WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Retail Federation today urged a House committee to reject "card-check" legislation that would take away workers' right to secret ballots in union elections, saying the House is moving too quickly for proper consideration of the measure.
The House Education and Labor Committee is expected to vote today on H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act, sponsored by Chairman George Miller, D- Calif. The vote is scheduled even though the bill was introduced only eight days ago, and even though the only hearing has been a subcommittee session dominated by union supporters with little input from other workers or business groups.
"Congress shouldn't throw away over half a century of labor law in a single week," NRF Vice President for Government and Political Affairs Rob Green said. "The full committee hasn't held a single hearing, and most committee members haven't had a chance to examine what this bill would do. More importantly, American workers aren't being given a chance to learn how this bill takes away their rights. When they do, they're going to oppose it. The changes proposed in this bill are too drastic to be pushed through on a fast track that hides the facts from the public."
The bill would require the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union if presented with signed authorization cards from a majority of employees the union is seeking to organize, eliminating the long-standing National Labor Relations Act requirement for secret ballots in union elections. The legislation also includes other anti-employer provisions such as compulsory arbitration of first contracts and enhanced penalties.
"For more than 60 years, the choice about whether a union will serve as the bargaining representative of a group of employees has been made by employees voting in a private, federally supervised secret ballot election," Green said. "The secret ballot election is the fairest way to guarantee the rights of employees to freely choose whether to be represented by a union. It allows for a private, confidential vote based on the principles of the American system of democracy."
NRF is leading the retail industry's fight against the card-check proposal. Among other activities, NRF is a member of the management committee of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, a broad-based business group formed to oppose the legislation, and co-chairs the group's lobbying committee.
The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.6 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 24 million employees -- about one in five American workers -- and 2006 sales of $4.7 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. http://www.nrf.com/.
CONTACT: J. Craig Shearman of National Retail Federation, +1-202-626-8134, shearmanc@nrf.com
Web site: http://www.nrf.com/
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