Providing For Congressional Disapproval Of A Rule Submitted By The National Labor Relations Board

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the median time today between when a union files an organizing petition and when employees vote on whether to unionize is 38 days, or just slightly over one month. Some 95 percent of all organizing elections take place less than 2 months after the date an organizing petition is filed, and approximately 70 percent of these elections are won by unions. All in all, I think anyone would agree that unions are doing pretty well and that this is a pretty fair process.

In fact, the current median time between union organizing petitions and union elections surpasses the goal set by the National Labor Relations Board itself. One would think it would be a classic case of ``if it ain't broke, don't fix it.''

Apparently the Obama nominees on the National Labor Relations Board don't agree. They proposed a new rule which will go into effect next month and that will drastically shorten the time between the initial organizing union petition and the union elections to anywhere from 11 to 22 days.

While the current situation, if anything, gives an advantage to unions, it also provides adequate time for employers to express any concerns and for employees to hear the pros and cons of the union proposal. The new NLRB rule would remove these protections.

Businesses would have to respond to the union organizing petition within 7 days of its being filed, which would leave employers scrambling to research any arguments they want to bring up at the union organizing hearing. Small businesses, which frequently lack experience dealing with unions or in-house counsel to provide advice, would be hit particularly hard by this rule.

But it is not just businesses that would suffer. Under the new rule employees would have very little chance to research and consider the benefits and drawbacks of joining a union. They would be forced into a hasty decision with little opportunity to change their minds later on.

In addition, the rule also presents substantial privacy concerns for employees. Under the current system, employers already have to give unions employees' names and home addresses. The new rule would expand that disclosure requirement to include employees' cell phone numbers, email addresses, work schedules, and shift locations. Worse, the rule contains no additional requirements for safeguarding that information or disposing of it appropriately. Given the ever-growing concerns about privacy, it is astonishing that any employer would be forced to give up so much sensitive information without the explicit permission of his employees.

This new rule is unfair to employers and it is unfair to workers. There is a reason it is called the ambush elections rule. It would ambush employers and employees alike. Unions would have unlimited time to organize, while employers would be given almost no time to present their concerns and exercise their free speech and due process rights.

Employees would be pushed into making the long-term decision about whether to join a union without all the facts.

Government should not be in the business of tilting the playing field in favor of unions at the expense of workers and businesses. The NLRB'S ambush elections rule is unfair and undemocratic. I hope Congress will pass the joint resolution of disapproval we are considering today, and I hope the President will sign it. The rights of American workers and businesses should not be sacrificed to the demands of unions.

I yield the floor.

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