Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: The National Labor Relations Act ( 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) was enacted to encourage the practice of collective bargaining and to protect the exercise by workers of full freedom of association in the workplace. Since its enactment in 1935, tens of millions of workers have bargained with their employers over wages, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment and have raised the standard of living for all workers. According to research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, through acting collectively and bargaining with their employers, workers who are unionized earn 25.2 percent more than workers who are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
They are 40.8 percent more likely to be offered health insurance through work and nearly 5 times as likely to have employer-provided defined benefit pensions. The wage differential is significant for women and people of color. Unionized African-American workers earn 25.1 percent more than African-American workers who are not unionized, and unionized Latino workers earn 45.7 percent more than their peers who are not unionized. Unionized women earn 32.1 percent more than women who are not unionized, and the wage gap between men and women is much smaller at unionized workplaces.
The wage gains achieved through collective bargaining agreements benefit workers and their communities. Unions and collective bargaining ensure that productivity gains are shared by working people. The decline in the percentage of workers covered by collective bargaining has contributed significantly to skyrocketing income inequality and flat wages. As enacted in 1935, the National Labor Relations Act ( 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) protects the right of all workers to join together with their co-workers to advocate for improvements in their pay, benefits, and working conditions, regardless of whether they seek representation by a union.
The law protects the right of workers to discuss issues like pay and benefits without retaliation or interference by employers. However, the awareness of workers regarding their rights under the law is lacking, and many employers maintain policies that restrict the ability of workers to discuss workplace issues with each other, directly contravening these rights. Research shows that more than one-half of workers report that their employers have policies that prohibit or discourage workers from discussing pay with their co-workers.
These policies and practices impede workers from exercising their rights under the law and impair their freedom of association at work. Retaliation by employers against workers who exercise their rights under the National Labor Relations Act ( 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) persists at troubling levels. Employers routinely fire workers for trying to form a union at their workplace. In one out of 3 organizing campaigns, one or more workers are discharged for supporting or joining a union.
From fiscal years 2014 through 2016, the National Labor Relations Board obtained reinstatement orders for 6,997 workers and obtained awards totaling over $193,000,000 for backpay and other damages for workers who faced illegal retaliation for exercising their rights. The current remedies are inadequate to deter employers from violating the National Labor Relations Act ( 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq.). The remedies and penalties for violations of the National Labor Relations Act ( 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) are far weaker than for other labor and employment laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( 42 U.S.C. 2000a et seq.).
Unlike other major labor and employment laws, there are no civil penalties for violations of the law. Workers cannot go to court to pursue relief on their own; they must rely on the National Labor Relations Board to prosecute their case. Unlike orders of other federal agencies, the National Labor Relations Board’s orders are not enforced until the Board seeks enforcement from the Court of Appeals. As far back as 1969, the Administrative Conference of the United States recognized that the absence of a self-enforcing agency order imposes wasteful delays in the enforcement of the Act, and recommended that the Board’s orders be made self-enforcing like those of other agencies.
Congress did not act upon this recommendation, and delays in the Board’s enforcement remain a problem for the Act to be an effective law. Many workers do not currently enjoy the protections of the Act because they are excluded from coverage by the statute or interpretations of the statute. Too often, workers who choose to form unions are frustrated when their employers use delay and other tactics to avoid reaching an initial collective bargaining agreement. Estimates are that in as many as half of new organizing campaigns, workers and their employers fail to reach an initial collective bargaining agreement.
In order to make the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association in the workplace a reality for workers, the National Labor Relations Act ( 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) must be strengthened.
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