[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 48 (Wednesday, March 15, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3949-S3954]
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. DODD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank you. Those are procedural matters we 
just dealt with in order to clean up some business on the floor.
  Quickly, before my colleague from Wisconsin leaves the floor, let me 
join in the comments of my colleague from Massachusetts. I want to 
commend Senator Feingold for a very, very thoughtful set of remarks 
regarding the cloture motion on the Kassebaum amendment. It is an 
historical perspective that is not something we do with great frequency 
around here, but it is always nice to have a sense of history as to why 
we are in this particular debate and what has happened over the last 
number of decades that brought us to this particular debate when it 
comes to the issue of permanent replacements for strikers.
  I just think he has added immeasurably to the knowledge base of this 
discussion and debate, and I think if Members do read it, particularly 
those who may be unclear in their own minds about whether or not we are 
on the right track with insisting that this Executive order issued by 
the President be given a chance to proceed, they will be enriched as a 
result of reading his remarks. I commend him for them.
  Mr. President, as well, I commend my colleague from Massachusetts 
who, once again, is taking a very strong leadership position on a 
matter that many of us care very, very strongly about, and I rise, as 
well, today in opposition to the motion to invoke cloture on the 
Kassebaum amendment.
  Throughout much of the 20th century, economic growth broadly 
benefited Americans of all income levels. We grew together and an 
expanding economy meant better jobs for everyone.
  I will point out, Mr. President, in reading some history of the early 
part of World War II the other evening, I was shocked--maybe we should 
not be if we read a little more history--but shocked to discover that 
in 1940 in this country, which is not that long ago--there are many 
people working today who were at work in 1940 in this country--one-half 
of all the adult males in the United States in 1940 had an annual 
income of $1,000 a year; two-thirds of all working women outside the 
home had an annual income of $1,000 a year; one-third of all the homes 
in this country roughly had no indoor plumbing to 
 [[Page S3950]] speak of; almost 60 percent had no central heating. 
Only 1 in 20 in this country went beyond high school. In fact, only one 
in four actually had a high school diploma in 1940. And of the adult 75 
million people in this country at that time who were above the age of 
21, 2 in 5 only had eighth-grade educations.
  That is not 100 years ago. It is within the living memory, the 
working memory of many Americans. We have come a long way since the 
early days of the 1940's and the outbreak of World War II. We were 
successful over the years in generating and creating wealth; in raising 
the living standards because of efforts made to see to it that people 
could improve their educational opportunities, that they could improve 
working conditions; in improving the ability of people to earn wages 
and salaries that would make it possible for them to buy homes and 
educate their children like no other generation has been able to do in 
the past.
 We were reaching down to people who would have been stuck permanently 
in a status economically in this country with little or no hope of 
moving up the income ladder. I think this country has benefited 
tremendously because of those efforts. In fact, it was one of those 
efforts that will be the subject, I gather, later this year of a 
significant debate here on the minimum wage, which has raised, if you 
will, the tide that made it possible for the hopes of people who could 
not otherwise dream of doing better to actually do better. And many of 
the laws that we put in place to protect people on the job also 
occurred during those days.

  So there is much to be proud of as Americans over the success that we 
have made of our country in a generation and a half since the days of 
World War II and immediately thereafter. A typical family over these 
past number of decades could work hard and, year by year, build a 
better life, whether that meant buying a home or putting a child 
through college or taking a simple family vacation--things that were 
beyond the reach of an awful lot of people in this country not that 
many years ago.
  But since 1979, Mr. President, the situation has changed 
dramatically, and I do not think most people are aware of this, except 
those who may be caught in it themselves and wonder what has happened. 
Thanks to rapid technological change, global competition and other 
political and economic factors, during this period from 1979 forward, 
the American engine of economic growth has continued almost unabated. 
In fact, during the last 15 years, real household income in the United 
States grew by $767 billion.
  Let me repeat that. In the last 15 years in this country, real 
household income has grown by $767 billion--an incredible amount of 
growth. But, unlike the past, those gains have not been broadly shared. 
