Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. GOWDY. I want to thank Chairman Kline not only for yielding but also for his leadership on this and on so many other issues on the Education and the Workforce Committee.
Mr. Chairman, when so many of our fellow citizens are looking for work, when so many of our fellow citizens want nothing more than to be able to meet their familial obligations and their obligations to the community, when so many of our fellow Americans want nothing more than the most fundamental of all family values, which is a job, and when they look and they see that America is increasingly competing with other countries for work, it is no longer just competition among the States. We are competing with other countries for work.
The NLRB continues to pursue an activist, politically motivated agenda, thwarting economic recovery and continuing to place our companies at a competitive disadvantage worldwide.
Mr. Chairman, virtually everyone is familiar with the most glaring example of NLRB overreach and union pandering, which is the complaint against Boeing. Despite not a single example of a job being lost in Washington State, despite not a single example of a worker losing a single benefit or right in Washington State, the NLRB sued Boeing, seeking to have Boeing close its South Carolina facility, mothballing a $1 billion facility, displacing 1,000 workers and returning the work to Washington State.
Then they had the unmitigated temerity, as we recently learned, to joke about it in emails, to joke about a competitor called Airbus, which is Boeing's number one competitor. Wanting work and not getting it is not a laughing matter. Boeing is exhibit A among the evidentiary reasons that the NLRB has overreached its statutory mission, but it is not the only piece of evidence, Mr. Chairman. Currently, union elections take place, on average, within 31 days of the filing of an election petition. Additionally, unions are victorious more often than not when there is an election.
But that's not good enough. The NLRB wants more.
So they proposed sweeping changes to the election process, shifting the balance of power even further towards unions seeking employees by promoting rush elections and ruling that elections can take place in as little as 7 to 10 days. The Board severely limits the opportunities for workers to hear all sides of an issue and make an informed decision. Additionally, employers would only have 7 days to retain legal counsel and decipher the complex labyrinth of Federal labor law before presenting their cases before an NLRB hearing officer.
So Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline smartly introduced H.R. 3094, the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act, to simply level the playing field. This legislation requires that no union election occur in less than 35 days, thus granting all parties the ability to present their arguments and ensuring workers have the ability to reach an informed decision. H.R. 3094 acknowledges that full and complete information is treasured when employees are contemplating how they will vote.
Ironically, some unions have already endorsed President Obama in an election that is well nigh a year off; but somehow 31 days is too long for employers in an election that's every bit as important to them. The hypocrisy and blind advocacy has to stop.
The purpose of the NLRA is to balance the rights of employers, employees, and the general public. The NLRA is not calculated to drive up union membership, because they're a loyal constituency for the Democrat Party. Because the NLRB through its filings and proposed rules and regulations has lost all pretense of objectivity in labor issues, fair, even-handed pieces of legislation, such as this one, are necessary.
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Mr. GOWDY. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me first thank Mr. Bishop for raising the important issue of frivolous, vexatious litigation. I am thrilled almost beyond words--not quite--almost beyond words that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle recognize the deleterious impact that frivolous, vexatious litigation has on our economy.
We very much support, Mr. Chairman, a more effective use of rule 2011. We have consistently supported tort reform that correctly sanctions frivolous and vexatious lawsuits. So, again, I thank our colleague from the other side of the aisle for bringing attention once again to the impact frivolous litigation has on our economy.
Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, this amendment is not the right vehicle for a number of reasons.
The purpose of the underlying bill is to correct the misguided effort of the NLRB to have quick elections, which means the time is compressed for litigants, especially those caught off guard by the legal filing, to respond. What do litigants and their counsel do when they're given an inadequate time to prepare for litigation? They over-plead, they over-answer, they throw everything they can into the answer because to do otherwise is to risk missing an issue and being sued for illegal malpractice or, worse yet, failing to adequately represent your client. So in a very counterintuitive way, the NLRB's rush to have elections is more likely to result in over-pleading than the status quo would be.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment also gives increased power to the very agency that we are trying to rein in. That, too, is counterintuitive. To reward an activist, agenda-driven executive branch entity with even more power to wield incorrectly is an invitation we are loathe to accept.
