[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 44 (Thursday, March 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3731-S3741]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RESCISSIONS ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair, without objection, directs the clerk to read the 
motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:


                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on amendment No. 
     331 to the committee amendment to H.R. 889, the supplemental 
     appropriations bill.
         Hank Brown, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, John Ashcroft, Jon 
           Kyl, Lauch Faircloth, Don Nickles, Strom Thurmond, Dan 
           Coats, Judd Gregg, Slade Gorton, Bob Dole, Chuck 
           Grassley, Craig Thomas, Conrad Burns, Trent Lott, Mike 
           DeWine, Pete Domenici.

  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand that the exact time for the 
vote on the cloture motion will be determined by the majority and 
minority leaders, but I would expect that the vote will be sometime 
next Monday. Am I roughly correct?
  Mr. DOLE. The Senator is correct. It will not be on Saturday.
  Mr. KENNEDY. And I imagine the exact time will be established by the 
leaders.
  Mr. President, I look forward to the opportunity to vote on the 
amendment at that time. I will urge my colleagues to vote in opposition 
to the amendment. It seems to me that this is legislation on an 
appropriations bill. It is an amendment that is unrelated to the 
underlying measure. It is an important public policy issue and 
question.
  I have tried over the course of the debate to raise the particular 
fact that the first measure that we are considering in this Chamber 
affecting working people is basically to diminish their rights, their 
hopes, their opportunities. A number of us have been struggling to try 
to find ways to enhance the lives, the opportunities, and the resources 
of working families because I think that is a core issue for the future 
of our country and for the millions of Americans, over 100 million 
Americans, who go to work every day.
  Many of these workers face diminished incomes, increasing concern 
about the quality of life for themselves and their families. They are 
looking to the future with increasing concern about the schools their 
children attend, the services of which are being cut back on the 
Contract With America. There will be cutbacks in the school lunch 
program, cutbacks in summer jobs, and cutbacks that are being 
recommended in the Budget Committees for the student loan programs and 
the work study programs. These are programs that benefit working 
families.
  So the working families of this country watching this debate tonight 
are not going to have a great deal of satisfaction about the Kassebaum 
amendment and I hope they understand why we are resisting it.
  One of the important measures which we will have an opportunity to 
consider, hopefully earlier in the session rather than later, will be 
the proposed increase in the minimum wage. That is something that can 
make an important difference in the lives of working families in this 
country, to recognize that work is important, that work ought to be 
rewarded, that men and women who are prepared to play by the rules and 
work the 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, ought to be able to have a 
living wage. The proposal that the President has suggested would not 
restore the minimum wage to the purchasing power that it had at other 
times, but nonetheless would make a very important and significant 
difference to those families.
  A number of those families will be here tomorrow at 10 a.m., in the 
Russell caucus room, on March 10, 1995, at 10 a.m.
  The Secretary of Labor, Secretary Reich, and the mayor of Baltimore, 
Kurt Schmoke, will both be there, as will a number of business owners, 
economists and others at a forum on the minimum wage. We will learn 
about what is happening to working families in Main Street America.
  In the plants and factories, in the small shops, what are the real 
conditions that are out there? Earlier in the day we discussed the 
profile of many of the workers who had been permanently replaced by 
strikebreakers.
  But let me just take a few more moments of the Senate's time to talk 
about some of those who have been replaced, some of the workers who 
have been replaced. These are the kind of ``special interests'' that I 
am standing up for tonight and will stand up for, because their lives, 
and similar workers' lives, can be affected by whether we continue the 
President's Executive order or whether that is undermined by 
legislative action.
  I am thinking of
   Francis Atilano, 58 who was hired by Diamond Walnut in September 
1978.

       I worked for them until the strike began, I was replaced by 
     a new employee.
       The strike has caused many changes in our lives. I have 
     been very depressed about losing my job and not knowing what 
     will happen in the future. I have been under a doctor's care 
     for depression.
       I had hoped that maybe I could retire from Diamond Walnut 
     in the future with a pension. Now I don't know what we will 
     do since my husband's low paying job has no pension plan.
       We at the present time are having a very hard time trying 
     to make ends meet. We have our youngest son whom we are 
     trying to get through college, so he will not have to 
     struggle with life as we have.
       The depression even sets in more whenever I think of our 6 
     children and 19 grandchildren. While I was employed I was 
     able to buy them a little gift once in awhile, and 
     [[Page S3732]] also take the grandchildren to a park or 
     somewhere.

  Francis Atilano, age 58, has been replaced by a permanent strike 
replacement.
  Or Willa Miller, 54, started working at Diamond Walnut in 1961, as a 
young mother with 3 children.

       I am now a grandmother with 7 grandchildren. I went out as 
     a QC Supervisor, worked there 30 years. I was a sorter, 
     checker and QC Sample Girl.
       I had to sell my second car and I had to get a part-time 
     job to make ends meet. The Union has really helped me during 
     this strike and I have made many friends and I am closer to 
     them. I joined a prayer group which has really helped me 
     also, other prayer sisters in this strike. We have been there 
     for each other.

  Five-year-old Vanessa Contreras was 3 years old when Diamond Walnut 
permanently replaced her striking mother, causing Vanessa and her 
mother to lose their family home.
  Vanessa is in kindergarten at the Stockton Commodore Skills Center. 
Her favorite subjects are writing and drawing, and she likes to play 
with dolls. Her birthday is March 26. Vanessa's mother reports that she 
has just been learning about the President in school.
  Griselda Contreras had been working at Diamond Walnut since 1979. She 
started as an entry sorter, and over the years worked her way through a 
number of positions. By the time of the strike in 1991, she was a 
supervisor in the canning department.
  Ms. Contreras volunteers once a week in her daughter's class. She 
came to the United States from Guadalajara when she was 15 years old. 
Before going to Diamond, she worked as a bilingual aide for the school 
district.
  I think of Olga Riuz, 62, who is a single parent who has worked for 
Diamond Walnut for 10 years.
  She has two sons, aged 38 and 36 in addition to a 9-year-old grandson 
and a 5-year-old granddaughter. Olga says they are ``good kids,'' and 
that she ``talks frequently with them about the strike.''
  When she goes to Stockton, Olga's granddaughter loves to go see the 
strikers carrying their signs at Diamond Walnut. She asks lots of 
questions about the strikers.
  In her spare time she loves to crochet and raise vegetables in her 
garden. Her spare time has been cut into by the strike. Olga is no 
longer able to read the Bible in church because of her added 
responsibilities * * *.
  The list goes on and on. These are the real people who have been 
replaced. These are the real people who saw their wages reduced. These 
are the real people who saw the profits go up at the Diamond Walnut 
some 30 percent. These are the real people who were striking to get the 
$8, $9, $10, $11 an hour, were receiving that, then took the pay cut, 
and then were trying to recover that when they saw the company's 
profits rise by millions and millions of dollars. They tried to at 
least reclaim the wages that they had forsaken earlier. And these are 
the individuals, these are the special interests, individuals who have 
all been dismissed at a time when Diamond Walnut was participating with 
Government assistance in expanding their markets overseas.
  Those are the real Americans whose interests we are attempting to 
protect with this Executive order. Those are interests that are worthy 
of protection. I know that there are those who say, ``Well, it is the 
right of employers who control capital to treat workers the way that 
they want to in a free country.'' There are those who believe survival 
of the fittest is not just the law of the jungle, it is the law of the 
economy as well. I do not think that represents the views of the 
American people.
  There were those in my own State at the turn of the century who 
believed that, and used to employ child labor in the textile mills up 
in Lowell and Lawrence--8-, 9-, 10-, and 11-year-old children who 
worked in those mills. There were people who said the employer had the 
capital. He was prepared to put up the money and, therefore, we ought 
to have permitted him to exploit those children; if those children were 
not prepared to be exploited, there are other children prepared to go 
through with that. But we rejected that. Just as we have rejected 
unsafe working conditions.
  We as a society did not believe that workers should work in 
conditions that were a danger to their health and well-being, that they 
should endure toxic gases and acids and other kinds of dangerous work 
conditions. The senior Senator from West Virginia described in great 
detail the conditions in the mines in the earlier part of this century.
  We as a country have not said: Devil beware; we will permit anyone to 
exploit any of the workers in any kind of manner that they want to. 
There is always someone else to pick up the pieces. That has not been a 
part of the great social compact of this country and this society. We 
have rejected that, although there are those voices that today perhaps 
would like to return to that period. But I do not believe that is the 
view of our fellow citizens.
  Mr. President, I hope that attention will be paid to the forum 
tomorrow in the Russell caucus room. We should listen to those 
individuals who will be coming down here to speak about what is really 
happening out there on the front line for workers.
  It will be useful, I think, for Members to perhaps drop by and listen 
to what is really happening out there in the work force, how people are 
trying to make it, the problems they are facing, the conditions which 
have been exploiting them.
  Workers in this country, at this time, are facing extraordinary 
challenges and burdens which were virtually unforeseen for years and 
years. They have been battling hard. We need to listen to them and to 
be reminded once again what this Executive order is really all about; 
that is, to provide some protection for them so that they can look to 
the future with a sense of hope for themselves and for their families.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate my colleague 
from Massachusetts for his efforts in the course of this day to try to 
help Americans to focus on the increasing plight of those who labor in 
this country.
  It is very interesting. The labor law is long established after years 
of extraordinary confrontation and some very difficult times. Senator 
Byrd was on the floor earlier this afternoon talking about some of the 
background of the labor movement, some of the price that was paid by 
people in an effort to win certain rights in the workplace.
  As we think back on the history of this country, there really is not 
one of us as a school kid, I think, who was not moved by the images as 
well as the stories of some of the working conditions that 
grandparents, forebears, and many Members of the U.S. Senate went 
through.
  We all remember that there was a time when child labor was exploited. 
We remember when there was a time when people worked in sweatshops 
without rights, without breaks, without the ability to even relieve 
themselves; we remember a time when people would be injured and there 
would be no compensation, no recourse. They might even lose the job as 
a consequence of the injury. There would be no payment.
  There is such a long category or list of the ways in which human 
labor has been pressed to the limit, in ways that we came to believe 
were considered un-American. We felt that those things were not the way 
people ought to live in the United States of America. Indeed, most 
Members of the Senate have spent time arguing about Mexican workers, 
arguing about workers in other countries, China, and places where 
workers are exploited today. Thank God, that is not the situation in 
the United States.
  But one of the principal reasons all workers in America have made 
advances, particularly those today who do not have to join a union, is 
because a sense of responsibility has entered into the broad 
marketplace, where most employers now even try to preclude the creation 
of a union by offering a certain set of benefits--health care, 
compensation, time off, family leave; a whole set of things that people 
have come to understand are fair for people to have as they labor.
  The last and only real tool available to people who are organized in 
the marketplace to protect their rights is the right to strike. We have 
a long-established set of laws in the United States 
[[Page S3733]] by which people can strike legally, and by which they 
are restrained from striking illegally. We all remember what happened 
with PATCO when the air controllers struck in what was deemed to be an 
illegal strike. They were fired. They were, in the judgment of many in 
the United States Senate, properly replaced.
  Mr. President, there is no rationale that I think can be argued 
legitimately except a rationale--and it is not legitimate--called union 
busting, which could justify saying that you would take away from 
people in a legal strike the right to be able to do it, to strike.
  There is enormous power in the hands of employers today; enormous 
power. For those who are organized, in an effort to try to guarantee 
that they are adequately paid, that they are given the safety 
protections and other benefits that we have come to believe people 
ought to have in America, the only leverage they have in the 
marketplace is their right to band together and say to that employer, 
``We don't think we are being treated fairly.''
  What is the employer's recourse if that happens? The employer is not 
without recourse. These people cannot shut down his or her plant, or 
their plant. They have to leave and leave without pay. They have to 
leave and interrupt their lives, and start to live on the accumulated 
savings of a union, or those who contribute to their effort to fight 
for what they think is right. And the employer is permitted, under the 
law, to replace those people with temporary workers.
  So the employer can continue to make profits. The employer can 
continue to sell goods. There is no disruption, other than the good 
workers who regularly work and the folks who know each other and the 
spirit of the plant and all of the good things that come with a good 
relationship between management and labor; there is none of that. 
Business is not interrupted, but there can be disruptions, though they 
do not stop the employer from getting a salary. They do not stop the 
shareholders from earning money. They do not stop the company from 
growing or putting out goods.
  Meanwhile, people who have labored hard, more often than not under 
tough conditions, are out in the streets marching up and down, 
extraordinarily disrupted, having a hard time paying for their needs, 
for their kids, for their mortgage, for a car, for vacation, for 
clothing--in an effort to do what? To hurt the United States? To do 
injury? No; to try to make it, to try to get their little piece of the 
rock.
  I wish I had with me the statistics. I do not have them. But the 
statistics on corporate pay increases in America relative to the 
increase of the average working American are shocking.
  You know, from the end of World War II, right up until 1979, America 
grew together, all of us grew.
  This chart is a stark reminder of that. This is 1950 to 1978. If you 
divide America up into quintiles, the lowest quintile, the bottom 20 
percent, saw their personal income increase 138 percent. The next 
quintile went up 98 percent. The third quintile, 106 percent. The 
fourth quintile, 11 percent. And the top 20 percent of Americans went 
up 99 percent. So three quintiles grew faster than the top 20 percent 
in the United States.
  From 1979 until 1993, look at this dramatic inversion. This is the 
story of the working person in America. The bottom quintile went down 
17 percent. The next quintile went down 8 percent. The third quintile 
went down 3 percent. The fourth quintile went up 5 percent. And, Mr. 
President, the top 20 percent of Americans gained by 18 percent. That 
is the growing gap in America from 1979 to 1993.
  The American worker, the average worker, the person taking home 
anywhere from $20,000 up to $50,000, has been going down and the person 
earning over $100,000 is going up.
  But it is even more dramatic, Mr. President, when you look at what 
happened to middle-class incomes in that period, for middle-class 
incomes in America have gone down. The bottom 20 percent went down a 
10-percent drop. The middle 20 percent went down 4 percent. Mr. 
President, the top 1 percent in America went up 105 percent.
  There is nobody who looks at the demographics of this country who 
will not tell you that the gap between the working American and those 
who are making it and who have it is growing, and growing 
substantially. And here we are talking about whether or not that 
worker, who is increasingly hard pressed to make ends meet, is going to 
have the ability, in the labor-management relationship that is already 
significantly weighted toward management, is going to have the ability 
to simply hold on to the right of collective bargaining.
  If you are not allowed to hold on to the right to strike--which, 
clearly, if you can have permanent replacement workers--you have lost, 
then you have wiped out the entire gain of the whole concept of 
collective bargaining.
  Mr. President, I do not know of anything more fundamental than that. 
I really do not. Every single company in this country has the right to 
go out and hire a replacement person temporarily. So this issue is 
really a very fundamental one, and I think the President has 
appropriately offered leadership at the national level, following in 
the tradition of other Presidents who have issued Executive orders in 
order to implement a particular policy.
  The record is very clear. Franklin Roosevelt, in 1941, issued an 
Executive order requiring defense contractors to refrain from racial 
discrimination.
  In 1951, after the enactment of the Procurement Act, President Truman 
issued an Executive order extending that requirement to all Federal 
contractors.
  In 1964, President Johnson issued an Executive order prohibiting 
Federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of age and, at the 
time, Federal law permitted such discrimination. The Civil Rights Act 
of 1964 merely directed the President to study the issue. But the 
President, rightfully, issued the Executive order.
  In 1969, the Nixon administration expanded the antidiscrimination 
Executive order to encompass a requirement that all Federal contractors 
adopt affirmative action programs, something a lot of Americans do not 
remember, but it was President Nixon who put that program in place.
  In 1978, President Carter issued an Executive order requiring all 
Federal contractors to comply with certain guidelines limiting the 
amount of wage increases. And that order had the effect of limiting 
what Federal contractors could agree to in collective bargaining, 
notwithstanding the longstanding Federal policy of encouraging free 
collective bargaining.
  In 1992, President Bush issued an Executive order requiring unionized 
Federal contractors to notify their unionized employees of their right 
to refuse to pay union dues. The National Labor Relations Act did not 
require any of that. In the 101st Congress, legislation had been 
proposed to impose that right, but the legislation had not been passed. 
But the President's Executive order, President Bush's Executive order, 
was not subject to judicial challenge.
  So I believe President Clinton's Executive order is an appropriate 
one under the law, under the historical precedent, and it is obviously 
a necessary one, Mr. President.
  We have learned through the history of strikes that, in fact, a 
strike that involves permanent replacements actually lasts seven times 
longer than strikes that do not involve permanent replacements. And 
they tend to be much more contentious, often changing a limited dispute 
into a much broader and more contentious kind of struggle. So if one is 
really interested in good management-labor relations, and in letting 
the free market work, I might add, Mr. President, it is appropriate to 
stand by the law as it now stands, which protects the right of workers 
to collectively bargain.
  In 1937, John L. Lewis said that, ``The voice of labor insisting upon 
its rights should not be annoying to the ears of justice nor offensive 
to the conscience of the American people.'' And that is really what 
this is about--the ears of justice and the conscience of the American 
people, Mr. President.
  I think when you look at the trend-lines of what is happening, it is 
very clear that, if we continue down this road, probably more Americans 
will come together and question whether or not it is time to begin--
somehow--to bargain for themselves. And I believe that the struggle for 
every working American family's right to a decent 
[[Page S3734]] and safe workplace and the most fundamental right, which 
is to seek a redress of those grievances within the workplace, is a 
very hard-fought victory that deserves to be preserved in order to 
preserve the fabric of this country.
  I do not think it is too much to ask, Mr. President, at a time when 
the changing economic landscape is throwing American jobs into greater 
and greater competition in the marketplace, that American management 
simply grant their fellow Americans--the people who live in their towns 
and make up their communities--the right to bargain for working 
conditions without the fear of losing their job. For anyone for whom 
that is the choice, it is no choice. That is very clear.
  And all of us who are here for a brief period of time, and we earn so 
much more, significantly more, than the average American does, we 
should stop and think about what is it like to make that decision to 
walk out of a workplace in order to get those better conditions.
  That is not, for anyone here who has ever talked to somebody on a 
picket line, an easy choice. It is not a choice without extraordinary 
hardship in and of itself. To be faced with the prospect of potentially 
never walking back into a plant, as a consequence of simply standing up 
to be able to bargain for the better conditions, is not to live up to 
the American dream.
 It is certainly not to respect the history of what we have all been 
through as a country.

