Providing for Congressional Disapproval of a Rule Submitted by the National Labor Relations Board

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to support S.J. Res.
8. I thank my friend and colleague from Tennessee for bringing the
resolution to the floor to disapprove the rule that the National Labor
Relations Board has proposed that basically creates what are commonly
referred to as ambush elections for votes to create labor unions in
workplaces.

The concerns I have with this NLRB mandate is that it is another
draconian example of what I consider to be the hyperpartisan business
and labor environment the National Labor Relations Board has created
over the last several years. The NLRB is advancing a pro-union agenda
nationwide in the guise of government policy. The NLRB's proposed
policy is simply not necessary, particularly in light of the fact that
some 70 percent of union organizing elections already succeed under the
NLRB's current policy. Clearly the pro-union majority of the National
Labor Relations Board is not satisfied with unions winning 70 percent
of the time. They now want to run up the score so the unions win 100
percent of the time.

Many people, when they think about labor unions and organizing, think
about big business, but I am here to talk about the negative effect
this proposal will have on small businesses. A 50-employee operation or
a 250-employee operation, is a business that does not have the legal,
financial, or administrative resources that a big business has to be
able to react in the short timeframe the NLRB wants to mandate.

Today the median time for holding elections on labor union organizing
petitions is about 38 days. This rule would bring that down to just 8
days before an election would be required to be held. This would make
it virtually impossible for the vast majority of America's small
businesses to respond to the unionization effort and many of the
employees themselves who may not want to be unionized would be swept
aside by the compressed timeframe as well.

We have several examples of this in North Carolina, but rather than
get into a lot of details, I will just explain why this new ambush
election rule is not needed.

The petitions to unionize workplaces are already handled
expeditiously. As I said, the average or median time for holding a vote
is now 38 days. And again, the success rate for the unions is 70
percent. Let me say that again, 70 percent of the elections that are
held under the NLRB's current rules result in employees being
unionized.

By turning elections into this sort of ambush will put small
businesses at a severe disadvantage against the powerful unions
targeting them. For instance, take one small trucking company down in
Greensboro, NC, that would suffer serious economic consequences if this
rule goes into effect. Guy M. Turner, Inc. was founded by two brothers
in 1924 and 90 years later it is still a family owned business
employing less than 250 people, clearly it is not a mega-corporation.
Yet, if the NLRB imposes this new rule, this family business will have:
little time to obtain competent counsel to counter union targeting of
the company, little time to answer questions, marshal facts, or prepare
arguments to share with their employees regarding the potential
consequences and effects of unionization.

And if that were not bad enough, under the NLRB's new proposal,
employers would also be prohibited from expressing any views regarding
the unionization effort--thus essentially eliminating the employer's
right to free speech regarding the potential adverse effects of
unionization on the workplace and the company's future viability.
However, the NLRB's new rule would impose no such restrictions on a big
union's right to speak in favor of unionization or the future benefits
they promise it will deliver.

A little common sense and a hard look at reality clearly demonstrates
that the regulations enforced today are working not only effectively,
but in favor of large unions most of the time. I hope Senators will
support Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman Lamar
Alexander, and the thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of
employees, who oppose this regulation because it is an unnecessary and
ill-advised effort to tilt the playing field in the workplace totally
in favor of the large labor unions and their efforts to unionize the
American workplace.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source