CDW Thanks Rep. John Kline for Defending Employees, Employers

WASHINGTON, D.C. // OCTOBER 3, 2011 // Today, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, on behalf of hundreds of employers and associations representing millions of workplaces in every Congressional District in the nation thanked the House Education and the Workforce Committee for holding a hearing on Chairman John Kline’s Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act.

The bill would rein in the rogue National Labor Relations Board and address its campaign to use executive action to implement key portions of the ill-fated, ill-conceived Employee Free Choice Act. Even though Congress rightly refused to pass the job-killing legislation, the NLRB is attempting to effectively silence employers during an organizing drive–a key goal of EFCA–by reducing the amount of time they have to make their case to employees. As a result, many workers will only hear the union’s side of the story.

The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act would directly remedy these key concerns, as well as heading off swarms of “micro union” organizing drives introduced by the blatant special-interest ruling in the “Specialty Healthcare” decision. Micro-unions not only threaten to overwhelm job creators with burdens associated with negotiating with multiple bargaining units for similarly situated employees, but also allow union strategists to gerrymander representation elections, effectively disenfranchising employees that do not support unionization.

CDW chairman Geoffrey Burr said, “As experts at the hearing stated unequivocally, the rogue NLRB must be reined in so that employers have the opportunity to educate their employees and those employees have sufficient time and knowledge to make informed decisions through a private ballot election.”

Burr concluded, “We hope Congress will immediately pass this legislation to remove a cloud of uncertainty and allow job creators to focus on hiring and helping our economy recover.”