[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 8, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4813-S4832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WHITE HOUSE TRAVEL OFFICE LEGISLATION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
resume consideration of H.R. 2937 which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 2937) for the reimbursement of attorney fees
and costs incurred by former
[[Page S4814]]
employees of the White House Travel Office with respect to
the termination of their employment in that office on May 19,
1993.
The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
Pending:
Dole amendment No. 3952, in the nature of a substitute.
Dole amendment No. 3953 (to amendment No. 3952), to provide
for an effective date for the settlement of certain claims
against the United States.
Dole amendment No. 3954 (to amendment No. 3953), to provide
for an effective date for the settlement of certain claims
against the United States.
Dole motion to refer the bill to the Committee on the
Judiciary with instructions to report back forthwith.
Dole amendment No. 3955 (to the instructions to the motion
to refer), to provide for an effective date for the
settlement of certain claims against the United States.
Dole amendment No. 3956 (to amendment No. 3955), to provide
for an effective date for the settlement of certain claims
against the United States.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 30
minutes of debate to be equally divided.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished
Senator from Minnesota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I wish to address the Senate as in morning
business for the next 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
Mr. GRAMS. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Grams pertaining to the introduction of
legislation are located in today's Record under ``Statements on
Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. GRAMS. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself the leader's time. How
much time is there of the minority leader's time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It would take unanimous consent to yield
leader's time, to take 10 minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have been informed by the leader that
he is willing to let me have the leader's time prior to vote on the
cloture.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may have that.
The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KENNEDY. How much time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will now have 11 minutes
remaining.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
Over the period of the last 24 hours, there have been a series of
different proposals for Senate action that I hope will eventually be
resolved. One deals with the minimum wage, which we have tried to raise
at different times over the period of the last year and a half and have
been denied the opportunity for a vote up or down.
I understand we will have a chance to vote on, hopefully, the gas
tax. There are other measures on education that I had hoped we could
have included as well. But I want to speak right now on another issue
which had been talked about earlier today and certainly yesterday, and
that is the Anti-Workplace Democracy Act, otherwise known as the TEAM
Act.
We have really not had the opportunity for much debate and discussion
on that measure, and I will just take a few moments now to raise some
of the very important questions that I think this legislation
effectively raises. That is, whether this legislation is really what it
is suggested to be, and that is just legislation to permit cooperation
between employers and employees in order to deal with a lot of the
issues that might be in the workplace, and, as we have seen, as I
stated yesterday, the type of cooperation which has been talked about
here on the floor as being the reasons for that cooperation is already
taking place. It has been included and recognized in the findings of
the bill itself and has also been referenced in the report itself where
cooperation is taking place between management and workers.
There are only three areas where that kind of cooperation is not on
the table and which would be altered and changed by the TEAM Act, and
that is with regard to wages and working conditions. That has been
recognized to be a position since the time of the 1930's to be issues
reserved to representatives of employees. Effectively, that is the rock
upon which workers are able to negotiate their working conditions and
also their wages, and the matters that will affect their take-home pay
and what will be available to them to protect their interests and their
families.
So the idea that this is just legislation that is going to move us
into the next century and increase America's capacity to compete is a
false representation.
It is interesting to me that Republicans and Democrats alike stood so
strong with Solidarity and Lech Walesa. Why did they stand with Lech
Walesa? Why did they stand with Solidarity? There were unions in
Poland. They were government/employer-controlled unions. There was not
union democracy. I can remember hearing the clear, eloquent statements
by then-Republican George Bush that said, ``We support democracy, and
we support real workers' rights in Poland, and we support Solidarity.''
Why did they support Solidarity? Because Solidarity represented
workers. The TEAM Act effectively is going to be company-run union
shops or company-run management teams. Does anybody in this body think
that if they establish that an employer picks representatives of
workers, pays their check, that those particular workers are going to
buck the management that put them on the team? Of course, they will
not. That is as old as the company-run unions that we had in the
1930's. That was the issue when this body debated the National Labor
Relations Act in the 1930's and implemented that particular
legislation.
