pay union dues. Nothing in the Employee Free Choice Act changes that.

Television stations licensed by the Federal Communications Commission are obliged to act with reasonable care to make sure advertisements are not false and misleading.

The commercials are running in Ft. Smith, Little Rock and Jonesboro, Ark.; Omaha and Lincoln, Neb.; and Fargo and Minot, N.D.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters