Rep. Summer Lee Slams Trump Admin. for Attacking Unions, Dispels Misinformation About NLRB

Video of Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. – JUNE 11, 2025 — Today in a House Committee on Education and Workforce subcommittee hearing, Congresswoman Summer L. Lee (PA-12) slammed the Trump Administration for attacking unions and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

In her question line with Jennifer Abruzzo, former General Counsel at the NLRB, Rep. Lee laid out the imbalanced power dynamic between workers and corporations. She also called out the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Magee Women’s Hospital for trying to exploit the national NLRB’s Trump-induced disfunction to claim Pittsburgh’s local NLRB office can’t hold a union election for Magee nurses.

Footage from the hearing can be found here, and a transcript is below.

REP. LEE: I'm always a bit worried about the misinformation and the propaganda that exists and floats around, not just from this hearing room but also from this Administration as a whole, about unions and what the NLRB is, especially using the phrase “restoring balance” when we’re talking about the power dynamics between a corporate conglomerate and a conglomerate of bus drivers or nurses or fast-food workers. I think that is nasty work.

There is a blatant attempt to mischaracterize what a union is and why they are necessary in the first place. So to clear it up, we all understand that an individual worker has very little if any power at all over a corporation or a CEO is disingenuous. People in power in this country would never answer to the needs of an individual janitor alone. But, when all the janitors come together in a union and work as a group, that’s when the power, the boss, the corporation, has to respond.

Power attacks unions because they create a more fair and balanced economy in favor of working-class people over the 1%. Unions help us address the racial and gender wealth gap, and right now, nothing is more frightening to a wannabe autocrat than organized labor and an educated electorate. Corporations have grown accustomed to having an open lane to influence politics however they see fit, and they want you to think it is unfair that their political influence might be challenged by working class people who’ve come together to advocate for themselves.

Organized labor in this country isn’t about big business vs. big union. There’s no such thing as big union. It’s working-class people vs. the people in power, or David vs. Goliath as some of us know. But that’s is why they don’t want you to unionize, and that is why they want to divide union workers vs. non-union workers. Because their biggest fear is that all the Davids recognize that we are on the same team and they realize that if we work together against the Goliath, we can be significantly stronger.

So it makes a lot of sense why the rich and powerful people want to attack unions and the NLRB, who enforces workers’ right to form a union. It’s not because they think working class people have more power than a corporation but because they are terrified of what would happen if they actually did.

Over the last 20 years, regional NLRB offices across the country have lost 50% of their staff while cases have skyrocketed. In my district, the Pittsburgh-based NLRB Region 6 office has experienced a 30% decrease in staff without any reduction in caseload. And the Trump Administration has of course deputized DOGE to cut worker protections and removed a board member to prevent the board from maintaining or establishing a quorum.

Nurses at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Magee Women’s Hospital have consistently advocated for investing in bedside nursing, retaining qualified nurses, and more direct care time for patients. UPMC met their concerns with mass layoffs, and they paid their former CEO $30 million dollars and leased a $50 million dollar luxury jet. At the end of May, the nurses filled for a union election, but UPMC, our state’s largest private employer, is trying to exploit the national NLRB’s Trump-induced disfunction to claim our local NLRB office can’t hold a union election. Legal precedent and practice affirm that local Labor Boards are fully authorized to hold elections, even if the national board lacks a quorum. Ms. Abruzzo, is that your understanding?

MS. ABRUZZO: Yes, the regional offices can, of course, conduct elections and certify the results. The issue is that there's too many employers out there that abusing the processes and then pushing it to the board by appealing when a union wins an election and that appeal then gets stuck at the board because there's no quorum.

REP. LEE: I have two questions. We have one minute. So just very quickly, if you could speak to the broader impact the NRB under staffing has had on workers over the last decade and what the further cuts may do. And also, if you could compare the NLRB record on fairness and transparency during your time and your tenure to now, would be very helpful.

MS. ABRUZZO: Thank you. And so in terms of the funding, so you know, we have the—I say we—the NLRB has the same case intake that is now or around that than they had in 2011 and yet the staffing in the field offices has decreased by 62%. So that means that these really dedicated, talented board agents are doing more with less. They are trying to process cases as fast as they can, but they just cannot keep up because of the chronic understaffing and I don't understand the two current agency heads asking for less money when the agency needs even more money to ensure that they can protect workers in this country.

REP. LEE: I appreciate that. I think we could all go on and on about the power imbalance, but I will yield back and thank you for the time

Congresswoman Summer Lee serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Since taking office in January 2023, she has delivered historic levels of federal investment totaling over $2.4 Billionbrought back to Western PA, including over $580 million for infrastructure, over $110 million for affordable transit, over $500 million to keep clean energy manufacturing at home in Pennsylvania, and over $55 million on clean energy efforts in and around schools to help keep our kids and communities safe. These investments will help improve Western Pennsylvania’s infrastructure and transit, ensure cleaner air and drinking water, lower housing costs, fund research institutions, fuel clean manufacturing, fund STEM innovation and entrepreneurship, boost workforce development, and create thousands of good paying union jobs.  Lee and her team have also delivered casework and constituent services to over 3,000 constituents with issues ranging from helping our seniors and disabled community access Medicare and social security to helping folks secure housing and helping families with immigration support and passports.