Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and I thank her for the motion.

What's it going to take to get this body to focus on priority one, which is getting America back to work? Why, Mr. Chair, are we here yet again debating an anti-worker bill when we should be working together to help foster jobs? Instead of trying to disempower workers and further weaken the middle class, why aren't we trying to create opportunities for them and their families? Every day that the focus is on attacking workers instead of generating job opportunities is one day longer we're mired at unacceptable rates of unemployment, and it's one more day that far too many unemployed Americans will struggle.
And yet here we are debating this extreme and lopsided bill to give big corporations the upper hand over working families, a bill that does nothing to bolster our recovery but does a lot to stack the deck against American workers. We have seen this fight before, as the gentlewoman has pointed out, in other places, and the American people are voicing their opposition to these types of fundamentally unfair attacks that stack the deck against workers.

In my State of Ohio, we saw a Governor try to silence our firefighters, teachers, our police officers, our nurses, and other people who serve Ohio. Instead of focusing on jobs, the Governor and his allies pushed the bill through and unleveled the playing field for working families. It wasn't right there and it's not right here, and the American people urge the defeat of this bill.

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Ms. SUTTON. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this bill, but let me begin by saying that this final amendment, if adopted, will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. Instead, the bill, as amended, will immediately be voted upon for final passage. We may strongly disagree on the bill in question, but surely no one in this Chamber can disagree that, in these hard times, working families in this country deserve a fair shake. Unfortunately, the underlying bill, as written, is fundamentally unfair.

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, in my home State of Ohio, voters, in an exercise of direct democracy, voted to overwhelmingly repeal the infamous senate bill 5, which was a fundamentally unfair and extreme attack on workers. In a resounding victory for middle class Ohioans, many Democrats and Republicans alike went to the polls and soundly rejected the union-busting effort that would have unfairly silenced workers and stacked the deck against them. At a time when public officials across every level of government should be focused on getting Americans back to work, the underlying bill before us today, like Ohio's recently repealed senate bill 5, would unfairly stack the deck against our workers and American jobs.

But the good news, Mr. Speaker, is that it doesn't have to be that way. Right here, right now, Democrats and Republicans together, like so many voters in Ohio joined together, can stand up for fairness and the middle class, and can pass this amendment. Our amendment would improve the bill in three very important ways:

First, it would level the playing field between employees and corporate boards.

It's only fair.

When workers choose whether to organize a union, they're choosing who their representative will be in the workplace. When a board of directors takes a vote on whether to hire a CEO, it's choosing management's representative in the workplace. I doubt that proponents of this bill would ever think of leaving a corporation voiceless or would ever think of throwing obstacles in the way of a corporate board of directors' ability to choose its next CEO. Yet that's exactly what this bill before us does to workers.

It's not right. Workers shouldn't have to wait any longer than a corporate board of directors. So this amendment levels things out by saying that nothing in this bill will impose any longer of a waiting period for workers to vote for a union than any State law imposes on a board of directors voting on a CEO.

Second, this amendment will make sure that elections proceed legitimately and fairly.

Everyone can agree that workers deserve to be fully informed. So this amendment requires that, when a petition for an election is filed, the board must ensure an equal opportunity for workers to hear from all sides. Under current law, Mr. Speaker, only one party--the employer--can engage in what is called ``captive audience meetings.'' Only one party can force the voters to attend campaign speeches, rallies, and meetings or be fired. Under this motion, under this amendment, the parties would agree to equal access to voters.

It's only fair. No more captive audience meetings unless the parties agree, unless there is fair and equal access to voters so that all sides may be heard and so that workers can judge for themselves and make fully informed choices when it comes time to vote.

Finally and importantly, this amendment discourages job outsourcing. With 9 percent unemployment in the country and with our economy barely growing, the last thing we want to do is reward companies that ship jobs overseas.

The underlying bill provides employers with a nasty weapon for tactical delay. It allows employers to drag out preelection hearings indefinitely, preventing an election from ever happening.

Employers can raise any issue at a time prior to the end of the hearing, even issues that have nothing to do with the conduct of the election or the question of whether there should be an election at all. Outsourcers should not have the benefit of a tactical delay to help ship jobs overseas. We should not allow it.

This amendment says if you have outsourced jobs or announced plans to outsource jobs in the past year, you don't get that privilege. You have to do what every party to a Federal case must do: state your claims at the beginning of the hearing. We shouldn't extend privileges to outsourcers.

I urge a "yes'' vote on this final amendment to the bill.

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