  I think we have a code of conduct between labor and management and a 
set of rules that create a fair playing field. But that fairness would 
be stripped away by an effort to suggest that any employer who can 
simply replace people who try to bargain collectively and exercise 
their right to strike.
  I hope, Mr. President, we will remember what this is really all 
about. It is not as if the corporate entity of this country in the last 
years has not gained enormously from the measures of the U.S. Congress. 
I would hope that as we go forward in these next days we will remember 
those who are increasingly being separated from their potential to 
touch the American dream, let alone to provide basics for their kids.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a dialog here?
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would be delighted.
  Mr. HARKIN. I listened carefully earlier when the Senator was going 
through his charts about the decline in middle income, and the 
disparity in who is getting the money in our country.
  I was intrigued by the charts and how up until the 1960's, I believe, 
or the 1970's, the Senator was showing how most people increased and 
advanced together. But it has only been in the last few years where the 
discrepancies--and where the income was going--has really shown up.
  Would the Senator show that last chart, where the disparities came 
in? Now, this was the chart that shows from 1950 to 1978 we were all 
kind of growing together, if I am not mistaken.
  Mr. KERRY. That is correct.
  Mr. HARKIN. And it shows that we basically all increased at the same 
rate, no matter what income level.
  Mr. KERRY. In fact, the lowest 20 percent increased the most.
  Mr. HARKIN. The most.
  Now, what has happened now since 1978?
  Mr. KERRY. Since 1978, right up until the present, there has been a 
dramatic turnaround where the lower three-fifths of America are going 
downhill; the fourth quintile has risen marginally, about 5 percent; 
and the top 20 percent are the people who are really taking home the 
gravy.
  Mr. HARKIN. So that has happened just recently.
  Mr. KERRY. Since 1979; since the dramatic increase--I might add, it 
is a very interesting coincidence.
  The year 1979 marks the period where we had a $1 trillion debt in 
this country. From 1980 to 1993, which represents the greatest period 
of diminution of earnings, we also have the greatest single period of 
increase of debt in America.
  As I know the Senator from Iowa knows, if we separate it out--the 
interest payments on that debt period from the current budget--not only 
are we in balance, but we run a surplus.
  So it is the Reagan-Bush years and Congress, too. I will not dump 
that one. I am tired of hearing that it is exclusively one or the 
other. Both were complicitous in a process of unwillingness to be 
fiscally responsible.
  But that irresponsibility has become one of the things that is 
stripping away the capacity of these folks at the bottom to gain the 
skills necessary in the new marketplace, where information is power, 
and skills, or the capacity to earn income that has significantly 
stripped away those folks' access to those skills or to that 
opportunity.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for going over that 
again, because as the Senator was going through these charts it 
reminded me of an article I read, from May 23, 1994, ``Why America 
Needs Unions.''

       The slide in unions has been linked to a lower level of 
     blue-collar wages, a wider disparity in incomes, and a loss 
     of benefits for workers.

  Let me read part of this article. It is titled ``Scary gap''--the gap 
in income.

       New research from respected economists of such schools as 
     Harvard and Princeton shows that blue-collar wages trailed 
     inflation in the 1980's, partly because unions represented 
     fewer workers. The resulting drag on pay for millions of 
     people accounts for at least 20 percent of the widening gap 
     between rich and poor which has reached Depression-era 
     dimensions.

  A person might think this came out of some labor-management 
periodical. This is Business Week, May 23, 1994. I think that even 
responsible capitalists and responsible free enterprise publications 
like Business Week are beginning to understand that when we start doing 
away with unions and start doing away with the bargaining power of 
unions, we will be in for real trouble.
  In fact, the article went on to say that:

       Free market economies need healthy unions. They offer a 
     system of checks and balances, as former Labor Secretary 
     George Shultz [a Republican] has put it, by making managers 
     focus on employees as well as on profits and shareholders.

  I think this Business Week article really buttresses what the Senator 
was saying in terms of the disparity in income and where it is going. I 
also believe that it shows that it is because of the lack of union 
bargaining power, because of the threat that is always held over their 
heads that, ``Well, you got to take what management wants, or leave it; 
and if you leave it and go on strike, which is legal, you will be 
permanently replaced, and therefore you have no bargaining power 
anymore.''
  The Senator from Massachusetts has hit it right on the head. We just 
cannot permit this widening gap to continue.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, if I may point out to my colleague even 
further, this is another chart which shows that more working families--
working families in America, we are not talking about the poor that are 
so quickly bashed here in Washington today who are on welfare; the poor 
who are not even on welfare and do not qualify and are not working; 
these are working Americans--Americans who are out there paying their 
taxes, struggling to make it. And what is happening?
  In 1975, only about 8.2 or 8.3 percent of Americans who were working 
families qualified as poor in America. Dramatically, beginning in 1979, 
that went up to about 11.4 percent. We can see the incredible increase 
when we went through that very dramatic period of raising the defense 
spending, cutting the taxes, and increasing the deficit. It started 
down marginally for 3 years, between 1982 to 1985. Now it is going back 
up, and it is higher than it was in 1980. It is now at the highest 
level it has been in years, that is--the number of working Americans 
who are poor.
  What is also interesting is back in 1960, 1970, 1980, the minimum 
wage could lift those folks out of poverty. The minimum wage, 100 
percent value of the minimum wage between 1960 and 1980, if a person 
were earning just the minimum wage they could be lifted out of poverty. 
But that is no longer the case. The trend line has been straight down 
since 1980, so that now, in 1995, the minimum wage will only bring a 
person up to a 70 percent level of the poverty line.
  What we are witnessing is an increase in the difficulty of those who 
are working. And the folks who are working in those conditions, by and 
large, are not the people who do not 
[[Page S3735]] have the need to join a union, who are working in a 
high-technology company or would have a benefits package that is 
basically geared to be fair and keep the union from growing. They are 
the folks who most need the union, and now they are also the folks who 
are finding that there is an effort to deprive them of the capacity to 
raise those wages to a level where they can make ends meet.
  I have been, I will say to my friend from Iowa, I am not someone who 
has come to the floor and always pleased labor. I voted for GATT, I 
voted for NAFTA, and I have taken a lot of heat from friends in labor 
for doing it. I certainly have come to understand that there are in 
some practices in the marketplace, things that I object to on both 
sides of the fence.
  But I cannot understand what it is that is so compelling in America, 
other than the effort to try to break the movement altogether, that 
suggests that it is appropriate to deprive people of the right to say 
that they can bargain collectively for a better effort, for a better 
wage, particularly given the fact that unlike the past, today's law 
does not shut the company down. They can bring in workers. They can 
keep on selling. They can keep on growing. They keep their salaries. 
They are not giving up anything.
  So why should not that worker who has bargained--and we saw an 
example of this in a hospital the other day in New York where nurses 
went out, trying to get a contract, and some of the nurses refused to 
go out, and they stayed in the hospital and kept working. The patients 
were served. They brought in extra people. They made it work. And then 
they finally settled with those who had gone out and, indeed, the whole 
spirit of the place changes. People who are part of the fabric of that 
plant or endeavor come back together, they work together.
  The best companies I have seen in America are companies where 
management brings labor into the process, where they are working 
closely together, where they never have a need for strikes because they 
are not adversarial.
  Clearly, it seems to me, this effort to reduce the capacity of people 
to bargain simply runs counter to all of the experience of the 
marketplace since the robber baron days and on through the early 1900's 
up until the present. I do not think we can say labor law today is so 
stacked against management or, in fact, so balanced toward labor that 
there is some huge rationale that suggests that it is an appropriate 
moment for the U.S. Senate to join in gutting the entire history of the 
movement altogether.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank my friend 
and colleague from Massachusetts for his very eloquent and, I think, 
on-the-mark statement regarding what is happening in this country 
today, as we stand here and watch unions be taken apart piece by piece 
around the United States.
  Mr. President, I want to recap what this is all about, why we are 
here, and what this amendment is for those Senators who are in their 
offices or for viewers who may be watching on C-SPAN.
  Yesterday, President Clinton issued an Executive order giving the 
authority to the Secretary of Labor to make a decision, to make a 
finding whether or not a company was permanently replacing workers who 
had exercised their legal right to strike. If such a finding was made, 
then the President would issue orders to relevant agencies of the 
Federal Government, to say they could no longer contract with that 
company in the future for any goods as long as that company persisted 
in hiring permanent replacements.
  The amendment we have on the floor by Senator Kassebaum from Kansas 
would make that null and void by stating that through the power of the 
purse string in the Congress, that moneys could not be spent to enforce 
that Executive order. Now a cloture motion has been filed to cut off 
debate and bring it to a vote by Monday.
  What precipitated all this? What precipitated the President of the 
United States in issuing such an Executive order?
  It is a culmination of things, but I do not think there can be a 
clearer example of what brought this about than the example from my own 
State of Iowa, in the actions by Bridgestone/Firestone. So I am going 
to take the time of the Senate to walk through one of the--I was going 
to say saddest--one of the sickest episodes in the history of U.S. 
labor/management relations. I am sorry that it had to take place in my 
State of Iowa. I am sorry because our workers in Iowa have been good 
workers, loyal, productive, hardworking, and now they have been told by 
Bridgestone/Firestone that they can just go out on the trash heap.
  We all have heard of Firestone Tire & Rubber, a well-known name in 
American industry. I am sure we all, at one time or another, had a 
Firestone tire on our car. Firestone in the 1980's was up for sale. 
There were a couple bidders for Firestone. One was Pirelli, an Italian-
based company, which bought Armstrong Tire. The other was Bridgestone, 
which is a Japanese-based company.
  They began bidding up the price. It is not that Firestone was 
bankrupt. We heard those comments earlier today. It was not bankrupt. 
In fact, Firestone was doing pretty well prior to that. In 1981, 
Firestone recorded a $121 million profit for the first 9 months. 
Bridgestone paid some $2.6 billion for Firestone.
  In the early 1980's, Firestone began a series of actions, ratcheting 
down on the workers. First, they started laying off workers. Then in 
February 1985, they asked the workers to take a wage cut. The workers 
accepted a cut of $3.43 an hour. Later in 1985, Firestone asked that 
their property taxes be reduced from $1 million to $800,000, which was 
approved. So the property owners in Polk County, the county in which 
Firestone is located, had to make up the $200,000 through other 
increased property taxes.
  Then in 1987, they asked union members to take another wage cut, and 
they did--$4 an hour. So now in the space of a little over 2 years, the 
workers at Firestone have taken wage and benefit cuts of $7.43 an hour.
  Then in May 1987, Firestone requested some assistance from the 
government: $1 million from the State; $300,000 from Polk County; 
$100,000 from the City of Des Moines; $100,000 from Iowa Power; $50,000 
from Midwest Gas. And the next month, Firestone gets all the grants 
from the taxpayers of the State of Iowa.
  Bridgestone purchased the company for $2.6 billion, as I mentioned 
before, in 1988.
  By 1993, the Des Moines Bridgestone/Firestone plant was profitable. 
They are $5 million ahead of budget.
  By March of last year, the Bridgestone/Firestone plant in Des Moines 
set a new high record of productivity, 80.5 pounds per man-hour, and 
set an all-time record for pounds warehoused.
  And then what happened? Last summer, when the contract came up for 
renewal, Bridgestone/Firestone, the employers, the management, refused 
to bargain with the employees.
  So, left with no other recourse, the employees went out on strike. 
They have now been out for 8 months.
  So this is not about workers who refuse to work. These workers worked 
hard.
  Let me read a letter that I referred to earlier today from Sherrie 
Wallace. She wrote me this letter on January 8. She said:

       When Bridgestone came to each of us asking for help because 
     we were not doing as well as the company needed to do, we all 
     did our best. They asked me for one more tire every day and 
     to stay out on the floor and to forgo my clean-up time. Not 
     only did I respond, so did each and every member of the URW.
       Not only did I give them the one more tire per day, I gave 
     them three times what they asked for. Our production levels 
     soared. We threw ourselves into our company believing that we 
     all must succeed together in order to create a better way of 
     life for all. The membership joined committees and we became 
     involved, we gave them our hearts. We began to believe this 
     company was different. We gave them our input to create a 
     better working environment. To increase productivity, we 
     began to meet our production levels. We were proud of our 
     company and our union. Together we did make a difference.

  And then what did they get for it? When their contract came up for 
renewal, Bridgestone said, ``Sorry, suckers. Too bad. Too bad you gave 
your all. Too bad you worked hard. Too bad 
[[Page S3736]] you increased your productivity three times. Too bad you 
took $7 an hour in wage and benefit cuts in the 1970's. Too bad that 
your tax money gave us money so that we could become more profitable. 
You are a bunch of suckers. Out the door.''
  That is in effect what Bridgestone did. They never sat down and 
negotiated. Not once, not once in 8 months have the employers sat down 
to negotiate.
  There is a report in the Des Moines Register of today: ``Bridgestone/
Firestone officials have not met with local union negotiators since the 
beginning of the record 8-month dispute.''
  So it is not the workers. They are willing to sit down and negotiate 
under the law. We are a nation of laws, are we not? We have an existing 
legal structure under which these workers operate. They just want to 
abide by the law and negotiate.
  The company said, ``Here are our demands. Take them or leave them.''
  That is not negotiation. That is not good-faith bargaining. In fact, 
there is a case now pending before the National Labor Relations Board 
that the employer, Bridgestone/Firestone, is in violation of section 8, 
refusal to bargain in good faith. I do not see how anybody could find 
otherwise because section 8 does say that both sides are required to 
meet at reasonable times and under reasonable circumstances to 
negotiate on issues of wages, hours, and conditions of employment.
  So I am hopeful that very soon the NLRB, which has had this case 
since last October, will render a decision. I can only hope that that 
decision will be that Bridgestone/Firestone is in violation of the law.
  Earlier today, I talked about some of the demands that they were 
making on the workers of Bridgestone/Firestone, about the fact that 
they want lower wages and longer hours for our workers here than for 
their workers in Japan. Bridgestone/Firestone is trying to make up for 
the exorbitant prices they paid for Firestone by taking it out of the 
workers.
  It is not that Bridgestone/Firestone is not profitable. No one has 
stated that. They are very, very profitable as a matter of fact. In 
fact, this is from the Wall Street Journal talking about the strike. 
They said:

       The eight-month strike, the longest running in the tire 
     industry, fails to hurt the company, Bridgestone/Firestone, 
     which reports an 11 percent jump in sales and tripled profits 
     for 1994.

  ``Tripled profits for 1994.'' And yet they will not even sit down and 
negotiate with workers.

       The company operates tire plants with 3,000 permanent 
     replacements and 1,300 workers who cross picket lines and 
     says it doesn't need any more help.

  No, it does not need any more help now. It got all the help in the 
beginning. They got all the help in workers taking wage cuts, 
concession cuts. They got help from the State of Iowa and the City of 
Des Moines giving them money, giving them grants.
  There was another strike at Pirelli/Armstrong, and they have agreed 
to go back to work. Pirelli has to hire workers back or face fines 
under a National Labor Relations Board ruling.
  Well, I think that same ruling is going to come down on Bridgestone/
Firestone, that they have failed to negotiate in good faith. Again, I 
hope that that decision will be coming soon.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article dated March 
7, 1995 appear in full in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Wall Street Journal, Mar. 7, 1995]

       Rubber Workers strike out in their walkout at Bridgestone/
     Firestone.
       The eight-month strike, the longest-running in the tire 
     industry, fails to hurt the company, which reports an 11% 
     jump in sales and tripled profits for 1994. The company 
     operates tire plants with 3,000 permanent replacements and 
     1,300 workers who cross picket lines, and says it doesn't 
     need any more help. David Meyer, a labor expert at the 
     University of Akron, predicts replacement workers will 
     eventually vote to decertify the United Rubber Workers. The 
     standoff drains the strike fund, forcing the union to stop 
     $100-a-week checks to strikers.
       The URW tries to save 1,000 jobs at Pirelli Armstrong by 
     offering an unconditional end to the strike there. Pirelli 
     has to hire the workers back or face fines under a National 
     Labor Relations Board ruling. ``This way,'' Mr. Meyer says, 
     the union ``can at least stay in the plant and fight another 
     day.''

  Mr. HARKIN. The Wall Street Journal in December of this year, 
December 27, 1994, had a story about Bridgestone/Firestone. I am going 
to read some excerpts from it, and I ask unanimous consent that the 
entire article from the Wall Street Journal appear in the Record at the 
conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1)
  Mr. HARKIN. Here is part of the article from the Wall Street Journal. 
It says:

       When he took the wheel at Bridgestone Corp's U.S. 
     operations 3 years ago, Japanese executive Yoichiro Kaizaki 
     warned managers that he's a born gambler, and that he always 
     wins. Mr. Kaizaki--who spent more time at the mahjong table 
     than his college economics classes, a classmate says--was 
     given bad odds for turning around the ailing U.S. operation . 
     . .
       Now, Mr. Kaizaki has cast the dice in perhaps his toughest 
     wager yet; that he can crush a six-month-old strike at three 
     of the company's eight U.S. tire plants, allowing Bridgestone 
     to stand alone against a costly master contract adopted by 
     its industry peers. Analysts think it would be tougher for 
     the United Rubber Workers to maintain its clout in the 
     industry if Bridgestone prevails in the strike.