I am not engaging here in some sort of hypotheses or fiction. These are 
facts. Ninety-seven percent of our real income growth--that $767 
billion--has gone to the top one-fifth of households incomewise in the 
country. The top 20 percent of households saw their real family incomes 
climb by 18 percent during the last 15 years while people in the middle 
20 percent economically in this country actually suffered a 3-percent 
decline in that income growth. And the poorest families, the poorest 
one-fifth in this country, who previously had been the principal 
beneficiaries of economic growth in the decades of the 1940's, the 
1950's, the 1960's, and up through the 1970's, saw between 1979 and 
1993 their incomes decline by a staggering 17 percent.
  So the top one-fifth has gone up 18 percent, the middle 20 percent 
has actually declined by 3 percent, and the bottom 20 percent, those 
working families out there struggling to make ends meet, to hold their 
families together, have seen their incomes decline by 17 percent in 
that same period.
  So here we have this staggering increase in growth overall, and yet 
we can begin to appreciate, with that $767 billion of income growth, 
which part of our economy, what percentage of those in the economy have 
actually seen their lifestyles benefited the most.
  The falling living standards of the vast majority of Americans 
should, I think, be of grave concern to all of us regardless of party 
or political ideology or persuasion. This country has historically done 
better when those at the lower income levels have had the chance to 
grow and become stronger, to be better consumers. We all benefit as a 
result of that.
  I believe the President and many of us here are committed to doing 
something about raising those standards of living. The President wants 
to raise incomes for ordinary Americans. I mentioned already the debate 
that will ensue on the minimum wage law in this country in the coming 
days. Unfortunately, there are those who seem to be trying to block 
every effort to make a difference in this area. The minimum wage, we 
have already heard people say, they will filibuster. The last 
President, to his great credit, who raised the minimum wage was George 
Bush. It was a bipartisan effort. And here we are talking about 45 
cents a year for 2 years, 90 cents, to a little over $5 an hour.
  So the minimum wage says you make $8,500 a year in America. That is 
almost $4,000 less than the poverty level in this country for a family 
of three. How are we ever going to induce people on welfare to go to 
work when you start out with a minimum wage level that leaves you 
$4,000 less than the poverty level in this country?
  If we are going to reward work, we are going to have do a bit better, 
it seems to me, than suggesting we cannot increase the minimum wage.
  Summer job programs. Here we are talking about 600,000 summer jobs 
for kids in our inner cities. The Presiding Officer comes from 
Michigan. In the city of Detroit, and my city of Hartford, we have a 
lot of inner-city children who can get into a lot of trouble in the 
summer. Here is a chance--we have seen the benefit of it--to put these 
young people to work, and yet we are being told that the summer job 
program should be eliminated. We are also hearing no to job training, 
no to education, no to child care.
  Again, I come back to the issue of trying to get people off welfare 
and reward work. Two-thirds of all families on welfare have at least 
one child of preschool age today. How are we going to convince those 
people to get off public assistance if we do not have an adequate child 
care system in this country? But our colleagues say no to that as well.
  So you begin to see a pattern here that develops. It is no to 
everything except one thing. And that is that we are now going to 
provide, apparently, a significant tax break to that top 20 percent who 
are earning incomes in excess of $100,000 or more a year. The top 1 
percent will get the kind of tax break that is being advocated in areas 
like capital gains.
  I am not making this up. Before too long, the House of 
Representatives will try to cut $17 billion out of hot lunch programs, 
nutrition programs, drug free schools, higher education, a long list--
$17 billion. Where did it go? Was it for deficit reduction? Oh, no. It 
was for the tax cuts, despite all of the great debate and a lot of heat 
around here about deficit reduction. We had an extensive debate about 
deficit reduction. But where does the first $17 billion in spending 
cuts go? It goes for a tax cut for those people who, as I said already, 
did the best in the last 15 years economically in the country.
  In short, Mr. President, the message from the other side seems to be 
to working Americans: Tough luck; you are on your own.
