[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 12, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
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]

 
 NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT AND RAILWAY LABOR ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1993


                           motion to proceed

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the motion.
  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, we have a lot of traditions here in 
Congress. One of the most well-established is traditionally giving bad 
legislation a great-sounding name. So if it is terrible legislation, 
give it a good-sounding name. Who can be against it?
  Earlier this year we debated the Racial Justice Act, which in reality 
has little to do with civil rights, and a lot to do with abolishing the 
death penalty. Today, we are debating another bill with a misleading 
label. Who could be against the Workplace Fairness Act? That is the 
title. It is a terrible bill, but it has a great title. I guess maybe 
that happens in music sometimes. Maybe you get good titles and terrible 
lyrics. I do not know. But this bill ought to be called the strike 
promotion bill, or perhaps the Labor Power Grab Act of 1994.
  The bottom line is that our system of collective bargaining has 
worked for over a half-century and continues to work well today. Just 
as an employer's demand are moderated by the knowledge that his or her 
employees are legally entitled to strike, which ought to be protected, 
so too are the demands of workers moderated by the knowledge that a 
strike may result in the hiring of permanent replacements. This 
uncertainty is an essential element of collective bargaining. 
Otherwise, somebody is going to be dominant. You are not going to have 
any good collective bargaining. It provides the strongest possible 
inducement for both groups--employer and worker alike--to negotiate in 
good faith and resolve their differences through compromise.
  This balance between labor and management has been the hallmark of 
industrial relations in America since the passage of the National Labor 
Relations Act nearly 60 years ago and has served our country well, 
promoting economic growth, protecting the rights of working men and 
women, and preserving the industrial peace.
  So as the old saying goes, ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' But 
unfortunately, that is exactly what some of my colleagues want to do. 
They want to fix the labor laws so the balance of power shifts to 
labor; organized labor, that is. They want to eliminate the risk factor 
from strikes by prohibiting the hiring of permanent replacements in 
economic strikes. This bill presents employers with an untenable 
``Hobson's Choice'': Shut down the business, close down the factory, or 
accede to the union's demands, whether the demands are reasonable or 
not.
  Without the prospect of permanent striker replacement, unions will 
resort to the strike weapon more and more frequently. Consumer prices 
will rise, jobs will be lost, communities will plunge into chaos. As 
Harvard Law School Prof. David Westfall pointed out, and I quote:

       Employees have the right to strike, but employers have the 
     right to hire replacements. Without that right, employees 
     would be free to strike repeatedly, no matter how excessive 
     their demands in relation to prevailing wage rates, knowing 
     that their jobs would always be waiting for them unless or 
     until their employers eliminated their jobs or went out of 
     business.

  End quote; not my quote. It is a Harvard professor.
  And, Mr. President, if you do not believe that strikes cost jobs, 
just ask the 2,000 former employees of Churchill Truck Lines, which 
shut its doors because it could not survive the recent Teamsters 
strike. The Teamsters strike put Churchill out of business, and it put 
its workers on the unemployment line.
  Now, some of my colleagues want to paint the bleakest possible 
picture, making every employer out to be a vicious strikebreaker or 
unionbuster.
  So the GAO did a study. They are supposed to be an impartial, 
nonpartisan--I doubt that sometimes--but instrument of Congress created 
by the Congress. But in this case, they found that a portion of 
striking workers for whom permanent replacements were hired was only 3 
percent.
  That means that 97 percent of all striking workers were not replaced 
on a permanent basis. So, contrary to the claims of some of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, employers are not hiring 
permanent replacements to bust unions. There is no widespread abuse.
  It is also important to distinguish between strikes called in 
response to an employer's unfair labor practice and economic strikes 
called over such issues as hours and wages. In unfair labor practice 
situations, strikers have a right to immediate reinstatement. That is 
current law. If a bad-apple employer engages in a practice that 
violates the National Labor Relations Act, then workers who go on 
strike must be rehired. ``It is only in those situations where a strike 
has been called over economic issues that workers may be permanently 
replaced.

  Madam President, in his 1992 campaign brochure ``Putting People 
First,'' then-candidate Bill Clinton complained that ``Washington is 
dominated by powerful interests and entrenched bureaucracy * * * too 
often those we elect to lead seem to respond more quickly to special 
interests than to the real problems of real people.''
  He got it right the first time. Let us talk about these special 
interests. The special interests are still here and are hard at work. 
This debate has been brought to you courtesy of the AFL-CIO, one of the 
biggest special interest groups in Washington and America.
  During the 1990 election cycle, labor unions contributed a whopping 
$35 million to congressional candidates, with over 93 percent of the 
donations finding their way into Democrat campaigns. Two years later, 
in 1992, organized labor made political contributions exceeding $40 
million. That is $75 million; that is a lot of money. Again, more than 
90 percent of those contributions went to Democrat candidates.
  In 1992, the Clinton-Gore campaign received more than $300,000 in 
reportable--and I underscore reportable--contributions from organized 
labor. And it is anybody's guess how many the Democratic National 
Committee benefited from labor ``soft money,'' the millions in 
undisclosed, unregulated ``stealth'' contributions that escape the 
radar of our Federal campaign finance laws. We want to tighten that up, 
but it is not going to happen because our colleagues control the 
Congress, and they do not want to close that nice little loophole that 
means millions of dollars every year. So we are debating this because 
the special interests are hard at work. If the labor money machine were 
not working overtime, there would be no debate today, no striker 
replacement bill, and you can bank on that.
  Finally, I just say that, occasionally--not too often--I find myself 
in agreement with the Washington Post. I will include an editorial from 
the Washington Post in the Record. The Post had it right when it 
editorialized that striker replacement was nothing more and nothing 
less than a ``sop'' to organized labor and a real threat to America's 
economic interests.
  No doubt about it, There are many important issues deserving the 
Senate's attention--health care, crime, welfare reform, to name a few. 
And issues of health care will affect labor unions. I hope they are 
tuned in because they are going to find that Republicans are going to 
be standing with them, and many Democratic colleagues are going to be 
on the other side in some of the provisional attacks and that we have 
some of the better health care plans for organized labor.
  I suggest that the vote today pretty well indicated what is going to 
happen to this legislation: nothing. It is not going to be brought to 
the Senate. It is going to be set aside for the rest of the year. I 
hope the vote tomorrow at 10 o'clock will be the same as today, where 
we received 47 votes, and I think 53 on the other side.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Post editorial be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [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 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.

  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. THURMOND. I want to commend the able Senator from Kansas on the 
remarks he just made on several subjects. I hope the American people 
will read what he had to say, will listen to him, and be heartened as 
to what he says. I hope President Clinton will also be challenged by 
the remarks made by the able Senator from Kansas, the Republican 
leader. It is very important that we act on a crime bill and many other 
things that our able leader just mentioned.

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