I shot an email to Rep Miller about the latest Bush attack on American's rights and liberties and was sent back the following. Thank god someone in Congress is on top of the situation!
News - U.S. House of Representatives
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EDUCATION & THE WORKFORCE COMMITTEE DEMOCRATS
Congressman George Miller, Ranking Member
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Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Tom Kiley or Rachel Racusen, 202-225-3725
REP. MILLER: BUSH NLRB ATTACKS WORK-
PLACE RIGHTS OF MILLIONS OF WORKERS
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Bush National Labor Relations Board issued a series
of rulings today that have the potential to strip over 8 million American
workers of their freedom to choose whether or not to join a labor union.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House Education and
Workforce Committee, strongly denounced the Bush NLRB's decision. He issued
the following statement:
"Today's decisions are a radical attack on workers' freedom and on their
ability to provide for their families. They mean that hundreds of thousands
of nurses - and potentially millions of other middle-class workers - could
be unable to advocate for decent pay and benefits and reasonable work
arrangements. The ultimate consequence of these decisions is that nurses and
other workers will wind up with lower pay, more meager benefits, and worse
working conditions. Patients and overall health care quality will also
suffer as a result.
"In the Bush economy, families are working harder than ever just to keep
their earnings from falling. Wages have been stagnant and the costs of basic
necessities have been going up. Meanwhile, corporate profits are at a
40-year high. Workers deserve their fair share of the benefits of economic
growth, and the best way to ensure that they get it is by giving them a
stronger voice at work. Yet these disastrous decisions could silence the
voices of millions of workers who want to be paid and treated fairly by
their employers. Instead of a roadmap to a stronger middle class, the Bush
Administration has provided anti-union employers with a roadmap to denying
workers' rights, cutting workers' pay, and silencing our front-line health
care advocates.
"Labor unions are essential to ensuring that there is balance in our society
between the right of companies to make profits and the right of workers to
earn fair wages and have decent working conditions. Yet for years, President
Bush and Republicans in Congress have been undermining workers' freedom to
choose whether they want to be part of a union or not. This latest action by
the Bush NLRB is the most severe attempt yet to take that choice away from
workers.
"In order for American workers to be able to receive better pay, benefits,
and working conditions, they must have the leverage to advocate for those
things at work. It is time for a new direction for America that rejects the
Bush administration's misguided anti-worker ideology and ensures that
everyone can benefit in today's economy."
The Bush NLRB's decisions may be appealed to a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court, a process which, after 60 years,
has not produced sufficient clarity or managed to protect workers. Miller
said today that, with millions of workers' rights hanging in the balance,
Congress must take up this matter immediately and ensure that the
fundamental rights of nurses and other professional and skilled workers are
fully protected.
Miller released a report in July that details the Bush NLRB's history of
undermining workers' rights. Click here for a copy of that report. Miller is
also an author of legislation to remove obstacles that prevent workers from
freely choosing whether or not to join a labor union. Click here for more
information on that legislation.
The cases decided today by the National Labor Relations Board are Oakwood
Healthcare, Inc.; Golden Crest Healthcare Center; and Croft Metals, Inc.
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-----Original Message-----
From: john
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 1:32 PM
To: Miller, George
Subject: Labor Rights, Hewlett Packard, and corporate Ethics.
Dear Rep. Miller,
I am outraged at the National Labor Relations Board's recent implementation
of the Kentucky River decision. I hope you will take the time to read my
letter and help protect our rights as Americans by speaking out against this
decision. I was an employee of an Hewlett Packard spinoff, Agilent
Technologies, which required employees to aid in the offshoring of jobs from
our local community to Malaysia. I was aware of HP's gross labor abuses
from reviewing the archives at the NLRB, and was expected similar treatment
from Agilent executives. They attacked me as they would any organizer,
despite the fact that I was attempting to organize an independent union free
of the influences of the AFL-CIO. I eventually had to resign rather than
continue my key role in offshoring jobs (I was one of the few
non-supervisors in daily communications with Malaysia and China.)
Why is it that American executives have such a hard time with ethics and
discerning right from wrong? I advocated for an Employee Stock Ownership
Plan, something that our founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard were fond
of back in the 50's. My thought was that a trustee might weigh the benefits
of high profits to US jobs for employee stock holders. Yet, our executives
chose to malign me personally and implied that I was pro-labor for my gain
only.
>From my standpoint, employees need the right to organize to protect their
Nation's interests from clueless executives who will sell us short in the
name of corporate profits. Agilent Technologies has many Dept of Defense
contracts which require a certain amount of labor from advanced nations, but
management were able to find workarounds to pass the letter of the law. We
sent instruments to Singapore for assembly and then returned them to
Malaysia for disassembly and repair. Technically legal, but the spirit of
the law was thoroughly routed, and good US jobs which had created
generations of young Engineers were sent to the lowest bidder. In Malaysia,
the uneducated bolt-turners have no hope of advancing to skilled engineers
unlike in the US where our brightest engineers started on the production
line and then discovered their knack for electronics.
We even moved some products development out of the US to avoid pesky export
restrictions on Surveillance Equipment (to Columbia and renamed the division
"Signal Monitoring". Our VP even sent software development of certain
Surveillance products (in the restricted 44 and 50 GHz frequency range) to
China, a country that the US often surveils). None of this is outright
illegal due to the inability of Congress to conceive of such outrages before
they happen. Even weapons control software could be made in Iran if we
wanted to do such a thing (how much money can we save?). But it is unethical
and unpatriotic to the hilt, which is why I protested with the last
remaining right that was available to me and my peers, labor rights.
Now that right is being undermined as well, and we are left to the
questionable judgement of our executives to determine if we are or are not
supervisors. Kentucky River leaves us with no practical right to even
consider organizing against job losses or other executive actions that are
damaging to your community or job.
Please do not let the Bush appointed NLRB get away with this outrage
unchallenged.
Best regards,
John