FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ryan Williams
September 25, 2017 202-677-7060
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
How To Keep Score On Labor Issues
Heather Greenaway
September 25, 2017
Washington Examiner
For years, members of Congress fighting for balance in American workplaces have been stymied, frustrated, and ignored. They recently watched in horror as the activist Obama administration and the federal bureaucracy put the interests of Big Labor first, rejecting at every turn sound policies that would help actual workers and boost the economy.
They were also dispirited to see other lawmakers support anti-worker, anti-business, anti-growth policies at the behest of union bosses with few repercussions. These pols even looked the other way as former President Barack Obama’s supposedly independent National Labor Relations Board overstepped and overreached, undoing decades of labor precedents as naked political payback.
With all that in mind, the Workforce Fairness Institute, my organization devoted to educating workers, employers, and citizens about issues affecting the workplace, introduced a new tool that will allow everyday citizens concerned whether their elected representatives are standing up for their rights, to measure who talks the talk versus who actually walks the walk.
Last week, WFI launched a “Congressional scorecard” that will grade elected officials on their voting record pertaining to issues affecting the workplace. The scorecard will update regularly based on legislative activity in both chambers, and Members of Congress will receive a score at the conclusion of each session. Overall scores will be calculated based on sponsorships, co-sponsorships, and votes on key issues affecting workers’ rights.
Under eight years of the Obama administration, the NLRB’s power and influence ballooned, stripping workers and job creators of rights, and handing them over to union bosses. Three such examples are the Board’s “ambush election” ruling, “micro-union” decision and new “joint-employer” standard.
The ambush election ruling shortened the timeframe for union elections to an unprecedented 11 days, allowing union organizers to quietly garner support for unionization, then ambush workers with a vote before they had a chance to receive and review information concerning the positive and negative aspects of unionization.
On micro-unions, the NLRB decided to create out of whole cloth a new pathway for organizing composed of gerrymandered bargaining units of small groups of employees as opposed to the traditional standard of the majority of workers. In the Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile decision, Obama’s “independent” labor board turned on its head decades of established labor law and bypassed Congress entirely.
The new joint-employer standard once again rewrote labor law in forcing businesses to assume responsibility for workplace violations under their “indirect control.” This presents an existential threat to various industries, including franchises representing 7.6 million jobs. By forcing businesses to assume liability for workplace violations that occur outside their control, the NLRB has put job creators under constant threat.
Thankfully, there is legislation in Congress to amend these misguided policies and restore the balance of power in American workplaces in favor of employees. With the WFI scorecard, workers and job creators alike will have a mechanism to measure what is taking place on Capitol Hill and thank those keeping true to their word and working hard to ensure their rights are protected. At the same time, employees and employers will be able to see who stands on the side of union bosses seeking special deals and preferential treatment at the expense of rank-and-file workers who do all the heavy lifting, day in and day out.
It is high time for this kind of clarity. WFI is working to offer it to America’s workers, employers, and citizens so they can make fully informed choices about workplace issues.
Heather Greenaway is a spokesperson for the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI).
To access the op-ed, click here.
The Workforce Fairness Institute is an organization committed to educating voters, employers, employees and citizens about issues affecting the workplace. To learn more, please visit: http://www.workforcefairness.com.
To schedule an interview with a Workforce Fairness Institute representative, please contact Ryan Williams at (202) 677-7060.
###