Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted by The NLRB Relating to Representation Electronic Procedures - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to thank the Senator from Wyoming for yielding but, more importantly, for his leadership on the subject that brings us all to the floor.

The National Labor Relations Board has gotten a lot of attention lately and for reasons I don't think are too helpful to the cause. Obviously, being from South Carolina, their decision to entertain a complaint against the Boeing Company for moving to South Carolina, a complaint filed by the machinists union that sat on their desk for 1 year and then finally was brought forward by the NLRB to potentially close down the South Carolina site and move the facility back to Washington, thank God, is behind us now.

But at the end of the day, this organization, the National Labor Relations Board, seems to be hell bent on changing processes across the board more for political reason than a substantive reason.

What brings us here today is the rulemaking proposal to change the time for union elections for employees to vote on whether they want to be part of a union. It does away with the preelection consultation, the idea of the employer and the people wanting to represent the employees sitting down and seeing if they can work out a proposal or a compromise; it shortens the election time to as little as 10 days. So if you are in the company in question, you have a 10-day period before the election. The current mean average is 38 days.

I would argue this is being done not to make things more efficient but to change outcomes. Quite frankly, the outcome being desired is to make the union position stronger, not to make the system more efficient. That is what happens.

I expect a Republican President to nominate people to a board such as the NLRB with a business background. I expect a Democratic President to nominate people to the NLRB and like boards with maybe a more union background. But I expect the Board not to take the agency and turn it into a political organization and try to create by rulemaking what we can't create by legislating. That is what brings us here today.

The whole complaint filed by the machinists union in Washington, taking that complaint up that the move to South Carolina was somehow in retaliation against the union in Washington when no one lost their job in the State of Washington and no one's pay was reduced I think was taking the NLRB into an area it has never gone before.

This is just a continuation of that pattern and this is not good because the unelected aspect of our government, the NLRB and similar agencies, has a lot of sway over our economy. At a time when we are trying to make sure we

create jobs in America and make it easier for people to locate their companies here, proposals such as this are undercutting what we need to be doing.

This is an unprecedented move. This kind of breathtaking change in the rules has only happened, I think, two or three times, and this was proposed as Mr. Becker was on the way out. Congress, under the Administrative Review Act, has an opportunity to stop this before it is too late. What this is being called on our side is sort of an ambush election.

The point we are trying to make is that by changing this rule to a 10-day period and doing away with preelection negotiations basically creates an environment where people are having to cast votes and not understanding who is going to be representing them or the nature of their decision. Why do we want to shorten an election? Why do we want to do away with the ability to negotiate between the employer and people who want to represent the employees?

I don't see this is addressing a problem that exists. I think this is more motivated by getting at an outcome rather than reforming a process. I hope some of our Democratic colleagues will say this is excessive and unnecessary.

If the Congress doesn't stand in the way between the American people and unelected bureaucrats, who will? This is your chance as a Member of Congress to do something about the unelected side of government that is growing more powerful by the day. We have a chance here to say no to a rule that makes no sense, that is going to skew the playing field and, quite frankly, I think represents the worst of special interest politics.

I hope Senators will take an opportunity to exercise their authority as a Member of Congress and say: Whoa. Time out. We don't need to go down this road. Let's let people understand who will be representing them, let the people who are going to vote in an election regarding unionization of the workplace to have a meaningful understanding of what they are about to vote on. There is no reason to shorten the process to 10 days. I doubt most of us would like our elections to be shortened to 10 days.

This is not about reforming an election process that is broken. It is about trying to change the outcome and skew it to the benefit of one side versus the other. Again, the rulemaking is not necessary. This is a chance for a Member of Congress to stand and say no to the unelected side of government at a time when somebody needs to say no to them.

I just hope and pray we can get some bipartisan support for this because Senator Enzi has done a very good job of trying to explain to the Senate and to our conference as a whole about what awaits the American workforce if this rule is changed, why it is unnecessary. It is not about reforming a broken process; it is trying to get an outcome where one side benefits versus the other.

I just hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will look at this as an opportunity for Congress to speak against the excessive rulemaking and what I think is an abuse of a process.

With that, I yield, and I appreciate very much the leadership of Senator Enzi.

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