That is what the issue is, plain and simple: Are we going to say that
company CEO's and management are going to be able to dictate to the
workers in this country exactly what their wages are going to be, or
are we going to let employees represent their interests and go ahead
and bargain with the employers as to what those wages and working
conditions are going to be? It is just that simple.
The TEAM Act is effectively company-run unions. That is effectively
what it is. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It is so interesting to me,
Mr. President, as someone who has followed the whole debate about
company-run unions and antidemocracy representation in the workplace,
where these organizations were when they had the Dunlop commission only
a few years ago that was trying to look over the relationship between
CEO's and companies and also the employees. The same groups that are
supporting this legislation testified in that committee that they did
not think there ought to be a change in the labor laws. The only thing
that changed was the 1994 election and the Republicans gaining control
in the House and the Senate. If you look over what presentations were
made before the Dunlop commission, you would say they feel that the
relationship between employer and employees is fine with them.
So, Mr. President, we ought to understand exactly what this is going
to be. It is going to be the government-run kind of unions in a
different way.
All of us fought for and wanted to see the restoration of democracy
in Eastern Europe. Most of all, the Eastern European countries had
government-run unions, effectively employer-run unions. And here in the
United States, we were giving help and assistance to workers for worker
democracy. Now we are saying on the floor of the U.S. Senate, ``Well,
we want the TEAM Act,'' and the TEAM Act effectively is going to
eliminate the workers' rights in this country. No ifs, ands, or buts
about it.
I hear on the floor of the U.S. Senate the central challenge that we
are facing as we move to the end of this century is to give life to the
65 or 70 percent of Americans who are being left out and left behind.
I hear a great deal about income security, about job security being
the issues that this country ought to address. I tell you something,
you might as well write off those speeches if we are going to go ahead
and pass the TEAM Act. Write them off. What you see is continued
exploitation.
You talk about the battle for the increase in the minimum wage. Write
[[Page S4815]]
that off, because you will give such power to the employers in this
country that they will be able to write any kind of wage scale that
they want. Does anyone think that the team makes the judgment and
decision about workers' rights, about what the employees will get paid?
Of course not. They make the recommendation to the employer, and the
employer decides. That is the principal difference: Whether the workers
are going to be able to make that judgment and decision, sitting across
the table from the employer, or whether the team is going to make a
recommendation to the employer, then the employer will make the
judgment.
Mr. President, with respect to all of our colleagues who talk about
where we are going to go in terms of the U.S. economy, what we need to
be able to compete in the world at the turn of the century is a mature
economy with mature relationships between workers and employers and an
economy which is going to benefit all of the workers and workers'
families.
We are going in that wrong direction, as we have seen. The right
direction for the wealthiest corporations, the right direction for the
wealthiest individuals--we have seen the accumulation of wealth in
terms of the richest individuals and corporations taking place in this
country unlike anything we have seen. But those 65 or 70 percent of
American working families are being left out and left behind. You pass
this particular act and you will find that it will not be 65 or 70
percent, but it will be 80 percent. They will not just fall back
somewhat; their whole life will be disrupted and destroyed with regard
to their economic conditions.
Mr. President, we are entitled to have some debate and discussion on
this issue because its implications in terms of working families are
profound. It is basically an antiworker act. It ought to be labeled
such. That is something that we ought to at least have a chance to
debate and discuss.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have listened to my colleague. Nobody
argues more forcefully for big labor than the distinguished Senator
from Massachusetts.
Although I want to talk about the Billy Dale matter, I do have to say
that most of what the Senator has said is pure Washington-inside labor
line. The fact is, the NLRB went way beyond where it should have gone
and took the rights of individual employees to meet with management to
resolve problems that really have nothing to do with collective
bargaining. It seems ridiculous to call this antidemocracy. Give me a
break. What is antidemocracy is to close shop where 51 out of 100
employees want a union and the other 49 have to comply and have to pay
dues and have to be part of the union whether they want to or not. That
is not democracy.
On the other hand, what is wrong with management and labor being able
to get together in teams and make the workplace a safer, better place
to work in?
