IEC OKC, Inc.
  Independent Electrical Contractors of Oklahoma City, OK

Small Business

Misnamed Employee Free Choice Act Compromise

“Alternatives” to Misnamed Employee Free Choice Act Compromise
Protections for Employees and Employers
• There can be no compromise on eliminating the rights of workers to vote by
private ballot in union organizing elections. The Coalition for a Democratic
Workplace (CDW) will oppose any federal legislation... Click here to read more.

Affordable Health Care

Providing quality health care coverage for employees in the face of skyrocketing health care premiums is one of the most difficult and expensive problems facing many employers. Small businesses feel this impact on a greater scale because they do not have the negotiating power that larger businesses and corporations have. Association Healthcare Plans (AHPs) have long been sought as a way to provide small business owners with an affordable health care alternative. AHPs would allow for businesses to band together through associations to increase their buying power when negotiating with insurance providers for coverage. By forming AHPs, associations could provide their members with more health insurance options, which would drive down the cost for small business owners and their employees.

Status of Legislation: H.R. 241 has been introduced by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), and currently is pending in the House Committee on Education and Labor.

IEC Position: IEC is proud to represent America’s small business owners, with more than 60% of our membership consisting of companies with 10 or fewer employees. IEC supports legislation that would allow for a more market-based health insurance system with quality health insurance options, while avoiding the state coverage mandates that make insurance too expensive for many hard-working Americans.

Mandatory Paid Sick Leave

Legislation has been introduced in the 110th Congress that would make drastic changes to current labor law and mandate that employers provide seven days of paid sick leave for all employees. The Healthy Families Act (S. 910 and H.R. 1542) would create a new federal mandate requiring all businesses employing 15 or more individuals provided 7 days of paid sick leave to all employees. Currently employers are not required to provide sick leave, though a vast majority do so on a voluntary basis as an employee benefit. 

Status of Legislation: H.R. 1542 was introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and S. 910 by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA). H.R. 1542 is pending in the House Committee on Education and Labor, while S. 910 is pending in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

IEC’s Position: IEC opposes H.R. 1542 and S. 910. IEC opposes a one-size-fits-all approach to this issue. Each business is unique and must be able to address personnel needs in a practical way.

Tax Reform

Repeal of the Death Tax

Repeal of the Death Tax

The federal estate tax, commonly referred to as the Death Tax, is a tax on the estate of a deceased person.  Essentially taxpayers are paying double taxes as you build your estate and then again as you pass it on. The Death Tax acts as a major hurdle, if not outright barrier, to the passing down of family owned small businesses to future generations. 

As part of the 2001 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act, the threshold amount at which the Death Tax is applied was increased and the tax rate was decreased, leading to an out-right repeal of the tax in 2010. However, that elimination will sunset after just one year and the death tax will again be in place at the 2001 levels starting in 2011. 

Status of Legislation: Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) has introduced H.R. 1586, which would make permanent the repeal of the Death Tax. This legislation is pending before the House Committee on Ways and Means.

IEC’s Position: IEC supports permanent repeal of the Death Tax.

Repeal of 3% Withholding on Government Contracts

In an effort to increase tax compliance by contractors working with the federal government, a 2005 tax cut included a last minute provision to implement a 3% withholding starting in 2011. Section 511 of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 requires any local government entity with annual revenues in excess of $100 million to withhold three percent of total contracts payments until the contractor has proven that their taxes are paid full. This move could be crippling to smaller business that typically get by on smaller profit margins. 

While this provision will not take effect until 2011, the issue was accelerated by some in Congress who would like to move the effective date up in order to fund other congressional initiatives. 

Status of Legislation: H.R. 1023 has been introduced by Rep. Kendrick Meek (D- FL) and S.777 has been introduced by Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), in order to eliminate this new withholding tax. H.R. 1023 is pending before the House Committee on Ways and Means, while S. 777 is pending before the Senate Committee on Finance.

IEC Position: IEC opposes this new 3% withholding tax, and supports legislation that seeks to repeal it.

Employee Free Choice Act

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) (H.R. 800/S. 1041) would amend the National Labor Relations Act to allow for public, card check campaigns during union organizing drives.

Currently, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) requires a government supervised secret ballot election to recognize a union as the collective bargaining unit unless an employer chooses to recognize the union based on presentation of a majority of employee signed union authorization cards. The EFCA seeks to amend the NLRA adding language that requires an employer, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), to immediately recognize the results of a card-check campaign if a majority of employees have signed a union authorization card. 

The EFCA also mandates timeframes for the beginning and conclusion of union contract negotiations. If, after 90, days no agreement has been reached, either side may request mediation from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). If the FMCS cannot broker an agreement within 30-days the negotiations would be referred to a Federal arbitration board whose decision would be binding upon both parties for a period of 2 years. Effectively, the federal government would be setting the terms of labor for a private company.

Status of Legislation: The Employee Free Choice Act was passed by the full House of Representatives in March 2007 by a vote of 241-185. The Senate took up floor consideration of H.R. 800 in June but failed to pass the bill after it failed to reach the 60 votes necessary (51-48) to end debate. 

IEC Position: IEC strongly opposes H.R. 800/S. 1041 and any effort to strip employees of the right to a secret ballot or to impose binding federal arbitration on business owners.

