WASHINGTON, DC— American Rights at Work Executive Director Kimberly Freeman Brown released the following statement regarding the president’s remarks in his State of the Union address:

"Tonight, President Obama rightly focused on the need to create good jobs and help the middle class.  The Employee Free Choice Act remains a key component to achieving the president’s goals.  

Strengthening a worker’s right to join a union is essential to creating good jobs – jobs that provide the pay, healthcare benefits, and pensions that enable people to join or stay in the middle class.  The Employee Free Choice Act will help America’s working families improve their standard of living by protecting their choice to form a union.

The bill is one of the best steps Congress can take to help jump-start our struggling economy.  Even small increases in wages would put more money in consumers’ pockets and pump billions of dollars into the economy, and workers standing together in unions can help make that happen.

The Employee Free Choice Act also fits with the president’s goal of fiscal responsibility. The measure would help rebuild the middle class, without raising taxes or adding to the nation’s debt.

We applaud the White House for consistently making labor law reform a priority and for the support from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis who again called for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act last week.  The Obama administration understands labor law reform is a crucial solution to the economic anxieties that are deeply felt by Americans at this time.  

But action must begin in the halls of Congress. Voters have made it clear that they are no longer willing to wait for real results. The American public is frustrated with the lack of progress by Congress in delivering change, fairness, accountability, and a level playing field. Our leaders in Washington must move quickly to pass meaningful labor law reform and finally usher in solutions to rebuild the middle class and solve our nation’s jobs crisis."