I had to say that because I listened to the distinguished Senator. He
is eloquent and forceful. He just happens to be wrong.
Mr. President, why we are really here this morning is the Billy Dale
matter. Billy Dale and his colleagues at the White House were very
badly mistreated by greedy people who wanted to take over the White
House Travel Office--and I might add, there is some indication that the
travel offices of every agency in Government--so they could reap
millions, if not billions of dollars of free profits at the expense of
these people who had served eight Presidents over a pronounced period
of time and had served them well, done a good job, and who Peat Marwick
says did it in a reasonable manner.
They were mistreated. The law was used against them in an improper
way. The FBI was brought in an improper way. I might add, the power of
the White House was used against them, the power of the Justice
Department was used against them. Virtually everybody who looks at it,
especially those who look at it honestly, say this is a set of wrongs
that ought to be righted. In the process, their lives happen to be
broken because they are now stuck with all kinds of legal fees that
would break any common citizen in this country.
We want to right that wrong. Yesterday, my colleagues on the other
side voted en masse against cloture which would allow this matter to go
to a vote. One of the arguments which was superficial and fallacious
was they cannot even amend it. Of course they can. After cloture,
germane amendments are in order. If they want to bring up a germane
amendment to this Billy Dale bill, they are capable of doing so. That
is just another false assertion and false approach.
I think it is time to do what is right around here. It is time to
rectify these wrongs. It is time to do what is the right and
compassionate thing. In all honesty, we have not been doing it as we
listened to the arguments on the other side as to what should be done.
It has been nearly 3 years since the termination of the White House
Travel Office employees, and they are still in the unfair position of
defending their reputations. It is time to close this chapter on their
lives.
The targeting of dedicated public servants, apparently because they
held positions coveted by political profiteers, demands an appropriate
response. Although their tarnished personal reputations may never fully
be restored, it is only just that the Congress do what it can to
rectify this wrong.
This bill will reimburse Travel Office employees for the expenses of
defending themselves against these unjust criminal persecutions. I call
it ``persecutions'' even though there was a ``prosecution'' of Billy
Dale.
The argument that invoking cloture will foreclose the option of
amendments is nonsense. Germane amendments can still be offered,
although I question why anyone would want to delay any further the
compensation of these people who have been so unjustly treated. The
argument that passing the Billy Dale bill will undermine the likelihood
of seeing the Senate vote on the minimum wage increase is equally
hollow. In fact, it is superficial and wrong.
Only yesterday the majority leader proposed a plan which would ensure
a vote on the minimum wage increase this week, and my colleagues on the
other side rejected it. My friends on the other side of the aisle
should be careful about what they ask for because they might get it.
That is what happened yesterday.
Here we are today, back on the Billy Dale bill, and their excuse for
filibustering is still the minimum wage. Given the political
transparency of this filibuster, I hope our colleagues will get
together to do the decent and honorable thing and pass this important
measure.
Let me say, I think it is almost unseemly my friends on the other
side are saying we just want the minimum wage bill and you Republicans
should not do anything else because we want this and we have a
political advantage in talking about it. That is not the way it works
around here. Of course, we are able to ask the majority, combined other
good bill aspects, to make this bill even more perfect. Frankly, the
repeal of the gas tax would do that. It will make it more perfect. The
TEAM Act bill would certainly be more fair to employees throughout
America, more fair to businesses throughout America, more fair in
bringing economic cooperation among them, without interfering with the
collective bargaining process. The NLRB is very capable of making sure
that management does not abuse that problem.
For the life of me, I cannot see one valid or good argument about it.
Bringing what happened in Eastern Europe does not necessarily cut the
mustard here in America, where we have the most protective labor laws
in the world. Rightly so. I have worked with those laws for years, long
before I came to the Senate, and, of course, as former ranking member
and chairman of the Labor Committee, worked with them during that
period of time as well.
Mr. President, all of that aside, those are hollow arguments with
regard to holding up this bill. I hope my colleagues on the other side
are willing to vote for cloture so that we can pass the Billy Dale bill
and go on from there, then face the minimum wage, the TEAM Act, gas tax
reduction, and go on from there and do what is right.
