Joe Courtney: “60 days ago I was still a small employer and a member of the chamber of commerce, which I had been for 25 years. And as…”

“60 days ago I was still a small employer and a member of the chamber of commerce, which I had been for 25 years. And as someone coming from that background, listening to the claims from the other side about stripping workers of their right to a secret ballot or subjecting employers to coercion and duress, I was concerned about my good friends in the small business community who are wonderful people and work every day and have control of their own lives, that somehow we were harming them. Read the law. Section (c)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees workers the right to a secret ballot election if a ``substantial number,'' only 30 percent, ask for it, is still preserved. It is not being repealed. Secondly, this bill provides in section 2 that people who have claims of duress, coercion, fraud on the part of union organizers have an avenue, have a remedy with the National Labor Relations Board. These cards are not the back of a napkin. There will be a process and a procedure which will be fair to employers and to workers. What this bill is about is restoring balance in the law, which, as the chairman indicated, the facts demonstrate is hurting workers, and it is our job to restore that balance.”