Date: 2011-11-18
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Seventyfive years ago this Nation decided as a matter of right and a matter of law that the decision of whether or not workers wanted a union belonged to those workers. and this Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act to give workers this right and an election to decide. Ever since that time. companies have fought to take away the right of the workers because they believe that the companies control all of the rights in the workplace. They believe that the workers should simply take and do as they say. and thats the end of the discussion. And this has been a battle throughout the economic history of this country since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. But the fact of the matter is that when workers decide they want an organization. they go out and they talk to their fellow workers. they form a union. and they have an election. But what we now see is the companies constantly trying to insert themselves into that worker- controlled process by trying to disrupt the elections of those workers and trying to keep them from exercising their rights under the law. And this is the goal of this very antiworker. antifamily legislation. It would end the collective bargaining rights for working people in this country because it would so skew the process that you would never get to that election that workers are guaranteed under the law. This is Wisconsin and Ohio all wrapped up into one. This goes across the Nation. What they cant do in the States where they dont control the governorship or the legislature. where they made the attempt right after the election to take away workers rights at work. where they cant do that. they now seek to do in the Halls of Congress. to so change the process and to discriminate against the rights of workers so that. in fact. the process ceases to exist. How do they do that? They do that by having endless delays. Why are endless delays important to employers? So that they can hire unionbusting law firms to come in and intimidate and teach employers how to intimidate workers because. dont forget. the employer has the right from the moment theyre served notice to have captive meetings in the workplace where they threaten the workers with the loss of jobs. where they threaten the workers with being fired. where they threaten the workers of sending work to China or elsewhere. where they threaten the workers that they wont get the promotion. where they change the workers shift time from maybe day shift to graveyard shift and keep rotating them around to show them that theyre in control and the workers have no rights. And if you can do it for 7 days. you have a chance. If you can do it for 10 days. you have a better chance. If you can do it for as many as 2.000 days that these law firms have kept the process open. you can kill the drive for a union. You can intimidate the workers. How else do they do it? When workers decide among themselves that we want a unit within this company. within this factory to represent us. this bill now says that the employer can come in and rearrange the members of the unit that would have that election. They can stuff the ballot box. They can pick your candidates to stand for election. Doesnt sound very Democratic to me. But thats what they get to do under this bill thats proposed. The workers no longer get to decide. as the law says they get to decide. The workers no longer get to decide. as the Supreme Court says they get to decide. The employer gets to decide. The arrogance of these people to suggest that they should pick the leaders of the workers. that they should pick the organization of the workers who have a right to organize. So they get to delay the elections. They encourage and provide for and define the right to continue to file frivolous lawsuits so that this process never ends. You can bankrupt these workers if they try to run headonhead with these big law firms that are specialized in this. that travel around the country to take away the rights at work. What does this mean? This means underpinning the basic organization in the American workplace today that speaks on behalf of the middle class. This is from the organization that brought you the great American weekend. This is the organization that brought you the 8hour day. This is the organization that brought you overtime pay if you work longer than 8 hours. This is the organization that brought you sick leave. This is the organization that brought women their rights at work. This is the organization that makes safe work places. This is the organization that provided. for the first time. pensions and retirement benefits for workers. Any wonder why these corporations. why the Chamber of Commerce is so set against this? Because they dont want to do this anymore. They want to ship the jobs to China. They want no minimum wage. They want a subminimum wage. They want no rights for workers. How will the American families survive that? Theyve already offloaded all of the health care costs they possibly could.