Republicans have a historic opportunity to protect workers. As the Republican National Convention last month showed, the party is the voice of the working class, a trend that Republican leaders can accelerate by rallying around more pro-worker policies. They can start with the Worker Enfranchisement Act, which one of us, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), introduced in Congress this week.
This common-sense reform would require the participation of a two-thirds quorum of eligible employees in unionization elections, guaranteeing that a strong majority of workers’ voices are heard. If that bar is cleared, the unionization election results would stand, regardless of whether the union wins or loses. But if fewer than two-thirds of workers show up to vote, the election results don’t count. The National Labor Relations Board operates on the same principle, requiring a quorum of two-thirds participation of their members before issuing decisions.
This reform protects workers, all of whom are forced to accept union representation if the union wins the election, including in right-to-work states. It also closes a long-standing loophole that lets unions ignore the views of many and even most workers. Under current law, unions merely need to win the support of the majority of voting workers, even if a much larger number don’t vote.
This can lead to absurd situations such as the unionization election at Virginia defense contractor Kerberos International in April. Only one worker voted out of eight who were eligible, giving a union control of all of them. Similarly, at a Starbucks store, a recent election featured a mere three workers electing a union for a workplace of 28 people.
Union organizers can easily abuse this system, focusing on a small number of workers who can ensure a union victory. Trader Joe’s employee Michael Alcorn testified before Congress in May that “after an organizer realized I wasn’t on board, they told me that they couldn’t answer any more questions and were going to devote their attention to those who would help them ‘win.’”
Alcorn also said an NLRB agent told him that “it makes sense that the organizers would only talk to people who already support the union.” Under current law, that smaller number of workers can ensure a union victory if they’re the only ones who vote.
Separately, the NLRB is trying to make it harder for employers to talk to workers about the realities of unionization, further increasing the likelihood that unions prevail with only a handful of voting workers.
Requiring a two-thirds quorum of workers would ensure that unionization elections are strongly democratic. Unions may balk at this common-sense proposal, but that says more about their priorities than the policy itself. With a two-thirds quorum, 80% of the unionization elections in fiscal 2023 would still have been valid, and unions would have won nearly all of them. They should be willing to work harder to win the rest because that would lend legitimacy to their victory while giving workers more confidence that their wishes are truly respected. If unions don’t want to turn out a strong majority of workers, then workers should wonder if the union is really looking out for their interests.
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The Worker Enfranchisement Act deserves attention from all Republicans who say they stand with workers. But this reform is also just one plank of a broader platform. Workers also need guaranteed secret ballot elections to stop unions from intimidating or harassing them into organizing. Workers’ personal information, including their home addresses and cellphone numbers, should be kept from unions’ hands, lest organizers hound them after work hours or in front of their families. And workers need right-to-work laws, which protect them from being forced to pay unions they didn’t vote for or don’t support.
The Republican National Convention showed that the GOP stands with the men and women who truly run America. Now Republicans must take new steps to give workers a guaranteed voice and protect their fundamental rights.
Tim Walberg is a U.S. representative for Michigan. F. Vincent Vernuccio is president of the Institute for the American Worker.