  That is why this is so insidious. Goodyear settled. Pirelli/Armstrong 
is going back to work. Dunlop, they have all signed on. They all have 
contracts. But now here is Bridgestone. They are saying, no, we are not 
going to reach an agreement. We will crush the union. We will depress 
our wages. And that will put Goodyear, Dunlop, and Armstrong at a 
competitive disadvantage. And what are they going to do? Their 
shareholders are going to say, ``Wait a minute; we have to do the same 
thing they are doing.'' And thus you get the ratcheting down of 
conditions in this country. So this does not have just to do with 
Bridgestone. It has to do with the whole tire industry in the United 
States and what is going to happen to the workers there.

       The 61-year-old Mr. Kaizaki isn't looking for a compromise.

  Here's more from the article from the Wall Street Journal, quoting 
Mr. Kaizaki: ``Ending the strike is not necessary for the company if we 
are forced to set working conditions that kill the company.''

       Mr. Kaizaki says Bridgestone is racking up losses of about 
     $10 million a month at the three striking plants.

  And you would think that would bring them in, but even with that 
their profits tripled in 1994. So they are making big money. The real 
point is they do not want their workers to share in a legitimate, fair 
way with the increased profits they are making. That is what this is 
all about.
  Earlier this afternoon, the senior Senator from Texas, Mr. Gramm, 
said ``This has to do with the right of a free people to withhold their 
labor and the right of the employer to hire somebody else willing to 
work.''
  That is what the Senator from Texas, who has now thrown his hat in 
the ring as an announced candidate for the President of the United 
States, said. Let me read that again. ``It has to do with the right of 
a free people to withhold their labor and the right of the employer to 
hire somebody else willing to work.''
  Mr. President, I have a lot of cousins who work at Bridgestone/
Firestone. There is not a one of them not willing to work. Many of them 
have worked there 20, 30 years. They want to work. And as Sherrie 
Wallace said in her letter to me not only do they want to work, they 
will work very hard. The company asked them to produce one more tire a 
day. She said, ``I gave them three more tires a day.''
  Now, I am sorry. Mr. Gramm has it wrong. They are willing to work. 
They are just not willing to be slaves. And we ought not to stand here 
and allow a company like Bridgestone/Firestone to make them slaves.
  I chose my words carefully. I mean exactly what I said--these workers 
are like slaves, with no voice in what they are going to get as a share 
of the profits of that company. ``Take it or leave it,'' from the 
employer. ``No matter how long you have worked there, we do not care. 
You worked there 20 years, you give your best years to the company, we 
do not care. Take it or leave it, or out the door.''
  That is slavery, pure and simple. These people are willing to work. 
They 
[[Page S3737]] want to work. They want to work under the rubric of the 
laws of the United States of America. These are law-abiding citizens. 
They are not breaking any law. If there is a law breaker it is 
Bridgestone, violating section 8 of the National Labor Relations Act.
  And Bridgestone/Firestone cannot say that they are not hiring 
permanent replacements. They are hiring permanent replacements. That is 
exactly what they are doing. Here is a letter that was sent to Gary 
Sullivan, Sr., by Lamar Edwards, labor relations manager for 
Bridgestone.

       On January 19, 1995, you did not report to work because you 
     were on strike and you were permanently replaced.

  That is what the letter says.

       Please address any questions you have to the labor 
     relations office. Lamar Edwards, Labor Relations Manager.

  Not even ``Sincerely.'' Not even ``Cordially Yours.''
  Gary Sullivan penned a note on the letter he sent to me. He said: 
``This is all I am worth after 24 years of devoted and loyal service. 
Please continue to hang in there. We need your help.''
  Mr. President, 24 years Gary Sullivan gave to this plant. He worked 
hard; he produced a lot of tires. They did not even say thank you.
  I only have one question for Bridgestone. Where is their heart? Where 
is their conscience? Do they not have just a little bit of compassion? 
Do they not have just a little bit of feeling for working people, 
people like Gary Sullivan or Sherrie Wallace, or all my cousins who 
have been working at Bridgestone/Firestone?
  We are not asking the company to go broke. Profits tripled last year. 
They are in a great position. But what is happening is they are taking 
all the money for Mr. Kaizaki and his shareholders, and they are going 
to see how little they can pay their workers to get the production 
levels that they want. And they will keep squeezing them down.
  That is what this is all about. That is what this is all about, pure 
and simple. It has to do with whether or not in the specific instance 
we are about here--whether or not the Federal Government will take tax 
dollars from Sherrie Wallace and Gary Sullivan and Richard Harkin and 
Martin Harkin and Edward Harkin--I can go through all my cousins who 
worked there; it will take me about half an hour--whether they will 
take their tax dollars; will our Federal Government take their tax 
dollars and use those tax dollars to turn around and buy tires from 
Bridgestone/Firestone for the U.S. Government?
  The fact is we have contracts with them; there are several contracts 
with Bridgestone/Firestone from the Federal Government. We know of some 
47 Federal contracts held by Bridgestone/Firestone nationwide, not 
including contracts held by the corporation's subsidiaries. With this 
Executive order, Bridgestone would not be able to renew over $8 million 
in Government contracts, $1.5 million from the Des Moines plant alone.
  So will we let the Federal Government take the tax dollars of these 
workers and turn around and use them to buy tires from a plant that has 
told them, no, we will not bargain with you; we are going to 
permanently replace you even though you have exercised your legal right 
to strike? That is why I am proud of what President Clinton did. He 
said: No, we are not. We are not going to renew our contracts with 
Bridgestone/Firestone. We are not going to buy tires from that company 
for the Federal Government if they will not even sit down and bargain 
and abide by the National Labor Relations Act and bargain in good 
faith.
  Again, I do not know where Bridgestone/Firestone gets off on this. I 
do not know Mr. Kaizaki. I never met the man. But I do know something. 
They were talking about violence. We had a couple of violent instances 
at the Des Moines plant, strikers who were fearful of what is going to 
happen to their families and their children. I want to read one letter 
here:
 There are many ways to do violence. Twelve workers at Bridgestone/
     Firestone were fired by the company three days before 
     Christmas as a response to what the company referred to as 
     ``acts of violence, threats and aggressive behavior.''
       I do not condone physical violence and physical threats. 
     Most of us abhor such things as they occur in labor 
     confrontations. However, that is what company officials are 
     counting on in this situation as they commit their own brand 
     of violence by refusing to bargain in good faith for an end 
     to the strike. The company is using its financial might as a 
     club over the workers.
       The management of Bridgestone/Firestone wants nothing less 
     than complete capitulation by the members of the United 
     Rubber Workers union. The union is trying to hang on to 
     benefits gained over the years in legitimate negotiating 
     processes.
       It behooves the rest of us in the community to understand 
     that what is happening out on Second Avenue in Des Moines and 
     at the other Bridgestone/Firestone locations around the 
     country is an attempt to further erode the rights of workers 
     to maintain some control over their own lives, minds and 
     bodies rather than become the de facto property of the 
     company.
       Do not be fooled by the actions of the management of 
     Bridgestone/Firestone. It is every bit as violent (and more 
     so) as any act of physical violence on the picket line in its 
     destructive effects on human life--The Rev. Carlos C. Jayne.

  So what Bridgestone/Firestone is doing are acts of violence, violence 
to decent, hard-working people, many of whom served in our military, 
fought in our wars; many who gave the best years of their lives; many 
who have sustained injuries of one form or another; many who are now in 
their fifties and will not be able to find work anywhere else.
  And what Bridgestone is saying is it is just tough luck. We are going 
to throw you out on the trash heap of life.
  It did not just start here. It started a long time ago. It started 
with other companies, but now it has reached epic proportions. 
Basically, what we are seeing in America today is the destruction of 
the working spirit, because what we are telling workers is they are 
like a piece of machinery. We can use you up and depreciate you down 
and then we can just kind of throw you out. I think it is destructive 
of the work ethic. I know it is destructive of human nature. I know it 
has destroyed a lot of people.
  I first came across something like this, when my brother Frank was 
working at a plant in Des Moines, Delavan Manufacturing Co., started by 
Mr. Delavan, right before the Second World War. During the Second World 
War, it grew big because it made a lot of defense articles and it 
continued to make a lot of defense equipment on through the years. My 
brother went to work there. He was a machine tool operator and worked 
there for 23 years.
  He loved his job. He loved the plant. He loved Mr. Delavan, a man I 
had met myself. He had a good job. He belonged to the United Auto 
Workers. He was a proud union man. He worked there for 23 years. In the 
first 10 years he worked there, he did not miss 1 day of work and was 
not late once in 10 years.
  I remember I came home from the service on leave one time, and at a 
Christmas dinner they gave him a gold watch with his name on it because 
in 10 years he had not missed 1 day of work and he had not been late 
once in 10 years.
  My brother worked in that plant for 23 years. He missed 5 days of 
work in 23 years because of the snow conditions. We lived in a small 
town outside Des Moines, and he could not make it to work.
  The same thing happened there as happened at Firestone. Mr. Delavan 
got old. He sold the company. He took care of his workers. In all of 
those 23 years that plant never had labor strife; they never went on 
strike. When the contract went up for renegotiation, Mr. Delavan would 
sit down with them, and they would renegotiate.
  Mr. Delavan got old and sold the company to a group of investors. 
They bought the company. One of the leaders of this investor group 
bragged at a speech in Des Moines. ``If you want to see how to bust a 
union, come to Delavan.'' The contract came up for negotiation. He 
refused to sit down and bargain.
  The same thing is true at Bridgestone/Firestone. The workers went out 
on strike. They brought in the permanent replacements. That was the end 
of it.
  For 23 years my brother worked there. My brother is a high school 
graduate. He gave the best years of his life, and worked hard. He would 
stay after work. No matter what they asked him to do, he would do it; 
23 years.
  Another part of the story I have not mentioned. My brother is 
disabled; he's deaf. He went to the Iowa School for the Deaf and Dumb. 
I remember he always said, ``You know, I may be deaf 
[[Page S3738]] but I am not dumb.'' But that is what they called it: 
The Iowa School for the Deaf and Dumb.
  When he went there, they said, ``You can be three things: A shoe 
cobbler, a printer's assistant, or a baker. It is your choice.'' He 
said, ``I do not want to be any one of those.'' But he said, ``OK. I am 
going to be a baker.''
  He got out of school and baked for a while. Then he got this great 
job at Delavan's. He made good money. He was a union member. He bought 
his own car. It was incredible. Here is a deaf man in his early 
twenties making decent money, bought a new car, out on his own.
  You see, Mr. Delavan had gone out and hired disabled people--he was 
way ahead of his time--to work in his plant and found out that they 
made some of the best workers. When this new crowd came in and bought 
the plant, did they give a hoot? They did not care. The bottom line was 
profits. That was it. They figured it out. If they could take my 
brother, Frank, who had been there for 23 years and worked his way up 
the wage scale, if they could get rid of him, they could hire somebody 
else for a third less. That is exactly what they did.
  I will never forget as long as I live two things my brother said to 
me. The one was when he said to me, ``I may be deaf but I am not 
dumb.'' I will never forget that. I will never forget that after he 
lost his job at Delavan's, he was then 54 years old. Do you know where 
a 54-year-old deaf man finds a job? He got a job as a janitor working 
at night cleaning out the latrines.
  Here is a man who for 23 years operated a nice piece of equipment. It 
was a drill press. As a matter of fact, he made jet engine nozzles that 
I used in the jets that I flew in the Navy. He was contributing to the 
defense of his country. He was making a good wage. He was a member of a 
union; highly productive; 54 years old. No one is going to hire a 54-
year-old deaf man. He went and got a job as a janitor at minimum wage; 
no union; no benefits; no health care; no anything.
  The second thing he said to me that I will never forget. He said, ``I 
feel like that piece of machinery.'' Delavan had out in back a dump 
where they dumped all the tailings, and worn out machines. He said, ``I 
feel like one of those pieces of machinery that they used up and they 
threw out.''
  I will tell you. When those things hit home, you never forget them. 
So I have been in favor of doing something about striker replacement 
ever since that time. It is just not right. It is not right for 
companies to do this to people. Not all companies do this. It started 
small. But now it is like a wildfire. Now they are all starting to do 
it. If Bridgestone/Firestone gets by with it, it will be Armstrong next 
and then it will be Goodyear and then it will be Dunlop and it will 
just keep going on because they are going to have to compete. That is 
what is happening in our society.
  So that is what this is all about. It is not convoluted. It is not 
complicated. It is very simple. It is about whether or not working 
people in America have any dignity, whether they have any rights at 
all, whether we believe that people who work should have some 
bargaining power to bargain with their employer, or whether or not the 
employer can just say ``take it or leave it.'' That is all it is about. 
It is nothing more than that.
  Finally, it is about whether or not we in the Federal Government will 
permit our tax dollars to be used to help subsidize this kind of 
corporate greed, corporate irresponsibility.
  President Clinton did the right thing, and I hope we do the right 
thing. I hope we defeat the Kassebaum amendment and send a strong 
signal to our workers that the Federal Government, at least, is not 
going to use their tax dollars to subsidize companies like Bridgestone/
Firestone.
  I yield the floor.
                               Exhibit 1

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 27, 1994]

    Corporate Focus: Bridgestone Bets It Can Defeat Rubber Workers' 
Strike--Kaizaki Tries To Turn Around Firestone by Bucking Industrywide 
                                Contract

    (By Valerie Reitman, Masayoshi Kanabayashi, and Raju Narisetti)

       When he took the wheel at Bridgestone Corporation's U.S. 
     operation three years ago, Japanese executive Yoichiro 
     Kaizaki warned managers that he's a born gambler, and that he 
     always wins.
       Mr. Kaizaki--who spent more time at the mahjong table than 
     his college economics classes, a classmate says--was given 
     bad odds for turning around the ailing U.S. operation. So 
     far, he has beaten them.
       His aggressive restructuring, known as ``risutora'' in 
     Japanese, has produced the beginning of a turnaround at rusty 
     Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., which Bridgestone acquired for 
     $2.6 billion in 1988. Mr. Kaizaki's performance at the U.S. 
     operation, known as Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., led to his 
     promotion last year to president of the Tokyo-based parent 
     company, one of the world's largest tire makers, with $10.7 
     billion in tire revenue last year.
       Now, Mr. Kaizaki has cast the dice in perhaps his toughest 
     wager yet: that he can crush a six-month old strike at three 
     of the company's eight U.S. tire plants, allowing Bridgestone 
     to stand alone against a costly master contract adopted by 
     its industry peers. Analysts think it would be tough for the 
     United Rubber Workers to maintain its clout in the industry 
     if Bridgestone prevails in the strike.
       The battle is reaching a flash point: Bridgestone says it's 
     about to replace workers permanently, while the union vows to 
     keep Bridgestone from gutting the hard-won increases at other 
     companies.
       The outcome likely will determine whether Bridgestone's 
     purchase of Firestone--widely considered one of the worst 
     Japanese investments in America several years ago--will prove 
     a durable winner. Or whether it will go down on the list that 
     includes Sony Corp.'s purchase of Columbia Pictures and 
     Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.'s acquisition of MCA Inc.
       The strike's resolution also will stand as a verdict on the 
     management performance of Mr. Kaizaki, who has been applying 
     the restructuring lessons he learned in America to Japan.
       When it acquired Firestone, Bridgestone instantly gained a 
     substantial base of U.S. and European factories and sales 
     outlets, doubling its revenue. But Mr. Kaizaki's sweeping 
     reorganization in the U.S. including cost cuts and massive 
     layoffs, and his attempts to boost productivity, have led to 
     this year's strike. Bridgestone and the union are ``locked in 
     mortal combat,'' says William McGrath, a Cleveland tire-
     industry consultant.
       Negotiations are at a stalemate in the strike, which has 
     already surpassed the 141-day walkout that crippled the U.S. 
     tire industry in 1976. Bridgestone is considering making 
     permanent many of the temporary workers hired to replace the 
     4,200 strikers. Tension has erupted on racial lines, with 
     pickets bearing placards saying ``Nuke 'em'' and ``WWII Part 
     II--Japan's Bridgestone Attack on American Economy.''
       The union wants Bridgestone to extend the same master 
     contract adopted by U.S. tire industry bellwether Goodyear 
     Tire & Rubber Co.
      The contract calls for wage and benefit increases of 16% 
     over a three-year period from the current average of 
     $67,000, with the average salary portion going up to 
     $49,000 from $45,000.
       Bridgestone and Mr. Kaizaki aren't budging. The company 
     says its crushing debt load--$2 billion left over from the 
     acquisition and subsequent capital investment, and another 
     $500 million of off-balance-sheet debt--makes it unfeasible 
     to accept the same agreement as its powerful rival, Goodyear. 
     But Bridgestone contends its proposal is generous, providing 
     average annual compensation of $63,000 when pegged to 
     productivity improvements and 12-hour rotating shifts. The 
     union abhors the work schedule and says it's impossible to 
     calculate the value of the proposal, given several proposed 
     reductions of pension and medical benefits.
       The 61-year-old Mr. Kaizaki isn't looking for a compromise. 
     ``Ending the strike is not necessary for the company if we 
     are forced to set working conditions that kill the company,'' 
     he says in an interview.
       Mr. Kaizaki says Bridgestone is racking up losses of about 
     $10 million a month at the three striking plants, but that 
     the U.S. operations overall will still earn a profit for the 
     year. Its five other plants are operating full throttle: 
     Union contracts there do not fall under the URW master 
     agreement. Indeed, for the first time since Bridgestone's 
     acquisition, the U.S. operation swung into the black with a 
     $6 million profit last year, and another $10 million in 
     profit is expected this year.
       While the strike has forced Bridgestone to import costly 
     tires from Japan and to fall behind in farm-tire deliveries, 
     the betting is that Mr. Kaizaki will prevail. With the 
     union's war chest running low and some union workers crossing 
     pickets, ``this one is an endgame,'' says University of Akron 
     management Prof. Daniel Meyer. ``If the URW picket lines 
     break and a lot of those workers go back, they (URW) will 
     still be a force, but their ability to impact in a major way 
     would be gone''
       Judging by his past record, Mr. Kaizaki isn't likely to 
     retreat. A maverick by any standard, he particularly stands 
     out among Japanese managers, The son of a soy-sauce brewer, 
     built like a fireplug, the chain-smoking Mr. Kaizaki 
     resembles the bulldog of a manager he is.
       He surprised Firestone workers when he arrived in the U.S. 
     in 1991. He admitted that he knew little about the tire 
     business, coming from Bridgestone's chemical division, and 
     even less about North America. Nor did 
     [[Page S3739]] he speak English. But what he did say was 
     memorable--that he could make tough decisions because he 
     ``had a strong stomach and no problem sleeping at night,'' 
     recalls Bridgestone/Firestone Inc.'s vice president, Trevor 
     Hoskins.
       The first Japanese word many Firestone workers learned when 
     he took over was dame (pronounced DA-may), or ``no good,'' 
     which he often used about compromises with the union, 
     according to Nikkei Business magazine.
       Productivity assessments have been another hallmark. Mr. 
     Kaizaki quickly divided the U.S. operation into 21 divisions, 
     set clear goals for each manager and gave each division chief 
     ``The Buck Stops Here'' placards. He says he has no second 
     thoughts about the demands that prompted the strike, 
     including a nonstop production cycle and tying wages to 
     productivity.
       From his U.S. vantage, Mr. Kaizaki says he could ``see many
        defects'' in the Japanese headquarters. ``When I went to 
     the U.S., the parent in Japan did not possess the ability 
     to institute cost-cutting measures.'' Now, he's 
     implementing some of his U.S. changes at the Japanese 
     parent, putting it on a restructuring diet that he calls 
     slim-ka, in order to offset rubber-price increases (50% 
     this year alone), the yen's appreciation and anemic sales. 
     He has halved management positions, established direct 
     managerial communication lines and meted out the lowest 
     raises in the Japanese tire industry to Bridgestone 
     workers, still the industry's highest-paid.
       The diet is working: Bridgestone just boosted its 1994 
     earnings forecast for Japanese operations to 21.5 billion yen 
     ($216 million), a 26% increase from 17.05 billion yen last 
     year.
       In the interview, Mr. Kaizaki dares to say he would lay off 
     workers at the parent if it starts losing money. Even 
     suggesting such a possibility is radical in Japan. But, he 
     says, ``I will fire people if the company here falls into as 
     bad a situation as Firestone was in when I was in the U.S.''
       Even now, he acknowledges that it will be some time before 
     Bridgestone beats the long odds placed on its investment in 
     Firestone. ``I think it will take a long time for us to see 
     results. We are getting on the right track, but we are still 
     deeply hurt.''