The bottom line is that the minimum wage bill is controversial,
should not be attached to a bill that has broad bipartisan support,
that the President has said he will sign and support and that will
right some tremendous wrongs that need to be righted.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority has 52 seconds remaining.
[[Page S4816]]
CLOTURE MOTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the cloture motion.
The assistant 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,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.R. 2937, an act
for the reimbursement of attorney fees and costs incurred by
former employees of the White House Travel Office with
respect to the termination of their employment in that office
on May 19, 1993:
Bob Dole, Orrin Hatch, Spencer Abraham, Chuck Grassley,
Larry Pressler, Ted Stevens, Rod Grams, Strom Thurmond,
Thad Cochran, Judd Gregg, Paul D. Coverdell, Connie
Mack, Conrad Burns, Larry E. Craig, Richard G. Lugar,
Frank H. Murkowski.
Call of the Roll
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. The mandatory quorum has
been waived.
Vote
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, is it the sense of the Senate
that debate on H.R. 2937, the White House Travel Office bill shall be
brought to a close.
The yeas and nays are required, and the clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, on this vote, I have a live pair with the
Senator from Vermont, [Mr. Leahy]. If he were present and voting, he
would vote ``nay.'' If I were permitted to vote, I would vote ``yea.''
I therefore withhold my vote.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy] is
absent because of a death in the family.
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 53, nays 45, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 110 Leg.]
YEAS--53
Abraham
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brown
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Faircloth
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Helms
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Pressler
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--45
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Exon
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Heflin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Levin
Lieberman
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Simon
Wellstone
Wyden
PRESENT AND GIVING A LIVE PAIR
Pell, for
NOT VOTING--1
Leahy
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Santorum). On this vote the yeas are 53,
the nays are 45. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
The majority leader is recognized.
Amendment No. 3956 Withdrawn
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I withdraw amendment numbered 3956.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is withdrawn.
Amendment No. 3960 to Amendment No. 3955
Mr. DOLE. I send an amendment to the desk, which is the text of the
gas tax repeal, with the minimum wage language suggested by my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and the TEAM Act, and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Dole] proposes an amendment
numbered 3960 to amendment No. 3955, to the instructions of
the motion to refer.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under
``Amendments Submitted.'')
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, yesterday we discussed how we might resolve
the issues at hand. So now we have an opportunity for all Members to
repeal the gas tax, which I think has broad support, probably 80 votes,
to adopt the minimum wage suggested by my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle, 45 cents July 1 this year, 45 cents next July, and then
adopt this small provision on the TEAM Act, which means that in America
employees can talk to management, which I thought was sort of the
American way. We are prepared to vote on the whole package right now.
It would also reimburse Billy Dale and others who incurred legal
expenses because of charges brought against them.
I should like to take this opportunity to support the Teamwork for
Employees and Management Act. I think my colleague, the chairman of the
Labor Committee, is in the Chamber, and she will be addressing that
later.
It is hard to believe that in 1996, Federal laws tell employers and
employees that they cannot work together in cooperative teams to
jointly resolve issues of concern in the workplace. Since 1992, the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 has been interpreted to prohibit
forms of collaborative discussions between groups of employees and
management that deal with key issues such as workplace safety,
productivity rewards and benefits, and job descriptions.
Does that make sense? No. And it does not make sense to most
Americans. The TEAM Act simply allows common sense to reign in the
workplace. Employees and employers can and should be able to resolve
workplace issues among themselves without the fear of lawsuits.
So, why is the other side so exercised by this commonsense effort to
help employees? Because of the big labor bosses. They see any effort to
improve the workplace environment without their involvement as a
threat. In other words, they do not want the employees to come up with
any idea unless it goes through the labor bosses.
Suddenly, the minimum wage is not at all that important because
somewhere, someplace, some employee might have an idea that improves
productivity, that makes the workplace safer, all without the blessing
of the labor bosses. So that is what this debate is all about. I am not
certain, many of the employees even--in fact, I understand that some
employees came to lobby people on the TEAM Act and they were asked what
it was and they did not know what it was. Once it was explained to
them, they did not see much wrong with it.
