[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13595-13596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   A REFLECTION ON THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SYSTEM AND LABOR UNIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. It is unfortunate there is an attempt to scapegoat 
America's unions for the economic problems that beset us.
  After all, it was not America's grocery clerks, nurses, teachers, 
postal workers, and electricians who nearly caused the meltdown of the 
economy. It wasn't America's labor unions that were pushing for tax 
loopholes that made our revenue system a hopeless, inefficient mess. It 
wasn't unions that pushed for shortcuts for worker safety that produced 
the tragedy that we've seen in our mines. America's working men and 
women didn't engineer poor loans, systematically cheat consumers, and 
transform financial institutions into giant casinos.
  No doubt there were some consumers who took unfair advantage as well 
as others who were not as vigilant as they should have been in the 
financial meltdown; but the truth is they were part of an unprecedented 
economic scheme that played on those weaknesses, the gullibility and 
some individual greed to make it into a vast industry.
  Are there some areas where unions are too effective in securing 
benefits for their members? That probably depends on who you ask about 
the give and take of the collective bargaining process. The leadership 
of unions are, in fact, much more democratic than their corporate 
counterparts. Union officials are routinely challenged for reelection. 
There are insurgents even in the most powerful and entrenched unions, 
something one seldom sees on the boards of public corporations. How 
many business directors are defeated? It's not easy to even have 
opposing nominees through today's shareholder democracy. It's pretty 
sketchy compared with what happens with unions.
  There is a very direct remedy for union power in the negotiation 
process. For 18 years, I was a local elected official, part of that 
time responsible for a collective bargaining program. I like to think 
that I bargained tough but that I bargained fair--but I bargained. I've 
supported collective bargaining rights for public employees since I was 
first in the Oregon legislature and still believe that honest, tough, 
principled negotiations will lead to the best results.
  Having someone attempt to dictate working conditions unilaterally is 
not calculated to produce enhanced productivity. It matters how people 
are treated and how they feel. Employee-owned corporations illustrate 
this principle in spades, some of which are not only employee-owned but 
have unions in addition. One of the best performing of the world's 
economy is Germany, where they still manufacture and have a huge export 
market for high-value products. The Germans work hard to integrate 
labor and business with government in the decision-making process, 
something that is, sadly, too rare in the United States.
  Unions are not the answer for every employee and every company, but 
every employee and every company ought to have that option. Even 
companies that are nonunion benefit. I've had executives from 
successful companies candidly tell me that they treat their employees 
right because they don't want them to unionize. Even these nonunion 
company employees benefit from higher wages, better benefits, and a 
system that respects worker rights because of the competition with the 
unions.
  Instead of treating employees fairly by allowing them to organize, 
far too many corporations have chosen instead to attack the 
fundamentals of collective bargaining. It is today an art form in some 
companies to stall, delay, intimidate, even to flagrantly violate the 
laws of collective bargaining in this country, weak as they are and as 
ineffectively as they are enforced.
  Collective bargaining has been systematically under attack by my 
Republican friends in Congress as Republican administrations have 
fought to make a National Labor Relations Board that is toothless, 
passive and unable or unwilling to protect the rights of employees to 
organize. This is not calculated to produce a spirit of cooperation. It 
is not clear that people need to cheat in order to avoid any excesses 
of collective bargaining.
  I would argue the opposite.
  It's not just workers in companies, union and nonunion, who benefit 
from unions. American society benefits. It was organized labor that 
spearheaded the effort for a 40-hour workweek. It is not just rhetoric 
that unions brought you the weekend. Unions have played a key role in 
extending security to millions of Americans in the workplace, in 
consumer safety and in environmental protections.

[[Page 13596]]

  Again I don't pretend unions are perfect and I've had some 
differences with them over the years. But make no mistake: Unions are 
amongst the few who stand up to some of the more egregious economic 
follies, for justice in the workplace, for protecting the unorganized, 
fighting for a minimum wage, even a living wage.
  It's important to reflect about our collective bargaining system. I'm 
all for fine tuning, but I am adamantly opposed to gutting rights and 
protection of workers.
  I think we all should start by acknowledging the debt we owe to 
unions and work to stop this wholesale assault on America's workers.

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