Green Jobs Act

While IEC supports efforts to address the lack of skilled workers in the today’s job market, in general or specifically in the field of energy efficiency, the Green Jobs Act limits eligibility to entities who partner with labor organization. The reality is that this language would prevent non-union training programs across the country from receiving this grant funding.

The Green Jobs Act establishes the National Energy Training Partnership Grants to fund training programs targeted at creating an efficient energy and renewable energy skilled workforce. With the same goal, the Act creates a State Energy Training Partnership Program for eligible states to administer ‘green jobs’ training programs. Finally, this Act utilizes the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program to make grants to community based nonprofit organizations in order to train low income individuals in skilled trades related to increase energy efficiency.

Unfortunately, the Act specifically limits program eligibility to entities that partner with labor organizations, thus effectively preventing the vast majority of the construction industry from participating in the program.

Open shop companies train millions of workers every year in a wide variety of skilled occupations and are constantly striving to keep pace with technology and innovation in order to make certain America has the skilled workforce it deserves, and that all American workers, regardless of union affiliation, enjoy equal opportunity of access to critical job training. Allowing the monopolistic participation by labor organizations in this grant process would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the organizations who train almost 9 out of every 10 skilled workers to participate in this new and emerging job market.

Status of Legislation: The Green Jobs Act language was enacted as part of the Energy Bill signed into law in December 2007. However, funding for implementation of the Act has not yet been approved.

IEC Position: While IEC strongly support the concept of green jobs training, IEC opposes funding this program unless the statutory language is changed to allow all federal or state-approved training organizations to be eligible for these training grants.

Labor and Open Competition

RESPECT Act

The Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers (RESPECT) Act seeks to make drastic changes to the NLRA definition of a supervisor. The RESPECT Act would remove from the definition of supervisor the duties of assigning and responsibly directing other employees and also specifies that supervisors must "hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, reward, or discipline other employees" for a majority of their work time. These two semantic changes would eliminate almost all employees from the supervisor classification and potentially place them into a collective bargaining unit.

In order for a company to run effectively it needs to know its supervisors are loyal to the company and that they will make decisions based upon efficiency and merit, not internal union politics or work rules. By the same measure supervisors need to know that their decisions will are subject to the authority of their employer and not to a union official. Effectively, this legislation would deny supervisor status to many hard-working Americans who have risen through the ranks and succeeded in becoming leaders in their workplace.

Status of Legislation: The RESPECT Act has been introduced as H.R. 1644 and S. 969. The House bill, introduced by Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ) was reported out of the House Committee on Education and Labor in September 2007. The Senate bill, introduced by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), is pending in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

IEC Position: IEC opposes H.R. 1644/ S. 969 and any attempt to strip away a standard that has long been a key part of the balance between management and labor.

Union Only Project Labor Agreements

Union-only Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on federal contracts require that the contracts be awarded only to those who agree to collective bargaining and union hiring. Over 86% of the workforce is non-union. Union-only PLAs exclude a majority of the workforce from the opportunity to participate in federally-funded projects. 

Union-only PLA proponents argue that the agreements promote fair wages and labor peace through non-strike clauses. However, Davis Bacon laws already ensure that the local, usually union, prevailing wage is paid on federal construction projects and merit shop employees do not go on strike. In reality, these agreements are about forcing merit shop contractors to submit to union rules and hiring halls if they want to bid on projects covered the PLA. As merit shop contractors have already chosen to operate non-union why would they agree to abide bid on projects covered by a union-only PLAs?

PLAs cost the American taxpayer more money by drastically limiting project bids to that small segment of the market that runs union-only shops. In a time when elected officials in both parties preach the doctrine of fiscal discipline, the expense of PLAs does not seem justified. In a move designed to curtain wasteful federal spending in 2001, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13202, which expressly prohibits PLAs on federal construction projects.

In 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 86% of the construction workforce in the United States did not belong to a labor union. Not only do union-only PLAs waste taxpayer money, but they prohibit the large majority of the workforce that has chosen to not be a part of a union from working on projects financed by their tax dollars.

IEC Position

IEC opposes any legislation that would mandate union-only PLAs.

Davis-Bacon Prevailing Wage Rate Reform

The Davis-Bacon federal prevailing wage law is a Depression-era regulation that requires the payment of the locally prevailing wage -- the wage paid to a majority of workers or the average wage in a given classification in given area -- on all federally funded construction projects. The Davis Bacon wage rate is supposed to be based on the information gathered via a voluntary wage surveys. In reality, due to inefficiencies and inaccuracies with in this archaic program, the federal prevailing rates are often the local union rates and not the prevailing market wage rates.

As a federally-supervised law, Davis-Bacon also requires cumbersome paperwork and reporting. Many smaller businesses avoid bidding for projects that include Davis Bacon requirements because of the added paperwork and reporting requirements. The prevailing rate is an inaccurate, cumbersome system that adds more red tape and bureaucracy for those merit shop contractors who want to bid on federal jobs.

Davis-Bacon prevents the taxpayers from getting the best bargain on federal construction projects by eliminating true competition from the contracting process.

The 110th Congress has considered several bills expanding Davis-Bacon into private sector and state-funded projects, including loan guarantee programs at the Department of Energy and tax credit bonds for energy production.

IEC Position: IEC opposes any legislation that would further expand the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rate. IEC supports updating the federal prevailing wage so that accurate wage rates are obtained and the uncertainty and inefficiency is removed from the process.