  And by blocking this Executive order on permanent replacement 
workers, the Kassebaum amendment would tell ordinary Americans that 
after years of losing ground on pay and benefits, they could lose their 
jobs, as well, solely for exercising their fundamental right to strike.
  Let me talk about this point, because this is a serious one, and it 
goes to the sense of balance we should have in labor relations. 
Management has the power of salaries and wages which it offers to 
people. Labor has their work. That is what they have.
  That is the balance here. And we have struck this balance 
historically between management and labor where labor, working people, 
say I will withhold my labor if we cannot strike an agreement on 
working conditions, wages, salaries. Management says we will not pay if 
we cannot strike a bargain.
  So both sides have had some leverage, that is, working people say 
they 
 [[Page S3951]] will not work; they will go on strike. Management says 
we will not pay you.
  And that has been the tension that has kept the process moving 
forward. Both sides have something to withhold.
  What has happened lately is that management has said, look, we are 
going to take away the one thing working people have, that is, the 
right to strike, because we are going to hire permanent replacements. 
You go out on strike; we hire permanent replacements to fill your job.
  The equation gets destroyed, in effect. If working people are told 
that withholding their labor no longer can be a factor or used as 
leverage, then how do you get to collective bargaining? How do you 
achieve the balance that has brought us the kind of working conditions 
and improvement in our plant floors that we have seen over the years?
  What we are suggesting here is that, at least in the area of Federal 
contracts for employers who engage in this practice--that is to 
permanently replace people who are out on strike--we are saying if you 
are that kind of employer and you have Federal contracts, we are going 
to stop giving you contracts because we do not think what you are doing 
is right. It is not right for you to say to your striking employees, we 
are sorry, but we are going to hire permanent people to take your jobs.
  I do not know anybody who thinks that is fair. It is one thing to 
say, look, you go out on strike, you do not get paid. You do not get 
work.
  Here is a pressure then on working people and labor to come to that 
table. Obviously, if the management is not producing their widgets, 
their products, then there is pressure on management to get back to the 
table. But if you take away the major leverage point that working 
people have, that is, what they produce with their hands or otherwise, 
then you destroy that equation.
  All we are trying to do here is to see to it that with those who get 
Federal contracts, that equation not be destroyed. We might even give 
it a chance to see what it does. It might improve the situation out 
there so we would not be asked all the time to get involved in strikes 
and negotiations where the Federal Government gets drawn into these 
processes.
  So, Mr. President, I hope that we might even give this a chance, this 
Executive order that has been issued by the President--to his credit, I 
would add--for dealing with the issue of permanently replaced striking 
workers, and see how it goes for awhile instead of denying this 
experiment, because we are obviously not going to pass a bill that 
would ban it all across the board.
  The President has exercised his Executive powers, which he has the 
right to do. Why not wait a few years and see how this works instead of 
trying to destroy this idea and attempt to test whether or not the 
situation might improve?
  So, again, I commend our colleague from Massachusetts for taking a 
leadership role on this. I hope our colleagues who have been supporting 
the effort to not invoke cloture will continue to do so, or that those 
who have been trying to invoke cloture would let us move on to other 
matters because many of us here feel very, very strongly about this. I 
think it would be a tragic day, indeed, to not give this a chance to 
work.
  It has been tough enough on working people over the last 15 years, 
watching their wages and salaries remain stagnant or decline, as I have 
already pointed out. Now they have their jobs in jeopardy by hiring 
permanent replacements when they exercise their right--this is a right 
we are talking about--the right to strike. It is a right. It is not a 
privilege; it is a right. When you come in and hire permanent 
replacements and destroy people's ability to exercise their rights, it 
is a setback for all of us.
