Committee President’s Statement on Senate ‘Labor Law Reform’ Hearing

On Wednesday, October 8th at 10:00 AM ET, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee will hold a hearing titled “Labor Law Reform Part 1: Diagnosing the Issues, Exploring Current Proposals.”

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix issued the following statement ahead of the hearing:

America’s labor laws are badly in need of reform. Individual employees in a unionized workplace cannot escape a union boss-imposed contract. Even if they think that contract is unambiguously bad, even if they think they’d be better off without a union and disapprove of its presence in their workplace, these dissenting workers are forced to abide by the union’s terms and cannot deal with their employer directly. Rubbing salt in the wound, in the 24 states that lack a Right to Work law, workers can be forced to pay dues and fees to pay for the so-called union “representation” they do not want.

These twin injustices – forced “representation” and forced dues – must be eliminated if labor law and the process of union bargaining are to be reformed in a pro-worker direction. Senator Rand Paul’s National Right to Work Act (S. 533) would end forced union dues in all 50 states. That is the best available labor law reform and every Senator on the HELP Committee should support it.

The powerful union bosses who sit atop America’s major labor unions do not want to fix these injustices, because they benefit directly from the power conferred by forced representation and the money hauled in by forced dues. They’ll never address or even acknowledge any of the anti-worker compulsion that’s baked into America’s labor laws. Instead, they want to make compulsory unionism faster and more powerful.

Senator Hawley’s so-called “Faster Labor Contracts Act,” which he and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien will no doubt promote at tomorrow’s hearing, would not give workers any new protections from compulsory unionism. It wouldn’t give them a voice in the workplace. In fact, it ensures that decisions about their working lives are made far away in Washington, DC. Hawley’s bill sends union contract negotiations to federal arbiters if they don’t wrap up within a few months. This disastrous policy would put uninformed and potentially corrupt federal bureaucrats in charge of labor terms for private businesses across the country. These terms (which aren’t “contracts” since neither workers, employers, nor even unions must consent to them) will remain binding for two years, and will lead many businesses into financial ruin, costing workers their jobs.

As Senators consider the arguments presented in this hearing, they should remember that not every worker benefits from a union contract. Not every worker benefits from being forced to pay dues to an unwanted union. But every union boss, and every supporter of union bosses’ overwhelmingly left-wing political agenda, benefits when Big Labor is given increased coercive power over workers. Senators should decide who they represent – workers or union bosses – and treat the proposals presented at this hearing accordingly.