Good afternoon Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis, and other members of the Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today about implementing the rights of Congressional staff to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining under Section 220 of the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA), 2 U.S.C. § 1351, which grants certain employees the right to form, join, or assist a labor organization without fear of penalty or reprisal.
As the General Counsel of the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR), I have specific responsibilities under Section 220 of the CAA. The statute grants me the authority to investigate and prosecute cases involving unfair labor practices. It also allows me to investigate issues raised by labor-management petitions to the OCWR Board of Directors when directed to do so by the Board. I also advise the Board and the Executive Director on collective bargaining matters and defend the Board’s decisions in most of these matters before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of “unfair labor practices” under this section of the statute, an unfair labor practice is committed when an employing office or a union fails to comply with a statutory duty imposed by Section 220. Since an unfair labor practice can be committed at any stage of the collective bargaining process – from the earliest organizing efforts all the way through the termination of a collective bargaining agreement – my staff and I are generally familiar with the stages of the collective bargaining process and how these rights are implemented through the various processes provided by the OCWR under the CAA. However, because I am not directly responsible for the processing of representation petitions, I may not be able to answer certain questions without consulting with others in the office.
I know that members of the Committee have many questions about how the collective bargaining rights of Congressional staff would be implemented if the House approved the Regulations adopted by the OCWR Board, so I want to keep my opening remarks brief. But to provide a framework for my answers to your questions, there are three topics that I need to cover briefly.
