Steve Buyer on Jobs Republican Representative (IN-4)

Voted YES on overriding presidential veto of Farm Bill.

Voted NO on restricting employer interference in union organizing.

To enable employees to form & join labor organizations, and to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts. Requires investigation that an employer:
1. discharged or discriminated against an employee to discourage membership in a labor organization;
2. threatened to discharge employees in the exercise of guaranteed collective bargaining rights; and
3. adds to remedies for such violations: back pay plus liquidated damages; and additional civil penalties.

Proponents support voting YES because:

The principle at stake here is the freedom that all workers should have to organize for better working conditions & fair wages. There are many employers around the country who honor this freedom. Unfortunately, there are also many employers who do not. These employers attempt to prevent workers from unionizing by using tactics that amount to harassment, if not outright firing. In fact, one in five people who try to organize unions are fired. These tactics are already illegal, but the penalties are so minor, they are not effective deterrents.

Opponents support voting NO because:

Democracy itself is placed at risk by this bill. The sanctity of the secret ballot is the backbone of our democratic process. Not one voter signed a card to send us here to Congress. None of us sent our campaign workers out to voters' houses armed with candidate information & a stack of authorization cards. No. We trusted democracy. We trusted the voters to cast their ballots like adults, freely, openly, without intimidation, and we live with the results. But here we are, poised to advance legislation to kill a secret ballot process.

Let's be clear. Every American has the right to organize. No one is debating that. This is a right we believe in so strongly we have codified it and made it possible for workers to do so through a secret ballot.

Reference: The Employee Free Choice Act; Bill H R 800 ; vote number 2007-118 on Mar 1, 2007

Voted YES on end offshore tax havens and promote small business.

American Jobs Creation Act of 2004: <0l>
1. Repeal the tax exclusion for extraterritorial income - Permits foreign corporations to revoke elections to be treated as U.S. corporations Business Tax Incentives - Small Business ExpensingTax Relief for Agriculture and Small Manufacturers
2. Tax Reform and Simplification for United States Businesses
3. Deduction of State and Local General Sales Taxes
4. Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform
5. Provisions to Reduce Tax Avoidance Through Individual and Corporation Expatriation

Voted YES on $167B over 10 years for farm price supports.

Voted YES on zero-funding OSHA's Ergonomics Rules instead of $4.5B.

Rated 7% by the AFL-CIO, indicating an anti-union voting record.

As the federation of America’s unions, the AFL-CIO includes more than 13 million of America’s workers in 60 member unions working in virtually every part of the economy. The mission of the AFL-CIO is to improve the lives of working families to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our nation. To accomplish this mission we will build and change the American labor movement.

The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.

Incentives to businesses create jobs & raise wages.

[As part of the Contract with America, within 100 days we pledge to bring to the House Floor the following bill]:

The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act:
Small business incentives, capital gains cut and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages.