[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 12, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      THE STRIKER REPLACEMENT BILL

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                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 12, 1994

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member would like to commend to his 
colleagues the following editorial from the July 12, 1994, Washington 
Post, concerning the striker replacement legislation now pending in the 
Senate.
  This legislation is ill-advised and would do untold harm to the 
American economy. It is a measure which would hurt both American 
businesses and American workers. As the Post editorial makes clear, the 
striker replacement bill would upset the balance of labor-management 
relations. It should not be passed.

               [From the Washington Post, July 12, 1994]

                      The Striker Replacement Bill

       The striker replacement bill may come up this week in the 
     Senate, where at last count there appeared to be the votes to 
     block it. We hope so. This is bad legislation that in the 
     name of restoring balance to labor law and relations would in 
     fact unbalance them and could well do lasting economic harm. 
     A Democratic majority in the House passed it last year as a 
     sop to organized labor, and the president has said for the 
     same propitiatory reasons that he would sign it if it were 
     sent to him. He should have said no on the merits. It has now 
     been left to the Senate to do so instead.
       The bill would deny employers the right to hire permanent 
     replacements when workers strike over economic issues. (Other 
     rules apply to strikes over unfair labor practices.) 
     Organized labor says the ban is necessary to protect the 
     right to strike, which it claims is threatened. But this is 
     not an effort to regain a lost right. Rather, it's an effort 
     to regain lost power--the membership and clout that labor has 
     lost in recent years for reasons having mainly to do with a 
     weak competitive position in the world economy. A change in 
     labor law won't solve that problem, and would likely make it 
     worse.
       The law is currently contradictory. The National Labor 
     Relations Act said in 1935 that strikers could not be fired. 
     The Supreme Court nonetheless held three years later that 
     they could be permanently replaced. Mostly the matter 
     thereafter was ignored. Management rarely used the 
     replacement power, and labor rarely protested it. Labor says 
     that the tactic has now become more common. That isn't 
     clear--but it has been used in some highly visible recent 
     cases, and those have been enough to make it a major issue.
       Labor says the power has been abused to break unions. No 
     doubt there have been such cases. But occasions also arise 
     when strikers by their behavior forfeit the right of return 
     and companies ought to hire permanent replacements. This 
     newspaper faced such a breach in dealing with one of its 
     unions in the 1970s. The goal of labor law is not to 
     determine the outcome of labor disputes but to maintain a 
     system of mutual deterrence in which neither side can act 
     without risk. An obdurate company risks a strike; obdurate 
     strikers risk replacement. Most of the time the balance works 
     and produces rational results. This bill would destroy the 
     balance and ought not pass.

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