Miller: Anti-Worker, Anti-Family Bill is Ohio and Wisconsin Wrapped up in One

“Seventy-five years ago, this nation decided it is a matter of right and matter of law that the decision of whether or not workers wanted to union belong to those workers. And this Congress passed National Labor Relations Act to give workers this right and an election to decide.

 

“Ever since that time, companies have fought to take that right away from workers because they believe the companies control all of the rights in the workplace. They believe that the workers should take and do what they say and that's the end of the discussion. 

 

“And this has been a battle throughout the economic history of this country since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. But the fact of the matter is that when workers decide they want an organization, they go out and talk to their fellow workers, they form a union and they have an election. 

 

“But what we now see is the companies constantly trying to insert themselves into that worker controlled process by trying to disrupt the elections of those workers and trying to keep them from exercising their rights under the law. 

 

“And this is the goal of this very anti-worker, anti-family legislation. It would end the collective bargaining rights for working people in this country because it would so obscure the process that you can't get to the election that the workers are guaranteed under this law. 

 

“This is Wisconsin and Ohio all wrapped up into one. This goes on across the nation: When they can't control the governorship or legislature, where they made the attempt after the election to take away workers' rights at work, where they can't do that they now seek to do in the halls of Congress. So they can change the process and to discriminate the rights of workers so that in fact the process ceases to exist. 

 

“How do they do that? They do that by having endless delays. 

 

“Why are endless delays important to employers? So that they can hire union busting law firms to come in and intimidate and teach employers how to intimidate workers. Because don't forget that the employer has the right from the moment they're served notice to have captive meetings in the workplace:

 

“Where they threaten the workers with the loss of jobs; 

 

“Where they threaten the workers with being fired; or 

 

“They threaten the workers for sending work to china or elsewhere; or 

 

“They threaten the workers that they won't get the promotion;

 

“Where they change the workers' shift time from maybe the day shift to graveyard shift and keep rotating them around to show them that they're in control and the workers have no rights. 

 

“And if they can delay it for seven days, you have a chance. If you can do it for 10 days you may have a better chance. If you do it for as many as 2,000 days, you can kill the drive for union. You can intimidate the workers. 

 

“How else do they do it? When workers decide among themselves that we want a unit within this company, within this factory to represent us, this bill now says that the employer can come in and rearrange the members of the unit that would have that election. 

 

“They can stuff the ballot box. They can pick your candidate to stand for election. 

 

“It doesn't sound very democratic to me, but that's what they get to do under this bill that's proposed. 

 

“Workers no longer get to decide as the law says they get to decide. The workers no longer get to decide as the Supreme Court says they get to decide. 

 

“The employer gets to decide. The arrogance of these people to suggest that they should pick, they should pick the leaders of the workers that they should pick the organization of the workers who have a right to organize. 

 

“So they get to delay the election. They get to encourage and provide for and define the right to continue to file frivolous lawsuits so that this process never ends. You can bankrupt these workers if they try to run head on head with big law firms that specialize in this, that travel around the country to take away the rights at work. 

 

“What does this mean? This means underpinning the basic organization in the American workplace today that speaks on behalf of the middle class. 

 

“This is from the organizations that brought you the great American weekend. 

 

“This is the organizations that brought you the eight-hour day. 

 

“This is the organization that brought you overtime pay if you work longer than eight hours. 

 

“This is the organization that brought you sick leave. 

 

“This is the organization that brought women their rights at work. 

 

“This is the organization that makes safe workplaces. 

 

“This is the organization that provided for the first time pensions and retirement benefits for workers. 

 

“Any wonder why these corporations, why the Chamber of Commerce is so set against this? Because they don't want to do this anymore. 

 

“They want to ship the jobs to China. They want no minimum wage. They want a subminimum wage. They want no rights for workers. 

 

“How do American families survive that? They've already offloaded all of the health care costs they possibly could. They offloaded all of the pension costs they possibly could on the backs of these workers. 

 

“Now they want to take away the rights to organize. 

 

“We should not allow that to happen, not in this country, not in this Congress. We should not allow that to happen to American workers and to their families.

 

“We should defeat this very anti-family piece of legislation.”