              Bridgestone by the numbers--the fundamentals              
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        1993      1992  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sales (trillions)...................................      1.60      1.75
Net income (billions)...............................     28.39     28.40
Earnings per shares.................................     36.8      36.8 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

       Major product lines: Tires (accounting for 74.5% of total 
     sales), wheels, industrial rubber products, chemical 
     products, sporting goods, bicycles.
       Major competitors: Group Michelin (in Europe), Goodyear 
     Tire & Rubber (in U.S.).
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I want to associate myself and concur with the remarks 
of the Senator from Iowa, my neighbor. I, too, rise in opposition to 
the pending amendment.
  This amendment would block the Executive order issued by President 
Clinton that prevents the Federal Government from contracting with 
employers that permanently replace legally striking employees. I 
strongly support the Executive order.
  The time has come, Mr. President, for all of us in this body to begin 
to correct the significant imbalance that exists in labor law today; an 
imbalance that must be corrected if America is going to thrive in the 
increasingly competitive global marketplace.
  Mr. President, under our Federal labor law, an employee cannot be 
fired for exercising the right to strike. Congress guaranteed that 
right in 1935 with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, 
which told every worker that he or she had the right to organize labor 
unions, to bargain collectively with employers, and to strike in 
support of those bargaining demands.
  Unfortunately, based on the Supreme Court decision in the case of 
NLRB v. MacKay Radio and Telegraph Company, that same employee who 
cannot be fired can be ``permanently replaced.'' Mr. President, I have 
yet to figure out how to console an employee who just lost his or her 
job for going out on strike by telling her that she has not really been 
``fired,'' she has just been ``permanently replaced.''
  The distinction makes absolutely no sense. It is newspeak. It is a 
distinction without a difference. Perhaps those in the Congress who 
oppose the President's Executive order could take a moment to explain 
the distinction to the Senate, the difference between being permanently 
replaced on a job versus being fired from that job. Or, better yet, 
perhaps they could take a minute to explain the difference to people 
like Carol Little, a former employee of the Woodstock Die Cast Co. in 
Woodstock, IL. I want to tell Carol's story because I think it is 
significant and it points to some of the issues that the Senator from 
Iowa raised in his eloquent statement.
  In 1988, Woodstock workers went out on strike to protest severe 
company cutbacks. At issue were proposed reduction in wages and health 
care benefits, as well as complete elimination of pension benefits, all 
in a time when the company was making a profit.
  Many strike participants had 30 and 40 years of service in the plant, 
and a majority had over 10 years of service. Carol Little was one of 
the 370 workers who went on strike as a typical Woodstock Die Cast 
worker. A 22-year veteran of the plant, she began working at Woodstock 
Die Cast in 1966.
  The job made it possible for her to support her children and disabled 
husband, while putting a son through college. As the family's primary 
breadwinner, she depended on the fair wages and benefits historically 
provided by the Woodstock Die Co.
  Within 2 days of the beginning of the strike, the company began 
advertising for and hiring permanent replacement workers. The company 
ultimately replaced 220 of the 370 strikers.
  While the union provided hardship payments to workers facing severe 
financial problems, a number of strikers still lost their homes. 
Several of the striking Woodstock Die Cast workers were forced to file 
for bankruptcy. In addition, the practice of replacing strikers had 
severe repercussions throughout the community. The stress caused by the 
strike and the ensuing job losses contributing to an increase in the 
divorce rate among former Woodstock Die Cast employees. The most 
poignant example of tragic personal loss, however, is that of a 26-
year-old striker who, in an act of hopelessness, took his own life 
after his wife left him.
  Fortunately, everything turned out OK for Carol Little. She was able 
to find another job and continue to support her family, but not 
everyone was as fortunate as Carol Little.
  This tragic story is not unique, Mr. President. Similar stories could 
be told by the 85 workers replaced by Capitol Engineering in 1983; the 
100 workers replaced by Calumet Steel in 1986; the 160 workers 
permanently replaced by Aircraft Gear Corp. in Chicago, in 1990; and 
the 338 members of the Chicago Beer Wholesalers Association who were 
permanently replaced--to cite just a few examples.
  Over the last few months, the Bridgestone/Firestone Corp. has also 
permanently replaced several hundred workers in its plant in Decatur, 
IL. There is a plant in Decatur as well as Des Moines. This decision 
has created severe economic disruptions for working families that 
depend on Bridgestone/Firestone for their livelihood. It has also 
impacted many people and businesses throughout the Decatur area that 
are not directly connected with the company.
  The fact of the matter is, Mr. President, that there is no difference
   between permanently replacing a striking worker, or firing a 
striking worker. As Thomas Donahue, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO 
stated:

       Stripped of the legal niceties, the Mackay doctrine is a 
     grant to employers of the `right' to punish employees for 
     doing no more than unionizing and engaging in collective 
     bargaining. Mackay takes back a large part of the Federal 
     labor law's broad promise to employees that they are 
     protected against employer retaliation if they choose to 
     exercise their freedom to associate in unions. And it does so 
     when that promise would have the most meaning: A collective 
     bargaining dispute. At that critical time, the Mackay 
     doctrine sacrifices basic workers' rights in the interest of 
     aggrandizing employer prerogatives.