  So I hope we will be able to continue to muster the votes necessary 
or, better yet, I hope we'll drop this amendment. Let the President's 
Executive order go into place. Let us see what happens over the next 
few years. We will come back and revisit this issue--we can at any 
time--and let us move on to the other important matters that are before 
us.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DODD. I will be glad to yield to my colleague.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank my friend and colleague from Connecticut for 
really a splendid presentation. I hope our colleagues will pay 
particular attention to the comments of the Senator from Connecticut as 
they relate to how this proposal really impacts children. The Senator 
from Connecticut has been the chairman of the Children's Caucus and has 
really been the leader in this body, now and in the past, for the day 
care programs that we have as well as for family and medical leave and 
other very important programs.
  One of the points we have been emphasizing over the course of this 
debate are the different concerns of the two parties. The Senate has 
just debated the unfunded mandates and the balanced budget, and the 
first issue we debate is an Executive order which makes more sure the 
economic security of working families. When the President issues an 
Executive order, the ink is not even dry on it when an amendment is put 
in which is going to diminish the economic interests and power of 
working families.
  When we talk about the working families and the workers who are being 
permanently replaced, as the Senator knows, we are talking about people 
who are making $5, $6, $7, $8 an hour. Some maybe make $6 an hour and 
trying to get to that 7th dollar. To be a parent with two or three 
children making those kind of wages and then to be permanently replaced 
is a terrible thing.
  I know the Senator is concerned as he looks back over the period of 
the past years and sees what has happened to real family income over 
the period from 1980 to 1993 and he takes into account that total real 
family income includes the income of the many mothers who have entered 
the work force. What you see is that families with small children have 
not even stayed even but are falling behind. And then look at who gains 
under the Republican contract? Just take a look at the most obvious 
parts of that contract which the Ways and Means Committee took up 
yesterday--the capital gains tax and the elimination of the minimum tax 
for corporations. Who gains? Who are the individuals benefitting from 
these proposals? Again, large corporations and the wealthy are the 
block benefitting from these contract proposals.
  I ask whether the Senator is concerned not only about the impact on 
the workers who are being replaced but also on the impact on children. 
Because this is not the only proposal being made. There is a proposal 
to cut back on child care, cut back on the school nutrition programs, 
cut back on the WIC programs, cut back on lead paint poisoning to try 
to help parents who are trying to do something about lead paint 
poisoning and who are trying to stop the ingestion of lead paint by 
children. The Carnegie Commission report of several months ago talks 
about the importance of giving nutrition to children from 1 to 3 so 
they can develop and be able to develop cognitive skills, learning 
skills, so they can take an active part in learning--does the Senator 
believe this amendment will also impose a heavy burden on children in 
our country and that this is something that ought to be addressed as 
well?
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Massachusetts 
for his question. I think it is instructive to note the chart here as I 
am looking at it on my left. That points out what happened to incomes, 
real family incomes, between 1979 and 1993. I will come directly to the 
Senator's point regarding children right now.
  But I think it is worthwhile for people to know that the sense of 
frustration people feel in a lot of working families in this country, 
wondering what is happening to them, is entirely justified. It is 
worthwhile to note in the economy of the Nation, household income grew 
at an incredible rate, $767 billion of family household income growth 
in that 15-year period. There was a staggering amount of growth. But 97 
percent of that growth in the last 15 years grew in the top 20 percent 
of income earners in the United States.
  I was trying to point out earlier that in the decades of the 1940's, 
1950's, 1960's and 1970's, the distribution of income growth was fairly 
level. That is, 
 [[Page S3952]] all income groups did roughly the same and the country 
got stronger as a result of it. It has only been in this last 15 years 
that we have found unprecedented growth of our country and yet the 
growth has been pretty much locked in to the top 20 percent--97 percent 
of the $767 billion has been concentrated in the top 20 percent.
  The middle 20 percent actually saw their household incomes decline by 
3 percent in the midst of this unprecedented growth. That middle 20 
percent found themselves losing ground.
  And the lower 20 percent saw their household incomes decline by 17 or 
18 percent, a tremendous drop, in the midst of great growth.
  Now we are confronted with a situation where people lose their jobs. 
How does it affect children? I asked, back this fall, for the General 
Accounting Office to give me an update of how many children of working 
families are covered by health insurance, a subject very near and dear 
to the heart of the Senator from Massachusetts. We got the numbers back 
yesterday. Let me just share some numbers with my colleague.