It might occur to some employee that he or she does not need a labor
boss, that he or she can be their own boss. So, it is all about power.
It is not about politics, it is about power. It is about contributions.
It is about power. I think it is time we pass this package, increase
the minimum wage, repeal the gas tax.
Yesterday at midnight tax freedom day ended. I hope that workers can
have some control over their lives and workplace, the conditions in the
workplace. I believe we ought to do everything we can to encourage this
relationship, talking back and forth. We do it here from time to time.
Sometimes we are able to work things out by talking to each other. If
we cannot talk to each other, if employees cannot talk to management, I
do not see how anything can be worked out.
In fact, President Clinton used to think so, too. I never cease to be
amazed about how he can shift his positions, but even on this issue he
had a position. In his State of the Union Address last January
President Clinton said, ``When companies and workers work as a team,
they do better--and so does America.''
Let me repeat that, because many people probably forgot that
President Clinton said that. I bet he has forgotten that he said it.
``When companies and workers work as a team, they do better--and so
does America.'' That is all the TEAM Act is. We have taken what
President Clinton said in the State of the Union Message and drafted it
so it is now a statute. So it is a Clinton provision, really, the TEAM
Act. If President Clinton was right then, he is right now.
So what happened between January and May? The labor bosses called in
[[Page S4817]]
and contributed $35 million. That is one thing that happened. I do not
know what else happened. They may have also spent millions on
television, attacking Republicans on Medicare and everything you can
think of. A lot of the workers are now having their dues increased who
may not want to participate in that process, who may want to vote for
somebody else. They cannot be dictated to, anymore than we can dictate
to anybody.
So, it seems to us that we have an issue here now. We are all set. We
have accepted the minimum wage offer. We have accepted what the
American people want; that is, repealing the gas tax, 4.3 cents, $4.8
billion a year. We pay for it. It does not add to the deficit.
But now we are hung up on whether or not we ought to focus on the
American worker. If that worker has an idea, should that worker be able
to go to his employer, or be with a group of workers? Apparently, my
colleagues on the other side say you cannot do that in America, you
cannot talk to each other. Employees cannot talk to employers. It does
not interfere with the activities unions already have established in
companies, and it leaves in place protection against sham unions. It
simply extends to nonunion workers the rights union workers already
have, to have an effective voice for change in the workplace.
So it seems to me that we have an opportunity here, now, to move this
legislation forward. We are obviously not going to get cloture on the
Billy Dale, the underlying bill. It was hoped that this amendment might
be an incentive for everybody to move forward, end the gridlock. It
used to be called gridlock by the liberal press when Republicans were
holding up things, but I have not seen the word ``gridlock'' used by
the liberal media in the past 15 months. They cannot spell it anymore,
the 89 percent of those who cover us who voted for President Clinton.
But it is gridlock. We have had to file 63 cloture motions this year
in an effort to move the Senate forward. Since it takes 60 votes and we
only have 53, it is rather difficult. But I know the Washington Post
will figure out somewhere to come down on the right side, the side of
the liberals. So will the New York Times. So will the L.A. Times. So
will the other liberal papers.
But this is an argument about workers, maybe some who work at the
Washington Post; maybe they do not cover the Hill. Maybe some who work
for the Washington Times; maybe they do not cover politics. This is
about workers and it is about power and it is about power of the labor
bosses. That is what this is about. I do not care how they report it,
the word will go to the workers that we are prepared to say they have a
right to talk. They can talk for themselves. They can exercise their
first amendment rights. They do not give up their rights to free speech
or to engage in discussion when they join a labor union.
So, it seems to me we have a package here that should be
irresistible. If, in fact, the Senator from Massachusetts is serious
about the minimum wage and if, in fact, those of us on both sides are
serious about repealing the gas tax, as we are, this bill can be passed
by noon and be on its way to the House. I think the Speaker would act
expeditiously. It is going to take a while, July 1, the first increase
in minimum wage--it is going to take a while to implement it to make
all those things happen. It will take a while for the gas tax repeal to
be implemented.
