Committee on Education of the Workforce
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) issued the following statement today after House Education and Workforce Republicans announced that the committee will vote on legislation in less than 48 hours that would strip the National Labor Relations Board’s ability to enforce the law to protect workers against unfair labor practices. The bill was introduced late this afternoon. “I am deeply disappointed that the Republicans have chosen to take such reckless action, ramming a far-reaching bill through committee in less than 48 hours without a hearing. A quick first read indicates that the Republican bill will make it easier to play American workers against each other in a race to the bottom and even easier to ship American jobs overseas. It would create an open season for CEOs to punish workers for exercising their rights. “The repercussions of this bill would be wide-ranging and damaging to workers’ rights. Chairman Kline should cancel Thursday’s committee vote and instead hold a hearing on the bill to examine its full range of consequences.”
At issue is whether Boeing, then other companies, can retaliate against a union, or nonunion workers, by moving an assembly line to another factor, when workers fight for their rights. Also at issue is whether Congress will act without a full and open discussion of this important matter.
I'm not real familiar with this, but:
a. The legislation is in committee - the chance of this becoming law anytime soon is remote?
b. The issue is not whether a company can retaliate by moving production elsewhere in retaliation for a strike, but whether it can move production elsewhere in the absence of a finding that "unfair labor practices" have been committed. The repub legislation at my first read seems to be about preventing the NLRB from penalizing companies who have not been found to have violated, in specific instances, the NLRA.
Posted by: Dak Shorenstein | July 25, 2011 at 09:32 PM
This makes me so mad.
Of course, living in Texas, a "Right to work" state, or more like "A right to fire you without cause state" I suppose people are used to this terrible treatment.
IN the same vein, I wrote a post answering the Mother Jones article about Super Jobs recently, the process of "offloading" 3-5 people's jobs onto one person and expecting them to keep it together: I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
http://wildwomanfundraising.com/super-job
Posted by: Mazarine | July 25, 2011 at 10:09 PM
Blogged it.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | July 26, 2011 at 03:40 PM