  Mr. President, 89 percent of uninsured children have at least one 
working parent, and 61 percent have a parent working full time for a 
full year. So even in these working families, the basic necessity of 
health insurance for these young children is being lost. Add to that 
the economic difficulty of a job lost to these children because their 
parents have exercised a right to strike, then you begin to see that 
the problem becomes even greater.
  It is tough enough as it is right now for these kids. My Lord, you 
talk about a child starting out life without having basic health care, 
what are the implications to that child learning and being a productive 
citizen in their adulthood? Again, I am not stating anything that most 
of our colleagues are unaware of here. The data and information are 
overwhelming. A child that does not begin life with the proper 
nutrition and immunizations does not learn right. The child that does 
not learn right from the beginning drops out of school, does not get 
the kind of job he or she needs. The problem explodes down the road.
  When you are talking about the economy here and how it affects 
children, the Senator from Massachusetts is absolutely proper and right 
to raise the issue.
  We talked about adults and their jobs. But it is these kids who are 
the ones who pay an awful price. And it is that bottom 20 percent who 
really do not get a golden parachute. You lose your job on a factory 
floor; you may get a month or 6 weeks, if you are lucky, of paycheck. 
After that it is over with. We all know what happens to you if you are 
top management and you lose your job in this country. You get taken 
care of for life and two or three generations do pretty well in your 
family because they have worked out the deal. God help you if you are a 
working person out there every day trying to hold body and soul 
together and raise a family and do so on your own and not be dependent 
upon anybody else. You lose that job and the bottom falls out from 
under you. There is no golden parachute for you whatsoever.
  So we are talking about here a basic right to protect your family and 
to negotiate through the normal processes of wages and benefits. When 
you strip that away, then you make the situation of these families that 
much more difficult for them to cope with.
  I thank my colleague.
  Mr. KENNEDY. This is really a point that I think needs underlining. 
There are those who are supporting this amendment that say, ``Look, I 
do not know why there is a discussion about what is happening to 
working families. All we are talking about is a narrow, little 
Executive order.''
  Would the Senator not agree with me that those that are in lockstep 
in support of that proposal would have more credibility if they were 
out here on the floor of the U.S. Senate today saying we will join you 
in passing a resolution to increase the minimum wage? For example, 
wouldn't this proposal have more credibility if its proponents also 
supported the same increase in the minimum wage that was signed by a 
Republican President in 1990 of 45 cents? That 45-cent increase in 
minimum wage has lost its purchasing power. When we had Democratic 
Congresses and a Republican President, we were able to get together and 
pass that. Now we have a Republican Congress and a Democratic President 
who wants to do that. If they were out here saying we are really for 
those working families, we want to reward them, we are here to help 
minimum wage families, we are out here to help children and the sons 
and daughters of working families go on to school, but we are bothered 
by this Executive order, I daresay there might be a greater sense of 
belief on our part that this is not just a further attempt to diminish 
the real purchasing power of working families.
  I want to mention one thing to the Senator. We had a forum last 
Friday of those who are concerned about the increase in the minimum 
wage. And we had a young couple, David Dow and his wife. Both of them 
effectively make the minimum wage. Both of them work hard. They want to 
go to school. They have a child. And as is typical, both have to go out 
and work, effectively at minimum wage. Mr. Dow has glasses. His young 
daughter used to get his glasses in the early morning when he woke up 
for his job and give them to him. One morning he woke up and he said, 
``Where are my glasses?'' And she walked in and pointed into the 
toilet. She had dropped them down there. It would be humorous if it 
were not so sad and tragic. He has now been without those glasses for 3 
months putting aside $5, $6, $7 in order to try to build a kitty to be 
able to purchase some replacement glasses.
  The point is that this family believes that it is not only important 
to work and had a desire to work to provide for themselves and their 
wonderful young daughter, but the fact of the matter is both of them 
are working two jobs. They have 45 minutes every Saturday and 30 
minutes on Sunday to spend time with that child; an hour and a half. 
