Testimony of Larry Getts, Employee of Dana Corporation

Floor Speech

TESTIMONY OF LARRY GETTS, EMPLOYEE OF DANA CORPORATION -- (House of Representatives - March 25, 2009)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, there was testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions just recently by a fellow named Larry Getts who is an employee of the Dana Corporation in Indiana. He was very concerned that the secret ballot on whether or not they were going to join a union was not being given to them. And I would like to read part of his testimony.

He said, ``Before I begin, I'd like to say that, as many workers have learned firsthand, I believe Card Check organizing drives put the interests of the union officials ahead of those of the workers.

``While the bill has been officially named the Employee Free Choice Act by its proponents in organized labor and their allies in Congress, my own

[Page: H3999]

personal experience shows a more appropriate name would be the Worker Coercion Act.''

He talks about the union officials and how they came to the company to try to get them to join the union through what they call Card Check without a secret ballot.

He said, ``After this first attempt to organize our shop failed, the UAW changed tactics and sent in a whole new crew. At that point, it became clear to all of us that the UAW was going to do whatever was necessary to get the required number of signatures.

``The entire time they were constantly badgering us to sign the cards. I refused to sign the card every time they asked, and I know that many of my colleagues shared my sentiment. But none of that mattered to the UAW, because the pressure did not let up.

``In fact, one day, an official approached me again claiming 50 percent of the plant had signed, so now I was going to have to sign the card to `get my information in the system.' I signed the card because I thought I had to.''

I didn't learn until later that even then, I should not have been forced to sign the card.

In the end, the UAW did succeed in organizing our plant, but I thought they succeeded only because of their confrontational tactics and not because the majority of our workers wanted UAW representation.

So immediately, after the union came in, I began a decertification effort. The only reason I was able to fight back was because other Dana Corporation employees in Ohio appealed to the National Labor Relations Board after facing aggression from the UAW, and the NLRB decided that workers should be allowed to seek decertification.

Of course, the UAW responded to my effort by increasing the pressure, and even started visiting me at my home, and my coworkers. Despite their intimidation, my coworkers and I voted to decertify the UAW 45 days after the Card Check drive in a secret ballot. I believe the results of the secret ballot election showed the true free choice of my coworkers regarding UAW representation. We didn't want the UAW representation that was foisted on us through Card Check.

At the end of the day, the voice of the worker needs to be considered. Union officials say they speak for the workers, and they say passage of the Card Check bill is needed to give workers a free choice. But the only way to give workers a free choice is the way we vote in this country, and that's to give them a secret ballot. If they want to join the union, they should be able to join the union through a secret ballot. But if they don't want to join the union, they should not be coerced into joining the union by signing a card. They should have the right, as every American citizen does, to a secret vote on whether or not they want to be employed in a union shop. Now, if they don't want to do that, they shouldn't have to vote for it.

And that's exactly what the gentleman went through and all of his coworkers. And after they went through it and were forced to join the union, they found out they could have a secret ballot, they did a secret ballot, and they threw the union out.

I'm not an anti-union person, but there ought to be a free choice for people to join the union or not to join it, and they should not be coerced by Card Check.

Source