The Employee Rights Act

Americans have long seen America as a land of opportunity – a place where those who work hard can get ahead. The worst economic downturn since the Great Depression has tainted this belief. The reason is not some fundamental change in what it means to be an American, but rather a fundamental policy shift in Washington that has served to perpetuate the stagnant economy.

Over the past three years, the Obama Administration has implemented regulations designed to push workers into unions.  Despite public push back and increased congressional scrutiny, they continue to advance Big Labor’s political agenda.

Fortunately, Representative Tim Scott (R-SC) introduced the Employee Rights Act (H.R. 2810), which would amend the National Labor Relations Act to make it an unlawful labor practice for a labor organization or its agents to interfere with the rights of employees to organize and select representation to collectively bargain.

Representative Scott’s bill will also:

- Require a neutral, private organization, chosen by agreement between an employer and a labor organization that is the exclusive representative of employees;

- Require the NLRB to give 14-days advance notice before a hearing when it is investigating an election petition;

- Amend the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Landrum-Griffin Act); and,

- Prohibit the use of an employee’s union dues for any purpose not directly related to the labor organization’s collective bargaining.

The federal government should protect workers’ freedoms, not push them into unwanted unions and force them to pay union dues. By some estimates, 90% of all union members never voted to join the union.  It is time to bring U.S. labor policy into the 21st-century to deal with the challenges facing today’s workers.

Related:
Opportunity, Parity, Choice: A Labor Agenda for the 112^th Congress
Proposed Union Rules Harm Workers and Job Creation