Source: PRESS RELEASE, 11/30/11

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller spoke on the House floor today in opposition to the so-called Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act, H.R. 3094. Democrats have renamed the bill the Republican Election Prevention Act which would delay and ultimately prevent workers from voting in union elections. The bill would mandate delays in elections, allowing more time to use any legal or illegal way to pressure employees into abandoning organizing efforts; the bill gives incentive to increased frivolous litigation for the sole purpose of gumming up the election process and stalling a vote; and it manipulates the procedure for deciding who is in a bargaining unit allowing employers to stuff ballot boxes with names of voters who were never engaged by an organizing drive.

At the same time, the National Labor Relations Board today is expected to consider a new rule to streamline the labor election process unless Republican antics prevent the vote.
Click here to view Rep. Miller’s floor speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO1VVcCTeS0

Text of Rep. Miller’s floor speech:
Around the world, the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employer over their wages, benefits and conditions of employment is an important human right. But in the United States, those rights have been under assault by employers who want to turn the clock back three-quarters of a century.

When workers want to join a union here and bargain collectively with their employer, too many employers intentionally delay and delay, abusing the legal system to deny their employees the rights that we scold other nations for denying their workers.

I rise in support of the proposed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule to streamline and modernize union election procedures, an important step to restoring fairness to an inefficient and outdated system.

The new NLRB rule would speed up union elections, giving employers less time to interfere with organizing drives.  The rule allows smaller groups of workers try to form unions.

Under the current NLRB system, employers willing to break the law have many opportunities to delay a union election, stretching out the time period during which they can intimidate and coerce workers. The effect of this rule is to help workers exercise their free choice about unionization without illegal interference.

Streamlining NLRB elections is a long overdue and small step to assure workers the right to speak with one voice through a representative of their own choosing.

Mr. Speaker, in the last week we heard that Brian Hayes, the only Republican member of the NLRB has threatened to resign, to deny the board a quorum to act under the law.  Republicans have tried to defund the NLRB, take away the NLRB’s ability to impose sanctions, and now they are threatening to shut down the board by abusing the other body’s advice and consent powers.

And we are considering today, the so called Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act.   Despite its name, this bill is designed to deny workers the right to unionize through delay, litigation and allowing employers to select who makes up a collective bargaining unit.

Under this bill there would be a 35 day waiting period if there is an election dispute, requires a 14 day waiting period for a pre-election hearing and a 7 day waiting period for unions to receive a voter contact list.  The goal can only be to delay.  These arbitrary waiting periods ensure than an election will be delayed, but nowhere do Republicans ensure that the election will actually be held.

My Republican colleagues are fond of citing frivolous lawsuits for many of the ills in this country, but in this bill they are encouraging lawsuits.  By providing more time for employers to find fault, real or fabricated, with the election process, and blocking the NLRB’s current rule that would allow elections to move ahead before complaints are resolved, this bill ensures that employers will use litigation to block elections.

Finally this bill allows employers to stuff the ballot box with a radical rewrite of labor law that allows employers to stuff the eligible voter list with employees who were never engaged by the organizing drive and keeping the voter list from those supporting a union until right before the election.

American workers deserve the opportunity to unionize, to win better wages and benefits and to help rebuild the American middle class.