HELP Committee GOP: NLRB’s “Quickie Election” Rules Will Ambush Small Businesses, Undermine Employee Rights

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined with Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), to express their strong opposition to “quickie election” rule changes proposed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  In a formal comment to the Board, the senators said that the rule changes will hurt America’s small businesses and undermine employee rights.

“This proposal undermines the rights of employers and employees guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act, and effectively achieves through administrative action what supporters of the failed Employee Free Choice Act could not achieve legislatively,” the senators wrote.  “The rule would shorten the time period for union elections and create new burdens that would stack the deck against employers during union organizing campaigns.  This effort by the NLRB to tip the scales of union organizing in favor of unions would also contravene the carefully crafted balance established by Congress in the NLRA.  The changes proposed by the NLRB are flawed in both process and substance, and will ultimately harm businesses, particularly small businesses, struggling to retain and create jobs.”

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