So, I hope that we can proceed, get an agreement, say an hour on each
side. I ask unanimous consent that there be an hour on each side, that
each side have 1 hour, there be no intervening amendments, and then we
can proceed to vote on the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DASCHLE. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. DOLE. Two hours? Two hours on each side?
Apparently there must be something other than the time that is the
problem on the other side.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Kansas yield?
Mr. DOLE. I will be happy to yield for a question.
Mr. DORGAN. For a question. Does the Senator from Kansas anticipate
he will not allow an amendment on the gas tax proposal to make sure the
consumers get the benefit of a gas tax reduction? My understanding is
the request the majority leader made would preclude any amendments to
be offered on the gas tax reduction issue; is that correct?
Mr. DOLE. We have a provision in the gas tax proposal that requires
that a study has to be completed and that mandates that the savings go
to the consumer. I do not know how--I would be happy to look at the
amendment. In fact, we could probably agree on it. We have gone so far
as to say if we get cloture on the amendment, we could have a separate
vote on TEAM Act, so all my colleagues on that side could protect
themselves and vote against it. We could vote for it. We have minimum
wage, where I think some on each side are not certain how they are
going to vote. So we would have a separate vote on minimum wage and a
separate vote on TEAM Act. If we could agree now to have a cloture vote
on the amendment without waiting until Friday, and get 60 votes on
cloture, then we could have a separate vote on each. Some of my
colleagues would probably like to vote against some portion of it; I do
not know which. That would seem to be even going the extra mile.
I do not know how we can put into law, how we are going to mandate
that in every, every, every case. I do not know how many thousands of
service stations there are in America, but there are millions of people
out there who buy gasoline. I do not know how we are going to make
certain that that 4.3 cents goes into the pocket of the consumer.
The service station operators will tell you that is going to happen.
We hope to have letters today from their national association. I have
had some tell me personally that is going to happen. They know their
customers. In most cases they are regular customers. They want to keep
those customers. It is all a good-faith business practice.
But if the Senator had some idea on how we can adopt some language
that is going to make certain it happens, we would certainly be pleased
to look at it. Or if there are other amendments that deal with the
minimum wage, we would be happy to look at that. Since it is the
minimum wage package of the Senator from Massachusetts, I do not think
he would want to amend it.
So, Mr. President, if I can just suggest the absence of a quorum----
Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
Mr. DOLE. Excuse me.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, before we go into a quorum, if I could
just respond to the distinguished majority leader. I guess I begin by
saying, here we go again. Once again, the Republicans have put together
a package that they know will go nowhere.
We have one of two choices here. We can pass legislation, or we can
play games. If this package is good, let us get a little bit more
elaborate, more inventive. How about adding campaign finance reform?
Why not add MFN for China? Let us add the budget. How about a peace
treaty? There may be something in there we could deal with as well. Let
us put it all in and pass it in one vote. That seems to be the practice
around here these days: Load it up, no amendments, no debate and that
is it. ``We're telling you, you have to do it this way or there's not
going to be anything at all.''
Mr. President, that is unacceptable. They would not have stood for it
2 years ago and we cannot stand for it now. We have suggested a way
with which to resolve our outstanding differences here procedurally. We
ought to have an up-or-down vote on minimum wage.
We are prepared to have a good debate about the TEAM Act, and I want
to touch on that in just a minute.
We are prepared to have a debate about gas taxes, but we want to make
absolutely certain that the benefit goes to the consumer, and if we
cannot figure out a way to do that, then maybe we should not do it at
all. It seems to me that if we cannot guarantee the consumer is going
to benefit--and there is a pretty good possibility that they will not
benefit if you read the papers again this morning--then we will not be
providing the relief we claim to be providing in this proposal. We can
lash out against the press, we can lash out against labor if we want
to, but the
[[Page S4818]]
fact is the arguments ought to be debated and we ought to make some
decisions. We ought to have some understanding of whether or not this
is going to work before we do it. That is really what the amendment
process is all about, to have a good-faith debate and some
opportunities to discuss these important matters.