What Member of the Senate would tolerate that policy? An hour and a 
half to spend with a child, and how do we expect that child to develop? 
Let alone the kinds of additional pressures these parents have--the 
toys that are not bought, the fact that the child cannot go to visit 
another child for her birthday party because she will not be able to 
bring a toy. All of these other issues aside, how can the time spent 
between a parent and a child, be denied? These are not people, as the 
Senator pointed out, that are not playing by the rules. These are 
people that want to work, honor work, have a pride in work, want to go 
to school, are trying to go to school. This one person is paying back 
$80 a month with the money he makes in the minimum wage to pay for his 
school loan because he wants to keep ahead so he can go back to school. 
But he just wonders when that tide is going to take over, when it is 
going to push him under.
  That is what we are talking about in terms of the Senator from 
Connecticut, the Senator from Wisconsin, and others who talked about 
this measure and where we are as an institution and what is happening 
to people. That is what this measure is about.
  I was interested in whether the Senator, as someone who has spent 
time working with children, wonders if this is not something more than 
an economic issue, not something more than just a bottom line of 
dollars and cents. That is important, but I am always impressed by the 
amount of time we spend on trying to understand the cost of so many 
things and the value of so little around this institution. Aren't we 
talking about providing these people who have become parents through a 
wonderful act of God and who have a wonderful opportunity as parents to 
love and adore their children, with a real opportunity to spend time 
with their children? Don't we have some responsibility to make sure 
that we are going to be attendant to their needs to care for their 
children?
  Mr. DODD. I will conclude, Mr. President, by saying I think the 
Senator put it well by saying some people talk about the price of 
everything and the value of nothing. We can argue the numbers. Maybe we 
should not always talk numbers because I guess people's eyes glaze over 
if you start talking about the size of the economy, the percentages of 
groups of people that lose or gain in all of this. But it is not any 
great leap of knowledge to know what 
 [[Page S3953]] happens when you lose your job or are gripped by the 
fear of losing your job.
  Most people in this country do not wake up in the morning wondering 
whether or not they are a Democrat or a Republican or conservative or 
liberal or who is winning or losing in Washington. Many families get up 
in the morning and there is a knot in their stomach because they do not 
know whether or not at the end of that day that job is going to be 
there. If that job is not there, how do you keep up the rent payments 
or the mortgage? How do you take care of those kids and their 
educational opportunities? If you have a parent that is living with you 
or down the street, you worry about what will happen if they get sick. 
How do you make the choice between the child and your parent who may 
need the money or the mortgage on the house or the car payment? That is 
what most people think about every day. That is what they think about.
  They just like to know that occasionally somebody stands up for them 
because they do not have political action committees. They are not 
heavyweights who are in Washington. But they would like to think that 
somebody might stand up and say, ``If I fight for a better wage or 
fight for a better salary or fight for better working conditions so 
that my family might do a bit better''--somebody might stand up and 
say, ``I have a right to do that.'' They look around and they see that 
people do not seem to care about it at all. When they lose everything 
and they look in those children's eyes at night and wonder how they are 
going to put food on the table or provide for them down the road with 
their educational desires knowing full well how important it is, what 
is the price of that? I cannot tell you--$10, $20, $1,000, $10,000? 
That really is not the issue so much. It is about dreaming. It is about 
aspirations. It is about hope. That is what most people do. They dream 
for their families. They try to plan. They save. They think about how 
they might make it possible for their kids to do better than they have 
done.
  So what we talk about with this issue here in many ways is pulling 
the rug out from under people and pulling the rug out from under these 
families who really make up the glue that holds this society together. 
These are the people who vote. These are the people who fight the wars. 
