Tuesday, June 19, 2007

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Employee Free Choice Act
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Madam President, it is my understanding that at some point in time in the near future we will have a bill brought to the floor known as the Employee Free Choice Act. I thought this morning I would take a few minutes to discuss the Employee Free Choice Act, what I think it means, why I think it is here, but why we are where we are today in America in terms of labor and management relations.

At the beginning of the last century, the Industrial Revolution began in full force. As a byproduct of it, America went to a manufacturing society, a creative society. Business flourished--textiles, automobile production, manufacturing of all types.

Out of that came huge employment opportunities. Out of it came large companies, and out of it, unfortunately, came abuse of workers. In the 1920s it became obvious something had to be done. In 1935, this Congress and the President then signed the Wagner Act, which created the National Labor Relations Board, and for 72 years since then, our country has flourished under the rules and regulations of the National Labor Relations Board, and addressing the rights of workers.

It also created the opportunity for workers to join together, to unionize, to collectively bargain, and to negotiate. It has served America well. What has happened over those 72 years is the creation of a plethora of worker benefit programs backed by the U.S. Government. Prior to 1935, there was little if any federal worker protection laws. Out of that grew the demand for organization and ultimately unions, and out of that came the Wagner Act. Since then have come the following: OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; the National Labor Relations Board; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; a new minimum wage, recently raised on the signature of the President here; the adverse effect wage rate, to protect those who come to this country and work as immigrants, to ensure they are not taken advantage of; workers compensation, a universal plan to make sure that workers in high-risk jobs have compensation for injuries they incur in the workplace; not to mention the Mine Safety & Health Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and literally hundreds of agencies in the American Government today, created since 1935, for the protection of workers. Those all came about because workers deserved that protection in terms of their health, their safety, their compensation, and other benefits that arise.

Now, why did those laws come to pass? They came to pass because the union movement began to organize businesses and got management's attention, and management responded, and where it did not, the Government responded.

Now, how did the union system work under the Wagner Act? It was very simple. It said: If 30 percent of the employees of a company decide they want to sign off on a card saying they want a vote as to whether that company should unionize, they get the chance to have that vote, that vote, as sought by labor, and as was demanded in fact by the organizers, a secret ballot. It was a secret ballot because, in large measure, workers did not trust management. They thought company ownership would intimidate a worker, threaten a worker, try and prohibit them from making their own free choice, so they insisted on the secret ballot, just as our Founding Fathers did, and just as we today protect the secret ballot for those who vote for or against us, and for or against amendments to our Constitution or any referendum that comes before them.

So the secret ballot allowed brave people to vote, in privacy, as to whether they wanted to be organized. If they were organized, if they voted 50 percent plus one to organize, they could form a union. If they formed that union, they then had the right to collectively bargain, use the strength of their numbers with management, negotiate contracts to protect themselves and their interests, and bargain for benefits.

That is not a bad system. It is a neutral system. It is a fair system. When you got the 30-percent signatures, you then had a neutral system where management had the opportunity to tell you all the reasons why they were going to be better and you did not need to organize; and labor had all the opportunity they needed to tell you why not to believe that and that you needed to organize.

Out of that came a vote, a private vote, a secret ballot vote. If 50 percent plus one voted for it, the union got to organize.

Now, what does the Employee Free Choice Act say? It says: Well, you are no longer going to have the opportunity of avoiding intimidation because we are going to take away the secret ballot. We are going to say: If union leaders decide they want to come in and organize a company that is not unionized, they can get 50 percent plus one to sign off on a card chit and you have a union. There is no vote. There is just the card sign-off, but it is not signed off in secret. You no longer have the neutrality to have the opportunity of management getting the chance to make its case. You have a negative environment of worker against company and, worst of all, as I read the legislation, as I understand it, it would then say: The first contract with the company is not negotiated, it is written by Federal mediators.

Give me a break. We are going from a system that has improved America to the safest, most productive, most opportunistic country in the world, where we have no child labor, we have minimum wages, we have hourly standards, we have worker protections, we have overtime, we have comp time, we have OSHA, we have regulatory commissions of every type to ensure, and we have good union management relationships in most places in this country.

Why is this before us? It is before us because there has been a decline in union membership. It is before us because the problems that gave way to the union movement have been solved in large measure, and we have responded with the laws necessary to protect people and their rights regardless of age or sex or disability. We have done that.

But the union movement has not changed with the times. There are exceptions. There are many great relationships today. One of them is SMACNA, the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association. I happen to know a little bit about these folks because of my work in development and construction. They have a partnership with their union. It is not an adversarial relationship. They have taken advantage of the Wagner Act.

We must preserve a system that protects workers. Ours is a neutral system, a level playing field for those who wished to be organized and those who wished for organization not to take place. They have a level platform.

I don't know why it is coming to the floor. I don't know why it is not going through the committee system. I don't know why it is going to be a quick 1-day vote, which is my understanding of the way it will be.

I will stake my claim on 72 years of success under the Wagner Act, under the right to protect and continue to protect the secret ballot, and of my desire to see to it that we honor those things we have created in response to the bad things that happened in the early part of the 20th century. Why change a good thing? Yes, we have a decline now in the union movement. Buy why do you all of a sudden create a situation of intimidation, an unbalanced situation, an uneven playing field, all for the sake of trying to save a movement that won't save itself?

I submit there is today, has been in the past, and will be in the future a viable place for the collective bargaining of workers and for unions but not if it is an unlevel playing field, not if the company and management don't have the same equal rights as do those workers, and not, most importantly, if those workers don't have protection of the secret ballot.

As I understand it, the vast majority, over 70 percent of union members, like the secret ballot. Over 70 percent of Republicans and Democrats--far more than that--like the secret ballot and think card check is crazy. To date, the only thing I have seen endorsing card check in print was the 2005 Communist Party convention in the United States which endorsed card check and the Employee Free Choice Act. Give me a break. This is one time where we ought to ratify what is right with America, ratify the success we have had in the past, honor the ills we corrected, honor the employees who make America work, continue to see to it that the employees do have a free choice, a private choice, a secret ballot, and continue to work in the greatest country on the face of this Earth with the greatest worker protection of any nation in the world.