The distinguished majority leader noted that he has had to file
cloture a few times. Well, I must say, when you load up the tree and
deny opportunities for Democrats to have votes on amendments that we
care about, I really do not know what option we have. We are not trying
to prevent legislation from being considered. In fact, in the last
week, there were two examples where we worked through our differences
as soon as we were allowed to offer amendments. The immigration bill
and the Presidio bill both passed because we wanted to work with the
majority to pass them. We did not want to hold up those bills. But we
wanted the right to offer amendments.
And that is true, again. We have no desire to hold up the gas tax
bill. We will have some good debate about it. We want to get this
minimum wage issue behind us. We have a whole agenda. We have not
talked yet about pensions, and we are going to talk a lot more about
pensions in the balance of this year. We have not talked about losing
jobs overseas, an amendment the distinguished Senator from North Dakota
is talking about. We want to do a little bit of that.
And if we are not resolved on this health care bill pretty soon, we
are going to be bringing that up in the form of an amendment. So we
will have a lot of action agenda items, a lot of issues we care deeply
about that we want to offer and have a good debate about.
Now, as to the TEAM Act, let me just say, Mr. President, I listened
carefully to the majority leader. He said all we want is the right for
employers and employees to be able to talk together. If that is all
they want, they ought to be satisfied with current law.
Ninety-six percent of large companies today have employee involvement
programs. Seventy-five percent of all workplaces already have programs
where employers and employees work together, and guess what? The only
issues on which they cannot make agreements with employees are
mandatory bargaining issues such as hours and wages. Furthermore, if
they violate what the National Labor Relations Board and the law
requires with regard to what is legitimate consultation and what is
actual negotiations with labor on issues involving pensions or security
issues or work issues or wages, there is no penalty, there is no
penalty at all. They must only disband the committee that has violated
the law.
So workers are encouraged to work through their problems with
employees through the arrangements that are set up right now under
current law.
What the Republicans want to do is roll back 60 years of labor law.
They want to be able to allow companies to set up rump organizations to
negotiate with themselves. It is like the father asking the son-in-law
to negotiate on behalf of the employees and to come up with a plan the
employees are supposed to accept as fact in that workplace.
That is unacceptable. But we ought to have a debate about it. We
ought to decide whether or not we want to roll back 60 years of labor
law. This may be one of the most antiworker Congresses we have seen in
decades--blocking an increase in the minimum wage, fighting health
care, and now rolling back labor law that protects workers. We are not
in any way, shape or form opposed to good discussions and good
negotiations and good opportunities for employers and employees to work
out their differences. That should be a fact. It is a fact in 96
percent of large corporations. But we will not tolerate rump
organizations negotiating with companies in the name of labor and
calling that some advancement in the workplace.
So, Mr. President, we ought to have an opportunity to debate it. We
ought to have an opportunity to offer amendments. We ought to have some
up-or-down votes. That is what the Senate is made for. That is what we
have always done. I yield to the Senator.
Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DOLE. You cannot yield the floor except to yield for a question.
Mr. DASCHLE. I yield for a question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from South Dakota yield to
the Senator from North Dakota for a question only?
Mr. DASCHLE. I yield to the Senator from North Dakota for a question.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I say to my colleague from South Dakota, I
heard this discussion about delay and stalling. Is it not the case that
in a couple recent occasions, just in recent weeks, we have seen
legislation filed in the Senate and a cloture motion filed on the bill
that was before the Senate before debate began on the legislation? In
other words, a motion to shut off debate before debate began on two
pieces of legislation in the last several weeks; is that not the case?
Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator is absolutely correct. A bill is filed, a
bill is proposed; the amendment tree is completely filled; and cloture
is filed. It is a pattern now that has been the practice here for the
last several weeks.
Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield for one further question. I
guess what I observe about that is that it is hardly stalling to
suggest there ought to be some debate on legislation. Filing a cloture
motion to cut off debate before debate begins is apparently a new way
to legislate but not, in my judgment, a very thoughtful way to
legislate.