These are the people who pay the taxes. This is the working crowd in 
America. They believe in this country. It is a pretty depressing sight 
to see that when their right to fight for themselves and to fight for 
their concerns or wages or salaries, that that basic right is going to 
be denied them; that someone can be hired permanently to replace them 
if, God forbid, they stand up to defend themselves and their families 
and their children. That is basically what this is about. You do not 
have that right any longer. You can stand up and fight but you can get 
thrown out of a job tomorrow. You are gone, and ``We will hire somebody 
else. Let me warn you. When we hire you as a new person, you had better 
not try it either. God forbid if you try to defend your family. We will 
do the same thing to you that we did to that person.''
  That is what this is about. It is that simple: Should people have the 
right to be able to protect themselves and protect their families? They 
are not asking the Government to come in and wage the battle for them. 
Good management-labor negotiations have produced fairness in this 
country. What the Senator from Massachusetts is talking about is how 
does it affect these children? I do not know, I suppose we can search 
out the actuaries and others to come up with the numbers.
  But I know that it gets impossible for those parents to provide for 
those children, to give them much hope when their basic rights to 
defend themselves and their rights in the workplace are gone. I hope my 
colleagues will think long and hard about this. This issue may go away. 
Maybe the votes will be there to defeat us, and they think it will 
disappear. It is not going to go away. It is going to come back over 
and over again because peoples' rights ought not to be denied when they 
are trying to protect themselves.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, I am happy to.
  Mr. BIDEN. I did not come over to speak to this issue, but listening 
to my colleagues, with whom I agree with on this issue, I was struck by 
how much things have changed since I arrived here in the Senate in 
1973. Back in 1973, which is not that long ago--I guess my kids think 
it is 100 years ago, but it is not that long ago. It is not like 
listening to my Grandfather Finnegan telling me about strikes in the 
1920's and that kind of thing. It was the beginning, looking back on 
it, of sort of the end, if not the demise, of the balancing power of 
American organized labor in the country, where they were able to be 
major players in determining wages, hours, working conditions, their 
input on the economy, and which direction the economy could go.
  Over the last 23 years, something interesting has happened. If this 
debate were taking place in 1973, you would have some of our Republican 
colleagues standing up--and maybe even a few Democrats standing up--and 
saying, you know, the problem is that organized labor has become too 
powerful; organized labor is fat; organized labor is resting on its 
laurels; organized labor is not productive, and all of the list of 
horribles we used to hear. I find it kind of interesting in this debate 
that nobody who opposes our position--which is that you should not be 
able to replace people who are legitimately striking under the law--to 
maintain, not to gain but maintain, where they are. Nobody is making 
the argument we used to hear about how powerful and bullying the 
American labor movement is. Nobody is even making the argument that we 
used to always hear about how this is so unfair to business. What 
happened to them?
  When I attend chamber of commerce dinners in my home State--a 
corporate State, and I suspect the same is true in Massachusetts and 
Connecticut--I do not hear businessmen complaining about organized 
labor; because, in effect, organized labor has already given at the 
office, already gotten the living devil kicked out of them. Without 
making a judgment that I think is unfair, the point is that this is 
like beating up on a kid now. Organized labor now frequently gets put 
in the position where, because of horrible management practices over 
recent decades, they are told that, by the way, if you do not make the 
following concessions, we are going to shut down. We are just going to 
close the company.
  So organized labor is scared to death; the workers are scared to 
death. And they give much more than management gives in terms of 
concessions to keep a lot of these outfits open and running. And now 
they have gotten to the point where what happens--and it rarely 
happens--is that when they are truly being abused and when there is no 
serious good faith collective bargaining going on, they decide they 
have nothing left to do but go out on strike. And now some in American 
business are saying, we are about to strip you of the last bit of 
leverage you have. If you go out on strike, we are going to replace 
you. And thus union members are deterred because of what the Senator 
from Connecticut said: Fear.
