[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9663-9664]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             NEW NLRB RULES

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I also wanted to speak about the new 
National Labor Relations Board rules that came out just yesterday. It 
also has a lot do with the middle class in America and what happens to 
the middle class.
  In 1912, women went on strike at a textile plant in Lawrence, MA. 
They inspired the Nation when they walked the picket lines with signs 
that said: ``We want bread, but we want roses too.'' Well, what did 
they mean by that? They meant they wanted jobs, but they didn't want 
just bear subsistence and slave jobs. As you know, many women died in 
the terrible triangle shirtwaist textile plant fire. They wanted jobs, 
but they wanted jobs that paid a living wage. They wanted jobs that did 
not work people 12, 18 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. Those words 
helped to shape the character of the country we created, a shared 
prosperity for the American people.
  Almost 100 years later, we face the same fundamental question about 
what kind of country we want to be. When we imagine the America of our 
dreams or our children and grandchildren, is bread just good enough for 
the middle class or should we have some roses too?
  Republicans portray our country as poor and broke, and they have used 
that as an excuse to rationalize an unprecedented attack on the middle 
class. But, the reality is we are the wealthiest Nation in history. It 
is just more and more of our country's wealth is being concentrated at 
the top.
  Certainly, the American people do not begrudge the rich their good 
fortune and success. But they do resent it when the wealthy and the 
powerful manipulate the political system to reap huge advantages at the 
expense of working people. Today, unfortunately, more and more people 
sense in their hearts that the rules of the game have are rigged in 
favor of CEOs and big corporations, and nowhere is this more apparent 
than the process by which workers form a union or, I should say, by 
which process workers are blocked from forming a union.
  As it now stands, the union election process is a never-ending, 
bitter struggle marred by corporate intimidation and frivolous 
lawsuits. Workers have to walk through broken glass on their hands and 
knees to get the same basic rights that every wealthy CEO has the right 
to have the terms of their employment set out in an enforceable 
contract. Right now, CEO's bargain extremely generous salaries and 
golden-parachute retirements, but millions of hardworking Americans 
don't have a way to guarantee from week to week that they will have 
enough hours to feed their family or that their health benefits won't 
be cut without notice.
  So the rules promulgated by the NLRB yesterday try to right this and 
to make it a fair and equitable process so people can form a union. The 
proposed rules are very modest. What it does is cut down on the number 
of frivolous lawsuits and removes unnecessary delays that prevent 
workers from getting a vote in elections. Sometimes it takes months 
and, in some cases, years before workers even get a chance to vote on 
whether or not they want to form a union. All the while, people are 
harassed and intimidated. These workers know first hand that justice 
delayed is justice denied. That is not the American way. Workers 
deserve a fair shake and a fair election. If people want to form a 
union, they deserve that right to do so.
  The steps they took are common sense. It removes unnecessary delays, 
cuts down on frivolous legal challenges, gives workers the right to a 
fair up-or-down vote, in a reasonable period of time. These new rules 
do not encourage unionization, and they do not discourage it. They just 
give workers the ability to say yes or no. Again, what they seek is 
valid.
  The current system is broken. If a party takes advantage of every 
opportunity for delay, the average time before workers can vote is 198 
days, and, as I have said, it has taken 13 years before people were 
allowed to vote in a union election. A study by the Center

[[Page 9664]]

for Economic Policy Research found, among workers who openly advocate 
for a union during an election campaign, one in five is fired. Madam 
President, 9 out of 10 employers require their employees to attend 
meetings on work time to hear anti-union presentations. Workers are 
required to attend 10 anti-union meetings. Well, it is time to right 
this imbalance.
  That is what the NLRB did--not tilt it one way or another but to give 
workers a fair right to have an election. The rules apply to secret 
ballot elections, but make modest changes to not to have it dragged out 
for years and years with frivolous lawsuits while preserving employer's 
due process rights. The new rules standardize time lines for union 
elections so that both sides have a fair chance to make their case and 
then employees have the right to a timely vote. They ensure that 
employers and employees have a level playing field, where corporate 
executives and rank-and-file workers alike have an equal chance to make 
their case for or against the union. That is all it is. It is nothing 
more, nothing less than that. This is a fair set of rules.
  I am sure we are going to hear from the business community about 
this, saying this is meddling and this is going to tilt toward the 
unions. No, it doesn't. For far too long it has been tilted on the side 
of the employer and against the unions. Now we bring it back to the 
middle, where we say we are neither pro nor against, but we are going 
to let workers have the right to say whether they want to form a union. 
Some workplaces will choose a union, some will not. But protecting the 
right of workers to make that choice brings some balance and fairness 
to the system, so the deck isn't always stacked in favor of the wealthy 
and the powerful.
  America's future depends on the middle class having not just bread, 
but roses too, just as was the case 99 years ago. Our government faces 
a clear choice: do we stand for seemingly endless corporate power, or 
do we stand for the basic rights of working people? Republicans keep 
pushing for special favors for the wealthy and big corporations, 
claiming this will create jobs and economic prosperity. Instead, over 
the last decade, it has brought us high unemployment and the worst 
economic downturn since the Great Depression. The problem with trick 
down economics is that it failed to trickle down. Wealth has been 
increasingly concentrated at the top.
  There is a better way. Quality jobs that pay a living wage, provide 
health insurance and a secure retirement are the foundation of a strong 
middle class. Having a strong middle class that can afford to buy 
quality products made in America is the recipe for our economic 
renewal.
  I compliment the NLRB. I know I have heard there will be some 
challenges to it on the floor of the Senate. I hope reason will prevail 
and the Senate will once again stand for the inherent right of people 
to be able to organize and bargain collectively for their wages, hours, 
and conditions of employment.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.

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