  Mr. President, the Senate failed to end debate on the striker 
replacement act last July. This legislation would have amended both the 
National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act by banning the 
permanent replacement of striking workers.
  The Executive order issued yesterday by President Clinton will help 
us take a small, first step; toward restoring the long-standing 
imbalance in labor-management relations by prohibiting the Federal 
Government from contracting with employers that replace legally 
striking workers.
  [[Page S3740]] It does not mean that the choice that employees have 
will be removed from them. They can still decide if they want to avail 
themselves of the right to permanently replace somebody, but it does 
mean that taxpayers will not be a party to decisions to permanently 
replace workers when indeed the law that guarantees people the right to 
strike would have prohibited it.
  Mr. President, this order represents a lawful exercise of 
Presidential authority. The Federal Procurement Act, enacted by 
Congress in 1949, expressly authorizes the President to ``prescribe 
policies and directives, not inconsistent with the provisions of this 
act, as he shall deem necessary to effectuate the provisions of said 
act.''
  Republican and Democratic Presidents alike have issued Executive 
orders addressing the conduct of companies with which the Federal 
Government does business. For example, in 1941, President Roosevelt 
issued an Executive order which prohibited defense contractors from 
discriminating against individuals on the basis of race. In 1951, after 
enactment of the Procurement Act, President Truman--whose desk I share, 
by the way, Mr. President--issued an Executive order extending that 
requirement to all Federal contractors. When both orders were issued, 
such discrimination was not unlawful and, in fact, Congress had failed 
to enact an antidiscrimination law proposed by President Truman.
  In 1964, President Johnson issued an Executive order prohibiting 
Federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of age. At the 
time, Federal law permitted such discrimination.
  In 1969, President Nixon expanded the antidiscrimination Executive 
order by requiring all Federal contractors to adopt affirmative action 
programs. President Nixon did that.
  In 1992, President Bush issued an Executive order requiring unionized 
Federal contractors to notify their unionized employees of their right 
to refuse to pay union dues.
  Mr. President, since being elected to the Senate I have had the 
opportunity to speak to hundreds of workers about the issue of striker
 replacements throughout my State and indeed in other places, as well. 
The most important point that I try to make when I talk with working 
people is that a company's most important asset is its labor force.

  This permanent replacement situation, I believe, is counterproductive 
in that it sets up a dynamic of mistrust and hostility between labor 
and management that cannot be constructive or conducive to 
productivity. That really breaks down the capacity of the organization 
to function.
  Of course, every time I talk to working people, I am preaching to the 
choir. Telling a group of UAW members, for example, about the 
importance of passing legislation that would prohibit permanent striker 
replacements is like telling South Africans about the importance of 
voting. They get it right off, and they understand immediately what it 
means.
  But I have also tried to get the same message through to members of 
the business community in Illinois. I hope I have been successful. 
America's employers have nothing to fear from President Clinton's 
Executive order. In the end, labor and management's interests really 
are the same. We are all in a global economy and we will rise or fall, 
sink or swim together. We are all in this together.
  Mrs. BOXER. Will my colleague yield to me on that point for just a 
very brief comment?
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Certainly.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I really am pleased to hear the Senator 
talk about how important it is to have good relations between the 
workers and management.
  I know that our Presiding Officer is a very successful business 
person. I know how much we think of him. We think he is one of the 
finest Senators, and I am sure that his workers felt the same way about 
him because this is a man of quality. I think that relationship is 
crucial.
  I just wanted to put in the Record at this point a comment that was 
made by a nurse who was voted the nurse of the year in one of our great 
hospitals in California. There was a terrible strike going on and the 
nurses felt that they were really being abused in many, many ways. I 
will not go into all the details. It is not important here.
  But what is important is that they went out on strike and within a 
day they were replaced. This is what she said:

       I always felt that you strike because of the issues and 
     when you settle the issues you go back to work. You do not 
     win every issue. You compromise. That is how we do it in 
     America. I never thought they would replace the workers. Why 
     would anyone ever go on strike then?

  And I think that very simple message gets through to me. We need to 
settle our differences amicably. And if you know that you are going to 
be replaced the minute you withhold your labor, which is a human right, 
then I think it has a tremendously chilling effect.
  So I am very pleased to associate myself with the Senator's remarks, 
the fact that I think that it is the right thing for business and for 
the working people and that our President did the right thing. He stood 
up and said, you know, ``I'm drawing a line here in the sand.''
  I am very sorry that we are into this on a bill that is supposed to 
reimburse the Pentagon for peacekeeping expenses. It seems to me very 
odd that the Republicans would offer such an amendment on a bill I know 
they want to get through. It is delaying us, but I guess that is the 
way it goes.
  I am proud to associate myself with my colleague. I look forward to 
working with her on this issue.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Thank you very much.
  I thank the Senator from California for her remarks, as well.
  Mr. President, I would like to address some of the incorrect 
statements that have been made about President Clinton's Executive 
order.
  The President's Executive order will not encourage workers to strike, 
it will only restore balance to their relations with employers. It also 
will not prevent employers whose workers choose to strike from carrying 
on with their business.
  A company faced with a strike has a number of options. It can hire 
temporary replacements. It can rely on supervisory or management 
personnel to complete jobs. It can transfer work to another plant, 
subcontract work, or stockpile in advance of a strike. In addition, the 
Supreme Court has long held that an employer lawfully may lock out 
employees as a means of controlling the time of a work stoppage and 
gain an advantage thereby in bargaining. The President's Executive 
order will not take away any of those alternatives.
  All it will do, again, is keep taxpayers from being made an 
inadvertent, unwilling, and unexpected party to the capacity of an 
employer to permanently replace a worker. Again, ``permanently 
replace''--in my mind, I would like someone to explain how that is 
different from firing somebody.
  There are, of course, those who say that the Executive order is 
unnecessary, that employers are no more likely to hire permanent 
replacements for their workers now than they were when the Mackay 
decision was originally issued. The facts, however, tell another story. 
Since 1980, employers have made far more frequent use of permanent 
replacements.
  In 1990, Mr. President, the General Accounting Office released a 
study on the use of permanent replacements by employers of labor 
disputes covered by the NLRA. The study covered the years 1985 to 1989. 
The study found that in fully one-third of the strikes examined, 
employers indicated they intended to hire permanent replacements. In 
approximately 17 percent of the strikes, employers actually did hire 
permanent replacements. The GAO stated that approximately 14,000 
striking workers were replaced in 1985 and 14,000 more in 1989.
  Of course, this figure did not cover employees covered by the Rail 
Labor Act, or the RLA, such as the 8,000 pilots, machinists and flight 
attendants replaced by Continental Airlines in 1985, or the 7,000 
employees replaced by Eastern Airlines in 1989. An AFL-CIO study found 
11 percent of striking workers, 126,450 individuals in all, were 
permanently replaced in 1990.
  What we are seeing is an increase in the use of permanent 
replacements, and an increase in the use of this tactic by employers. 
Again, given the trauma that it occasioned, I daresay it cannot 
[[Page S3741]] be in our national interests to promote or to continue.
  What is even more important to realize, Mr. President, is the real 
issue is not ultimately how often the permanent replacement weapon is 
used. The truth is that the mere availability of this weapon to 
management distorts the collective bargaining process in many, many 
more labor disputes than those in which it is actually used. The mere 
existence of the threat, whether or not it is carried out, is enough to 
undermine the right to organize and to undermine workers' ability to 
bargain on a level playing field about the conditions of their work.
  In that regard, I reference the letter that was read by the Senator 
from California, when the letter writer said, ``If you knew you were 
going to get fired, why would you try?"
  After 12 years of antagonism during previous administrations, the 
time I believe has come to forge a new direction. The time has come for 
labor and management to work together in this country. Our major 
industrial competitors including Canada, Japan, Germany, and France, 
have recognized that banning the permanent replacement of strikers 
restores balance in the collective bargaining process and makes good 
economic sense. The time has come for Congress to do the same.
  I point out again, with regard to Bridgestone/Firestone in Decatur 
and Des Moines, what is happening in Decatur, and what is happening in 
Des Moines, is illegal in Japan. It is almost too perverse to 
contemplate.
  America's union workers are not simply another cost to be cut. They 
are human beings who are often struggling to provide for their families 
to make ends meet. Under our Nation's labor laws they have certain 
rights, including the right to strike. Congress thought that we were 
guaranteeing that in 1935 when the NLRA was passed. Unfortunately, they 
were wrong. They had not counted on someone coming up with the idea 
that to be permanently replaced was not the same thing as being fired.
  But we can guarantee that today. We can acknowledge what everyone 
knows to be true: That absent the right to strike without being 
permanently replaced, collective bargaining does not work. It cannot. 
It cannot if management can replace workers the minute they take to the 
picket lines. Workers then do not have the right to bargain. They walk 
around in every negotiation with a loaded gun, frankly, at their heads.
  Mr. President, we are entering a new era in economic competition. All 
over the world, barriers to trade between nations are falling. We are 
witnessing the development of a truly global marketplace. I believe 
that America can and must lead the way in this marketplace, but if we 
are to succeed, if we are to retain our competitive into the 21st 
century, there must be a symbiosis between labor and management and 
government. That means a mutually beneficial working relationship, one 
of mutual respect: Labor needs jobs, workers need jobs, workers need 
the business to be competitive to make a profit to be able to compete. 
Government should be a partner of all of that.
  Certainly, this issue of permanent replacement of strikers just cuts 
against the grain and prohibits and precludes our ability to advance 
ourselves and to go forward in terms of this global marketplace and the 
competitiveness challenges that we are facing in the world.
  Mr. President, President Clinton's Executive order, I believe, is a 
first step in restoring the balance, the delicate balance, that will 
allow America to retain its competitive edge. I would, therefore, like 
to conclude my remarks by urging this body to oppose the pending 
amendment. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  

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