Hearing of the Health, Labor, Employment and Pensions Subcommittee of the House Education and the Workforce Committee - Opening Statement of Rep. Sablan, Hearing on H.R. 2723, the Employee Rights Act; H.R. 2776, the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act; H.R. 2775, the Employee Privacy Protection Act

Hearing

Thank you Chairman Walberg for holding this hearing today.
At my first hearing as Ranking Member of this subcommittee I stated that
the purpose of the National Labor Relations Act was to strengthen unions
as an institution in our economy to ensure that wealth is more fairly shared.
When working Americans are empowered to collectively bargain with their
employers over wages and conditions of employment, productivity gains
can be linked to wage growth.
However, the three bills under consideration today sabotage workers'
ability to organize and collectively bargain for a better life.
Make no
mistake about it, taken together these bills are not just union busting bills,
they are union elimination bills.
Workers should have a right to a fair union election. In any normal election,
you have to win a majority of those voting to win. H.R. 2723 would require
the union to win a majority of all eligible voters. This means that every
person who does not vote is counted as a "no" vote against the union.
My colleagues all know that is not how our elections work and that many of
us would not be here if we had to get 50% + 1 of all eligible voters in our
elections.
H.R. 2723 would mandate an election every three years, if 50% of the
workforce changed, on whether employees should even have the right to
have a representative and collectively bargain. Workers already have
democratic rights under union constitutions: they can vote on their
collective-bargaining agreements, and, under existing law, they can vote to
decertify their unions if they do not want one. This bill would force each
local union to misdirect its resources to battle for its very existence on a
continuing basis, instead of building a stable collective bargaining
relationship. It is fundamentally at odds with the NLRA's stated purpose to
promote collective bargaining.
Employees have a right to be fully informed in a union election. Yet both
H.R. 2775 and H.R. 2776 would overturn the NLRB's Election Rule that
promotes transparency by assuring that the union and the employer have
the same employee contact information.
H.R. 2776 would provide three major impediments to union elections.
It
would impose a minimum 35-day waiting period just to hold an election,
even in instances where the employer and employees agree to a speedier
election. It would delay pre-election hearings for at least 14 days. And, it
reverses a rule that requires litigation on some issues to occur only after
the election. The bill would enable frivolous litigation which is often used
for the purpose of delay. In fact, employer law firms openly encourage
companies to engage in pre-election litigation as a way to buy time to allow
"the heat of the union's message to chill prior to the election."
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to introduce a document from the
Jackson Lewis law firm website into the record.
The NLRA seeks "to assure employees the fullest freedom of association,"
and does so by directing the National Labor Relations Board to determine
"the unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining". Yet this bill
directly empowers employers to gerrymander the bargaining unit, by
allowing them to add voters who do not share an "overwhelming community
of interest" with those seeking to form a union and might have no interest in
joining a union.
As we learned in our February 14 Subcommittee hearing, the NLRB's
Specialty Healthcare decision ensures the voting unit cannot be
gerrymandered by the employer. Eight separate Federal Circuit Courts of
Appeals have approved this decision, and not one has overturned it.
Specialty Healthcare has not led to the parade of horribles trumpeted by
those who claim that "micro" units would proliferate and create havoc. The
median bargaining unit size has remained at approximately 26 in the years
before and after the Specialty decision.
Before I close, I ask my colleagues not to be deceived by the names given
to these union elimination bills. The Employee Rights Act takes rights away
from employees. The Employee Privacy Protection Act does not protect
intrusions of an employee's privacy from their employer. And the Workforce
Democracy and Fairness Act undermines fair and democratic union
elections by allowing unnecessary delay and elections based on
gerrymandered voting units.
This is the 27 th hearing that this committee had held on unions since the
Republicans took over the majority. I hope that in the future we can spend
nearly that amount of time on retirement security, job safety and other
issues more pressing to the American people.
While we may disagree, I want to thank the Chairman for following regular
order on these bills. I also want to thank each of the witnesses for taking
the time to prepare their testimony and appear here today.
Finally, I want to recognize a young lady, Nadia Ali, who is here today.
Nadia is interning in my office this week as part of a program with the Girl
Scouts of America. Welcome Nadia.
I yield back.

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