Employee Free Choice Act

EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PENCE. Madam Chairman, I am extremely troubled by what the Democrat leadership has deemed worthy of only one hour of general debate.

The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to snuff out workers' long-cherished freedom.

When the Democrats came to power, they pledged to respect the rights of the minority, but few of the peoples' elected representatives will have the opportunity to debate--let alone amend--this legislation on the floor today.

Madam Chairman, now that a death of deliberation is taking hold in this House, the other side wants to end democracy in the workplace.

Over 70 years ago, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act, establishing a system of industrial democracy akin to our nation's proud history of political democracy.

The current system allows employees to determine whether they wish to be represented by a particular union through a federally supervised secret ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. It protects the interests of unions and employers, but most importantly, employees, by ensuring that both sides have an opportunity to make their case, and those employees are able to express their decision in private--free from coercion and intimidation.

The legislation under consideration today, the so-called ``Employee Free Choice Act,' would in fact end workers' free choice by replacing current law with an easily abused card-check system. Under card check, a worker's vote is openly declared, whereas in a secret ballot election the vote of an individual is by definition private--not public.

Tellingly, the Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, which produced this legislation, along with 15 other Democrats, sent a letter to the Mexican government in 2001 denouncing the card-check system.

They wrote: ``We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.'

Freedom from union intimidation is not only good for Mexican workers; it is good for American workers. We should not be doing away with voting secrecy to give big labor more powers over workers.

Let's keep union ballots secret. Let's vote down this Worker Intimidation Act.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov