Virginia Foxx: “Woman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment will open Pandora's box. Sectoral bargaining which…”

“Woman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment will open Pandora's box. Sectoral bargaining which would apply a single one-size-fits-all contract to every employee in every business across a particular industry in the United States would be an unmitigated disaster for American small businesses. It would rob small business owners and workers alike of the freedom to negotiate their own contracts. Every business is different. One-size-fits-all union contracts applied across an entire industry throughout the United States would saddle small businesses with labor and employment costs that do not work for their particular business and that they may not be able to afford. Similarly, employees would be forced to accept wages, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment that they had no say in determining, and that may not work for their individual situations. {time} 1815 Collective bargaining agreements already force workers into one-size- fits-all contracts, but currently, in the United States, they are at least confined within the walls of one business at a time. Sectoral bargaining is a flawed and economically stifling policy used in other countries, and one we should not be importing into the United States. It would likely expand union contracts to hundreds of thousands of additional employees, to the detriment of every worker hoping for more individualized wages and benefits.…”