This amendment does not even provide all the safeguards of rule 11 in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. And I heard my colleague and friend on the other side of the aisle make reference to rule 11. If this were simply rule 11, we may very well be standing up to join in support. It's not rule 11. It doesn't provide notice and a reasonable chance to respond. It doesn't provide an appeal procedure. It denies an opportunity to withdraw the frivolous matter before sanctions are imposed. Even current NLRB provisions require due notice and an opportunity for a hearing in allegations of misconduct cases.
This amendment, I am sure--I am convinced--is well intended, to root out frivolous filings and pleadings; but it has to be done in an evenhanded, fair manner, not one calculated to skew the balance even more in favor of those seeking unionization and away from job creators.
Other than union membership being at a historic low, Mr. Chairman, why the rush to change the rules? Is 31 days too long? Is a 70 percent success rate in elections not good enough? I appreciate the motive behind the amendment, but I must oppose it because of the mechanism; and I would encourage my colleagues to do the same.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOWDY. I just find it instructive again--and we need to give pause and reflect on why we're here. We're not here because Chairman Kline had an idea out of the blue. We're here because an activist, agenda-driven NLRB is dissatisfied with 31 days to have an election. They're dissatisfied with a 70 percent success rate. So what Mr. Kline has done--and smartly so--in this bill is try to get us back to the status quo ante and have a level playing field where employees can have enough information to make what may be one of the most important decisions of their lives.
And again I will say to my colleague, rule 11 has built-in procedural safeguards. And we had a very civil, constructive, I thought, conversation about this amendment in committee, and I commend our friend for that. And I commend him for bringing up frivolous and vexatious lawsuits. And I'm happy to work with him on how to get it done. This vehicle, while well intended, is not the vehicle to get it done.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOWDY. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This amendment would strike provisions of the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act that ensure employers have at least 14 days to find legal counsel and prepare their cases for the preelection hearings. Additionally, it would strike the provisions that ensure employers have 35 days to educate their workers and that employees have 35 days to determine whether they wish to join a union.
Information is power, and I, frankly, don't understand the antagonism towards information. I don't understand the antagonism towards employers. We give garden-variety, common-criminal shoplifters 180 days to find lawyers--180 days for a shoplifter to find a lawyer--but we can't give employers 2 weeks? Is 2 weeks really too much to ask to find a lawyer?
There have been unions, Mr. Chairman, that have already endorsed this President and his reelection bid. Already, 360-something days out, was the first one I noted. So they need 365 days to prepare for an election, but we can't give employers 35 days? You can check out a library book for longer than you want to give employers the ability to prepare for an election.
This is an important decision, not only in the lives of the employees but of the employers, many of whom are small business owners. They've got to negotiate the legal labyrinth that is our Federal labor law, and you're going to give them 35 days and 14 to get lawyers.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment will restrict employers' free speech and will undermine workers' free choice. Information is power. Sometimes that takes time. I don't think 35 days under anyone's calculus is too much time to prepare for an election. If we can give a shoplifter or a speeder or a drunk driver 180 days to hire a lawyer, surely to goodness we can give a small business job creator a couple of weeks.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
My first job was delivering newspapers. My job after that was bagging groceries at a local grocery store. My job after that was working at a tobacco warehouse.
I don't recall ever being hired by an employee.
I don't understand the antagonism towards employers. I don't understand the antagonism towards people who are willing to invest their fortunes and have the unmitigated temerity to want to be successful and hire other people. I don't understand the antagonism towards job creators.
Mr. Chairman, I will say it again: We give 180 days to someone who shoplifts from a store to go find a lawyer, but we can't give 14 days to the small business owner who wants to defend against a suit--to negotiate the legal labyrinth that many of the lawyers in this body don't understand, present company included. There are experts in labor law; but unless you have corporate counsel hired, you're going to have to go find a lawyer and educate him on your issues.
Mr. Kline gives them a whopping 2 weeks. Fourteen days is eminently reasonable, and 35 days for something as potentially transformative as an election is not too much to ask for, and there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that says otherwise.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would invite my friends on the other side of the aisle to join us in addressing what I hear from every small business owner back in South Carolina, which is fix the regulatory apparatus, fix the tax structure, fix the litigation structure, quit spending money you don't have.
Mr. Chairman, the President, who was standing not 3 feet in front of you, said we should have no more regulation than is necessary for the health, safety, and security of the American people. That's not a Republican that said that; it's the President of the United States.
So I would ask the NLRB, what part of health, safety, and security are you trying to fix with quick elections, the placing of posters in the workplace, and other regulations that do nothing except punish job creators?
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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