[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 46 (Monday, March 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3839-S3840]
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.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I want to commend the distinguished 
Senator from Massachusetts for his eloquent and passionate leadership 
on this issue. Let me also commend many of my other colleagues: the 
Senator from Iowa, the Senator from Minnesota, the Senator from 
Illinois, and a number of others who have participated over the last 
several days in this debate.
  No one should misunderstand what this debate is all about. Obviously, 
if Senators have heard any of the speeches made by the colleagues whom 
I have just mentioned, there can be no misunderstanding. Quite simply, 
it is about fairness. That is the issue.
  It is fairness for American working families, in a very important set 
of circumstances: the workplace. It is fairness in reaffirming their 
right to strike, fairness in restoring a fundamental balance between 
workers and management, and fairness in halting the practice of 
requiring striking workers to pay taxes for salaries of workers who 
replace them.
  That is really what this issue is all about. The President 
understands that. He understands he is on solid ground in issuing the 
Executive order as he did a couple of weeks ago. The order is quite 
simple. It says to do business for more than $100,000 with the Federal 
Government, you cannot hire replacement workers in the case of a 
strike. That is all it says. A person simply cannot do what the law of 
the last 60 years has said could not be done.
  This President is doing exactly what President Bush did in 1992. 
President Bush required unionized contractors to notify employees of 
their right to refuse to pay union dues. He was not challenged by 
Republicans when he issued that particular Executive order. President 
Clinton is doing also what President Carter did in 1978, when he issued 
an Executive order that directly affected the lives and livelihood of 
thousands of working families by limiting what Federal contractors 
could agree to in collective bargaining.
  In fact, this President is doing exactly what President Roosevelt, 
President Truman, Presidents Nixon, Johnson, Carter, and Bush have all 
done in the past. In this case, he has shown Presidential leadership in 
protecting the rights and the spirit of the law for all working 
families.
  The President is well within his rights, in my view, for at least 
three good reasons. First, as I indicated, there is ample precedent in 
virtually every past administration for the past 60 years. Second, he 
is supported by the American people. More than 60 percent of the 
American people, according to recent polls, have shown that they oppose 
the use of permanent replacement workers in the event of a lawful 
strike.
  The American people understand the question of fairness. They 
appreciate the need for worker-management balance. The American people 
support actions and laws to guarantee that balance, which is really 
what the Executive order was designed to do.
  And third, this action taken by the President is consistent with the 
National Labor Relations Act itself, signed into law, as I said, by 
President Roosevelt about 60 years ago. In fact, this year, we will 
celebrate the 60th anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act, an 
act that fundamentally appreciates the balance in the workplace, that 
understands the need for the right to strike, that underscores the 
importance of providing opportunities for workers and management to 
work out their differences.
  That was the law that recognized the need for American workers to 
form organizations to bring the balance back into the workplace. It has 
been a balance that, frankly, has worked well for 45 years, a balance 
that has brought about better wages, a balance that has brought about 
better working conditions, better retirement security, better 
productivity.
  But it is a balance that was destroyed by the actions taken by 
President Reagan during the PATCO strike of 1981, when the President of 
the United States hired permanent replacement workers. His action sent 
a green light to every business in the country. Virtually all of the 
work of 45 years under the National Labor Relations Act was lost with 
that action, and for 15 years now, Democrats in Congress, and others, 
have attempted to pass the Workplace Fairness Act to restore the 
balance that we had for those 45 years, an act which very simply puts 
into law what we believe was there all along: a prohibition of the 
hiring of permanent replacement workers during a strike; a restoration 
of the balance that we had in labor-management relations up until 1981.
  It is important to note that a majority of Congress has supported the 
Workplace Fairness Act. There have been more than 50 votes for it on 
those occasions when the legislation was brought before this body, and 
were it not for a minority that kept it from being passed, it would, in 
fact, be law.
  So whether it is law or whether it is an Executive order, this 
clarification is long overdue and extremely important to all working 
families. The right to organize, the right to bargain collectively is 
essential to American workers. As history has shown, the right to 
strike is the right to be taken seriously. The right to strike is the 
only leverage workers have when bargaining with management.
  [[Page S3840]] As economically painful as it may be for workers and 
their families, resorting to a strike is sometimes the only way to 
resolve a labor dispute. But when employers are free to replace 
striking workers, that leverage disappears and the imbalance destroys 
any hope of meaningful conflict resolution.
  We have seen it in the precipitous drop in the number of strikes over 
the past 20 years. There are nearly half the strikes in the early 
1990's that there were in the 1970's, and the number of union members 
has also declined.
  The attack on this Executive order is part of a well-orchestrated 
effort to dramatically reduce the Federal role in workers' security. 
This effort ranges from calls for the elimination of the Federal 
minimum wage law, to proposals to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, to 
efforts to minimize the regulation of workplace safety. These efforts 
are orchestrated to continue the rollback of the progress we have made 
for decades under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Act and 
other important labor legislation. As the rollback continues, while 
unions are threatened, the American worker and working families have 
seen their incomes and the level of job benefits plummet. In constant 
dollars, wages have now declined by more than 10 percent in 10 years. 
Wages have actually gone down by more than a dollar an hour since the 
1970's. Moreover, far fewer workers have health insurance benefits or 
retirement benefits than they did back then.
  Without the right to strike, workers continually lose the right to 
negotiate. Without the right to negotiate, they lose the right to 
benefits, benefits on which they and their families depend.
  By taking this action, the President is simply saying, ``If you're 
going to bid for Federal tax dollars on a Federal contract, all we ask 
is that you live up to the intent of the National Labor Relations Act. 
If there is a strike, we want you, the company, to resolve it in a 
responsible way. We want you to renounce the practice of hiring 
permanent replacements.''
  Working families are counting on us to support the President. This is 
a very important vote for them and for the future of labor law in this 
country. A vote against cloture is a vote for working Americans at 
their time of greatest need. It should also be a clear sign of our 
desire to reverse the long downward slope of economic security for all 
working families. There is much which must be done, including the 
passage of meaningful health reform during this Congress. Hopefully, we 
can do that and many other things to restore the kind of security and 
confidence that working families must have if they are to look to the 
future with any more optimism than they can right now.
  But this is the place to begin, on this vote, on this important 
issue, to send the kind of clear message: that we understand the 
importance of balance, that we understand the importance of fostering 
meaningful negotiations between workers and their employers, that we 
understand the right to strike, that we understand the importance of a 
law that has now been on the books for 60 years, and that we restore 
the kind of equality in the workplace that workers now say is even more 
important than it was back in 1935.
  So, Mr. President, I hope that we can defeat this cloture motion and 
send the kind of message that I know Republicans and Democrats want to 
be able to send to working families. And that is: we appreciate your 
plight, we appreciate your need for security, we appreciate your need 
for more confidence in the future than you have right now.
  I hope that all Senators will understand that message and support us 
in our effort to defeat cloture on Wednesday morning.
  With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Craig). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Bumpers pertaining to the introduction of S. 545 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

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