Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. Chairman, I, too, want to thank Chairman Cole for the good effort on this piece of legislation.

I rise to offer an amendment to H.R. 3354 that would block the NLRB from enforcing the extreme and partisan ambush election rule. Under the ambush election rule, workers are being rushed into union elections before they have the opportunity to consider all the consequences.

According to one report, since the ambush election rule took effect, union elections have been organized 38 percent faster. Before this rule took effect, the union election process typically took 38 days. Now, workers may have as few as 11 days to consider whether joining a union is the best decision for themselves. Eleven days is simply not enough time for workers to make an important decision that impacts their job and their paycheck.

In addition to speeding up the process, the NLRB's rule greatly limits an employer's ability to communicate with its employees through the pre-election hearing process.

To make matters worse, employers have as little as 7 days to find legal counsel and appear before an NLRB election officer--7 days. This is a taxing time constraint, especially on small businesses with limited resources and a lawyer team that is nonexistent.

But workers are the ones who are really hurt the most. As a former union worker myself, I respect the right of workers to join a union, but they deserve a real choice in the matter and the opportunity to hear from both sides of the debate. At the very least, they deserve privacy as they come to their decision, but this rule forces employers to hand over their employees' personal information, including phone numbers, work schedules, home addresses, e-mail addresses, and work locations.

The NLRB should ensure fair and transparent elections. Instead, the board implemented a rule chilling employer free speech and restricting the rights of workers.

By adopting this amendment to block the ambush election rule, we can restore the rights of workers and employers in union elections.

I would note that there is still more to be done beyond blocking funding of this extreme rule. The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act, which I introduced earlier this year, would amend Federal law to ensure union elections are fair and prevent similar NLRB overreach in the future.

This commonsense bill was approved by the Education and the Workforce Committee, and it is my hope that it will come up for a vote in the House, but today we have an opportunity to take a first step toward putting an end to this radical scheme once and for all.

Mr. Chair, I urge all Members to support this amendment, as well as the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source