[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 181 (Tuesday, November 7, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7052-S7053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Nomination of Peter Robb

  Mr. President, I rise at this point to say a few words about one of 
President Trump's nominees whom we will be voting on in a few minutes.
  The National Labor Relations Board is a crucial tool for protecting 
working men and women in Michigan and across the country. The right to 
collectively bargain, the freedom to be able to bargain for fair wages, 
good benefits, retirement security, safe and fair workplaces--all of 
these things depend on a National Labor Relations Board that works--
that works for people.
  Perhaps no person at the NLRB is more critical to protecting these 
rights than is the NLRB's General Counsel. When a worker believes that 
the law has been violated and brings their concern to the National 
Labor Relations Board, it is the General Counsel who investigates. If 
the employee is found to have violated the law or the freedoms and 
rights of working men and women, it is the General Counsel who takes 
action to make things right.
  Unfortunately, while President Trump talks a lot about having our 
workers' backs--he certainly said that a lot in Michigan--his actions 
speak much louder than his words. That is certainly true in the case of 
his choice for General Counsel, Peter Robb.
  Mr. Robb was voted out of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee in October without any Democratic support--and there was a 
reason for that. The reason is that during his career, he has shown so 
little support for working men and women across our country.
  When Dominion Energy's workers at the Millstone Power Station in 
Connecticut attempted to use their freedom to organize--one of the 
freedoms in America is to be able to come together, to be able to 
organize, to be able to collectively bargain on behalf of yourself and 
others to make sure you are able to get fair pay and a pension and safe 
working conditions. But when the people at the Millstone Power Station 
in Connecticut attempted to do that, Mr. Robb, who represented 
Dominion, delayed the election for more than 2 years. Not only that, he 
bragged about it on his law firm's website--making people who wanted to 
exercise their freedom to collectively bargain and to organize wait for 
2 years.
  Mr. Robb also was lead counsel on the case that led to 11,000 air 
traffic controllers being fired--people, again, who were part of a 
union and could collectively bargain for safe conditions and good pay 
and pensions. They were fired and barred from Federal service. It was a 
watershed case in the history of union suppression, in taking away 
people's freedoms.
  While he worked for a Reagan-appointed NLRB member, longstanding

[[Page S7053]]

policies changed to weaken the government's ability to enforce the 
rights and freedoms of working men and women.

  With stagnant wages and rising healthcare costs and worries about 
pension cuts and workplace discrimination, frankly, I know working men 
and women in Michigan and across the country have enough to worry 
about. They shouldn't have to worry that the person who is supposed to 
have their back is, instead, looking for ways to strip away their 
freedom to organize on the job.
  That is why I will vote no on Peter Robb, and I encourage my 
colleagues to do the same.