  People are scared to death. They are scared to death to exercise what 
they believe to be even their legitimate rights. Even when they are 
being maltreated, they do not go on strike because they are afraid of 
the alternative because of the nature of the economy, the downsizing of 
American corporations, the way things are; the whole world is turning 
upside down. I find it interesting that on this issue, which you would 
think would be so basic, this is not even taking place in an 
environment where anybody is legitimately making the argument that 
these people who are going on strike are doing it because they are 
greedy and trying to take over a company, or because they are trying to 
put somebody under. You do not even hear that argument. When these 
people go on strike--I think this is an interesting point people should 
remember--it is desperation. It is not deciding whether they want to go 
on strike to get a better wage to be able to have a second car and a 
trailer and a vacation at the beach. That is the argument we heard in 
the 1960s and 1970s. They are going on strike now because they say, 
hey, wait a minute, I have given at the office; I have been giving at 
the office for the last 15 years. I have already had my standard of 
living lowered and now you are telling me 
 [[Page S3954]] again that I cannot even maintain where I am. I do not 
think it is fair, you are not treating me fairly, and I am going on 
strike, which I am allowed to do under the law.
  It amazes me why we are even having this fight. When is the last time 
any of the people in this Chamber picked up a paper and read about how 
unions and organized labor have taken such horrible advantage of 
people? All they have done for the last 10 to 12 years is given 
concessions and increased their productivity. And now, we have reached 
the point that--to steal a phrase from Mr. Stockman, who commented on 
the Reagan tax policy--these folks are like pigs in a trough now. They 
not only want them to continue to give at the office, but they want to 
take away the last thing they have under the law. I, quite frankly, did 
not ever think this would be a debate we would be having on the floor 
of the U.S. Senate.
  Again, look at all the strikes that are taking place nationwide. Look 
at the effects of the strikes taking place nationwide. Look at what is 
being requested by those strikes that are taking place nationwide. I 
will lay you 8 to 5 that 85 percent of the people would say what is 
being asked is reasonable. They may or may not agree, but it is 
reasonable.
  No one is even making the claims anymore, I say to my friend from 
Massachusetts, that this is some muscle-bound organized labor, who is 
just out there ripping off everyone and intimidating companies. This is 
just people who are just trying to be in a position where they can--to 
use the expression of my friend from Massachusetts--``keep their heads 
above the water.'' And now they are being told they do not even have a 
right. What prompted me to say all this was the word used by the 
Senator from Connecticut: Fear. Can you imagine the fear and 
intimidation of an individual who, in today's circumstances, thinking 
that after roughly 60 years of practice under the NLRB, they are going 
to be put in the position if they even stand up and try to stop further 
erosion, that the alternative for them in an environment where there 
are no other jobs is that they lose their job permanently? That is 
simply not fair.
  Our former colleague from California, the present Governor of 
California, ran an ad I remember seeing. He was talking about 
immigration, but I will take the words he used and apply it here, 
because I disagreed with his view on immigration. He said something 
like this: Some people are playing by the rules. They are doing it the 
American way. Other people are not playing by the rules and they are 
being rewarded for it. That is not the American way.
  Striker replacement in circumstances where there is no evidence that 
there has been a violation of the labor laws is not the American way.
  It is a reflection of greed, the greed and avarice of those who want 
to make a fundamental change that working women and men are put into 
their proper place, from their perspective. I think it is, quite 
frankly, outrageous.
  The Senator said, ``Who is going to stand up and fight for them?'' 
Well, I know of no two people who have been better champions of their 
cause in making sure they are never left unspoken for than the Senator 
from Massachusetts and the Senator from Connecticut, and I compliment 
them.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware for his 
comments and for his historical perspective. I think the Senator has, 
in his brief but I think pointed comments, reflected what this issue 
and what this battle is really all about. In the last day or so, as we 
focused on it, there have been those who say, We do not understand why 
we are talking about these broader themes of equity, about fear, about 
the real America. This is really just an Executive order.
  The Senator has stated very clearly and effectively what really is at 
issue on the floor of the U.S. Senate and why this battle is so 
important. I thank the Senator for his statement and for his excellent 
support for working families, which has been a trademark of his career 
in the Senate.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to go 
into morning business for the purposes of discussing an issue totally 
unrelated to this, the introduction of a bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Craig). Is there objection? Without 
objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank you.
  (The remarks of Mr. Biden pertaining to the introduction of S. 564 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')


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