[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 58 (Thursday, April 25, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H2305]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    END FORCED UNION DUES IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa 
(Mr. King) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I'm here today to ask my colleagues to 
join me in supporting an end to forced union dues in America. I'm 
talking about the National Right to Work Act, which I recently 
reintroduced here in the 113th Congress as H.R. 946.
  Every American should have the power to negotiate with their employer 
about the terms of their employment, but no American should be forced 
to pay union dues just to get or keep a job. However, when Congress 
enacted the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, it established 
monopoly bargaining, and that monopoly bargaining conscripts workers 
who want nothing to do with the union into paying union dues. That 
doesn't sound like the America that I know.
  In 1947, Congress admitted this provision violated the rights of 
workers; but because the votes weren't there to fully repeal this 
provision, they opted instead to allow the States to opt out of the 
NLRA's monopoly bargaining statute. That was a provision that the 
States, though, had to pass laws to exempt themselves.
  To date, 24 States have enacted these right-to-work laws; and because 
of that, they have been able to mitigate the negative effects of our 
misguided Federal labor law on their citizens and their economy. Iowa 
is one of those States.
  But the fact remains that Congress created this problem in the first 
place by making forced unionization the default position for all 
States. Since Congress created this problem, it is Congress' 
responsibility to correct it. The National Right to Work Act does so 
without adding a single new word to the Federal Code by simply erasing 
the forced-dues clauses in the Federal statute.
  While the votes weren't there to repeal this provision in 1947, they 
should be there today because we now have decades of data to compare 
forced-dues States and workplace-freedom States. The results of this 
nationwide experiment suggest that the National Right to Work Act would 
create a huge boost in our economy; and, therefore, I urge Congress to 
take up the National Right to Work Act.

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