GOP Rams through Major Rollback of Workers Rights that will Help Ship Jobs Overseas
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Special interest legislation that will render workers’ rights unenforceable and allow more jobs to be shipped overseas was pushed through the House Education and the Workforce Committee on a party line vote today.
“The legislation is nothing more than a rush to protect one special interest to the detriment of all American workers,” said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the committee. “This bill presents American workers with a choice: you can have your rights or you can have your job. But you can’t have both.”
Republicans said the legislation was in response to a National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing Corporation that alleges the company is moving an assembly line to South Carolina in retaliation against Washington state workers who exercised their rights under the law.
“The practical effect of this bill is not to address one case, about one union and one employer: It is to reverse a bipartisan tradition of collective bargaining,” said Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ). “Collective bargaining is healthy for the American economy. This bill is not.”
Introduced less than 48 hours before the committee vote, H.R. 2587 would remove the only meaningful remedy available to workers if a company illegally moves operations or eliminates work because workers engaged in protected activities such as organizing a union. An employer can outsource for any reason, except for an unlawful reason. Retaliating against workers for exercising their rights under the National Labor Relations Act is one unlawful reason.
“These rights to organize and collectively bargain are meaningless if there is no effective remedy when they are violated,” said Miller. “The impact of this change would be wide-ranging.”
Among other things, H.R. 2587 would:
• Make it easier to ship jobs overseas. If a company closes an entire U.S. plant or part of a U.S. plant and moved the work to China because the U.S. employees organized a union, the NLRB would no longer have the power to order the work to be kept in or returned to the U.S. In 2000, the National Labor Relations Board obtained an order to force a company to bring work back to the United States from Mexico after the company allegedly outsourced the work in response to an organizing drive. That order would no longer be available to workers under the Republicans’ bill.
• Make runaway shops legal for all intents and purposes. A company could bust a union by setting up a separate alter ego down the street, subcontract its work there, and eventually close down the unionized worksite. The only effective remedy for that kind of conduct is to order the employer to return the subcontracted work. This bill would no longer allow that remedy.
• Provide employers with a loophole for firing workers who try to organize a union. To kill an organizing drive, an employer could eliminate or transfer work being done by pro-union employees and then lay off those employees. This bill would not allow the NLRB to have that work restored or transferred back.
• Create a new race to the bottom for American workers’ rights, wages, benefits and working conditions. By allowing employers to discriminate against workers who exercise their right to join together and bargain for better wages without an effective remedy, the Republican bill insidiously plays American workers against each other.
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