[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 45 (Friday, March 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3774-S3776]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RESCISSIONS ACT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
resume consideration of H.R. 889, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 889) making emergency supplemental
appropriations and rescissions to preserve and enhance the
military readiness for the Department of Defense for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 1995, and for other
purposes.
The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
Pending:
Bumpers amendment No. 330, to restrict the obligation or
expenditate of funds on the NASA/Russian Cooperative MIR
program.
Kassebaum amendment No. 331 (to committee amendment
beginning on page 1, line 3), to limit funding of an
Executive order that would prohibit Federal contractors from
hiring permanent replacements for striking workers.
Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Amendment No. 331
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the pending
amendment, which is the Kassebaum amendment.
I would like to make one brief point. Later I will probably speak on
some other points. But in 1935 when Congress passed the National Labor
Relations Act, section 13 stated:
Nothing in this act, except as specifically provided for
herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or
impede, or in any way diminish, the right to strike, or to
affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.
Then in 1938 in the Mackay radio case, the Supreme Court interpreted
that as permitting permanent striker replacement. But that really did
not happen in our country to any great extent and has not happened up
until very recently. By tradition, we have worked things out, and we
have avoided what most Western industrialized countries have outlawed.
But the point I want to make is that in the discussion on the floor of
the Senate, it has been assumed that the President's Executive order is
as sweeping as our proposal last year on prohibiting permanent striker
replacement. It is nowhere near as sweeping. It gives no additional
powers to the National Labor Relations Board.
Let me just read two pertinent sections. This is the President's
Executive order.
It is the policy of the Executive Branch in procuring goods
and services that, to ensure the economical and efficient
administration and completion of Federal Government
contracts, contracting agencies shall not contract with
employers that permanently replace lawfully striking
employees. All discretion under this Executive order shall be
exercised consistent with this policy.
Then section 4(a):
``When the Secretary determines that a contractor has permanently
replaced lawfully striking employees, the Secretary may''--no mandate--
``may debar the contractor thereby making the contractor ineligible to
receive government contracts.''
It is much more restrictive than the legislation that we had before
us last year that a majority of the Senate voted for but because of our
filibuster rules we were unable to pass.
I will hold off saying anything further at this point, Mr. President.
I will have some further comments before long.
I see my colleague, the new Senator from Oklahoma, here. I believe he
wishes to speak.
So I yield the floor, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is amendment No. 331
offered by the Senator from Kansas to the committee amendment on page
1, line 3 of the bill.
[[Page S3775]] The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been very disturbed during the
debate on the defense supplemental appropriations. I just wanted to
make a couple of comments not directly addressing the Kassebaum
amendment but the appropriations itself.
I really believe this is one of the few times that I can stand here
and say I do not know for sure how I am going to vote on this. I am a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. When I was in the House
of Representatives, I was a member of the House Armed Services
Committee.
I find that we are in a way endorsing what I refer to as a flawed
foreign policy when we come up in our forces to have supplemental
appropriations to pay for various maneuvers and various missions that
our military has pursued while we clearly disagree with those. As an
example, I would suggest that, if the President had come to Congress,
or to the Senate, and said is it going to cost $17 million to send
troops to Rwanda, we probably would say ``no'' and we would not have to
incur these costs.
The same thing would be true in Somalia--recognizing that in Somalia
we originally sent them in December, under a previous administration,
however. I think they were sent over for a humanitarian mission not to
exceed--I believe it was--90 days initially. Then after that, each
quarter we would have resolutions in order to try to bring the troops
back home. That ended up costing $17 million.
If the President had come to Congress and asked Congress to
appropriate $312 million to send troops to Bosnia without a well-
defined mission there, certainly not having anything to do with our
Nation's events, without having anything to do with our Nation's
security, I suggest we would have said ``no.''
The same thing is true; $367 million to Cuba, and then there is Haiti.
This appropriation is going to have $595 million to support what nobody
really knows we are doing in Haiti. I can assure you, Mr. President,
that if the President had come to Congress and said we are going to ask
you for $595 million so we can send troops into Haiti to help them with
problems they are having, it would have been rejected. So here we come
along later and are forced to do it.
I hesitated in voting against it, Mr. President, because it is not
the military's fault. It is not their policy. They did not decide to go
into Haiti. It was not their idea to go to Somalia, Bosnia, or Rwanda.
If we do not do this, they are going to be forced into taking it out of
their personnel accounts, their operation accounts, R&D accounts. And
there are no spare dollars right now in any of those accounts. In fact,
we are operating under a budget in this fiscal year that is comparable
to the budget we had in 1980 when we could not afford spare parts.
So I have sat in these meetings and talked to the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Chief of Staff in the various
services. I listened to them about the problems they have right now
with their budget, in trying to keep America strong. I cannot
conscientiously say take it out of our R&D budget just because I
disagreed with the missions for which this money is being spent.
So, Mr. President, I wanted to get on record that I am very disturbed
with the system. I hope we can establish some type of a system where
those of us who are going to be asked to appropriate the money to pay
for these missions will have some voice in making the decisions as to
what we are doing with our armed services.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, if I may get back to mundane things that we
talk about here, amendments--and it is good, not simply as a tribute to
the Chaplain but it is good for us to pull ourselves back and remind
each other there are things more important than these amendments we
vote on, and we too easily forget.
Mr. President, let me comment again on the amendment that is before
the Senate. It is very easy to forget we are talking about people, real
people who are struggling for a living when we talk about people who go
on strike.
I just have been going through some testimony given a couple of years
ago by people who were struggling. I just this morning was with Senator
Kennedy, who held an informal session with a number of people who spoke
on the need for a minimum wage. Two people I remember particularly. One
is--and I believe I have his name correctly--David Dow, who has two
children, a daughter 2, a son 1. He and his wife went 1 year to
college. Then their first child was coming along so they had to quit.
They are struggling on the minimum wage. They cannot afford health
insurance. They are paying $75 a month for their student loan, making
that payment on the minimum wage. And he just told about the struggle
he is going through.
These are real people we deal with when we are talking about a
minimum wage. It is not some theoretical thing.
There was a small employer there who said he would like to pay the
minimum wage if everybody else had to raise their minimum wage so we
would all be on the same level.
We are talking about--and here they are judgment calls; I recognize
that, but we are talking about trying to maintain some sense of balance
in our society. I think that is what is needed in this area of
permanent striker replacement. All the other Western industrialized
nations, with the exception of Great Britain, Singapore, and Hong Kong,
outlaw permanent striker replacement. Italy, Greece, France, Germany,
Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland--I am sure I am
forgetting a few--Japan, all of them outlaw permanent striker
replacement, and they do it for a very solid reason, that there is an
imbalance. I say this as a former employer who was in business myself.
There is an imbalance. Obviously, it is a struggle for a small business
person. It was not easy for me in business. But as an employer I am at
an advantage over somebody who is just struggling to pay a mortgage and
to get by.
And so we had built into our structure certain things that give some
power to the employees. While we have not outlawed it as a result of
the Mackay Radio decision in the Supreme Court of 1938, with only three
exceptions in large businesses we have exercised self-restraint and
avoided having permanent striker replacements.
I think it is important that continue. I have been working with both
sides in the Caterpillar strike in Illinois. Let me add I have great
respect for Don Feits, the chief executive officer of Caterpillar, and
Owen Biever, the president of the United Automobile Workers.
My feelings are, if we just turned this whole thing over to the two
of them, we would get it worked out. But if at Caterpillar you were to
have permanent striker replacements, in a community like Peoria, it
would just tear that town apart. It just would not be good. I think
virtually everyone recognizes that. While that is a more volatile
situation because of the concentration of employees of one company, I
think we have to recognize we have to have balance, and that means,
among other things, labor and management working together more than we
have traditionally done. Germany has something they call mitbestimmung
where an officer of the union is on the board of the corporation, but
when that corporation talks about what they might offer to the unions
in terms of concessions when they go to a contract, that union
representative absents himself. But that way the unions get a chance to
understand the problems of management and management gets to understand
the problems of the unions.
It is also important they work together and get together for a cup of
coffee, a beer, whatever, and just talk things over informally. Do not
wait until you get to contract time. But occasionally we have
situations that get to the extreme, and I do not think we should let
that extreme go to the point of having permanent striker replacements.
I think that puts things out of kilter. I do not think we should be in
a situation where we want to encourage it.
The President's Executive order does one thing and one thing only. It
says if we are going to buy supplies, we will not buy them from people
who have permanent striker replacements, or at least we have that
option. That is up to the Secretary of Labor.
My hope is that we will not adopt the Kassebaum amendment. My hope
is,
[[Page S3776]] frankly, that the President, if that should be part of
this bill, even though he needs this emergency supplemental
appropriation, would veto it and say give me a clean bill on what we
need in the Defense Department. I know that postpones things for the
Defense Department, and I know they would not be happy about it, but
the better answer is for us not to accept the Kassebaum amendment and
to move ahead and maintain this important balance between labor and
management that we need in this Nation.
Mr. President, if no one else seeks the floor, I question the
presence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak as
in morning business for no longer than 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator is recognized.
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