I ask the Senator one additional question. In this morning's
newspaper there is a story that says ``Experts Say Gas Tax Wouldn't
Reach the Pumps.'' It quotes a number of experts. One of the experts
says, and I would like to ask you a question about this:
The Republican-sponsored solution to the current fuels
problem . . . is nothing more and nothing less than a
refiners' benefit bill . . . It will transfer upwards of $3
billion from the U.S. Treasury to the pockets of refiners and
gasoline marketers.
My question is, does the Senator from South Dakota believe, when we
deal with the issue of reducing the gas tax by 4.3 cents, that we ought
to be able to offer some amendments on the floor to make darn sure that
it goes in the right pocket?
Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator is correct. That is all we want to do here.
We want to have an opportunity to debate the issue, to offer amendments
to provide assurance to the consumer and taxpayer that we are simply
not asking the taxpayers to bail out the oil companies with a $4
billion bailout this year. That is what it could mean if we are not
careful about how this is handled.
Everybody ought to understand that if we do not have the assurance,
and it is going to take more than a study to give us that assurance, if
we do not have the assurance, what this means. I heard the majority
leader talk about power and contributions, I do not know what power and
contribution connections there may be with the gas tax, but I will tell
you this, that it is a $4 billion bailout this country cannot afford
if, indeed, the result of repeal of the gas tax is $4 billion in
additional profits for the oil companies.
We ought to work through this, and if we can do that, I am sure there
is not going to be a problem with regard to providing that assurance to
the American people.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DASCHLE. I yield to the Senator from Minnesota for a question.
Mr. WELLSTONE. It is a very brief question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator yields for a question.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Listening to the Senator talk about
the distinction between games and moving this forward, am I correct
that the Senator is saying, the minority leader is saying that we ought
to have the opportunity to have amendments and debate on these issues,
legitimate debate, and then have separate votes on the wisdom of
enacting all three bills, whether it be minimum wage, whether it be
TEAM, or whether it be a repeal of the gas tax, that that is what we
are aiming for, that we want to have an opportunity for amendments and
we want to address each bill in turn?
Mr. DASCHLE. That is correct.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Consider each one separately, so all of us are
accountable, no putting different kinds of combinations together, no
confusion for people,
[[Page S4819]]
no blurring distinctions, just straightforward accountability to people
in the country as to where we stand. Is that what the Senator is
proposing?
Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator from Minnesota is absolutely right. That is
how we do things around here. We provide opportunities for Senators to
offer to bills amendments that are legitimate questions of public
policy. That is all we are suggesting here. That is why we offered the
minimum wage in the first place. When we first offered it, we said,
``Look, we prefer to have the independent freestanding vote.'' If we
cannot do that, obviously, we will offer it as an amendment. If we
start packaging all these disparate issues together, then I think it is
fair to ask why not add campaign finance reform and MFN for China and a
whole range of other things we might want to debate some time this
year.
I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts for a question.
Mr. KENNEDY. I have a question for Senator Daschle. That is, as I
understand the National Labor Relations Act as it exists now and as
proposed in the TEAM Act, is that the TEAM Act would apply not only to
the 13 million workers who are organized, but it applies to about the
107 million American workers that are in the workplace as well, and
that the Senator might agree with me that effectively what we are
talking about is company unions replacing legitimate collective
bargaining appearing by workers pursuing their own interests.
Is that the effect of the TEAM Act?
Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator is correct, that is the effect.
Mr. KENNEDY. Is the Senator concerned that, as he pointed out, part
of a whole process evidently against working families, where we have
had the repeal of some of the EITC, the opposition to the minimum wage,
the undermining of the OSHA Act, and feel that this would be a further
reduction in the protections for American workers, and that they may,
if this legislation goes into effect, be further left out and left
behind in the modern economy?
Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator is absolutely correct.
Let me just say that there is this perception sometimes created by
some of our colleagues on the other side that efforts to protect
workers somehow automatically position you against business. We ought
to be for business, probusiness, just as this administration has shown
itself to be with so many of its policies.
Business has never had a better 3-year period than they have had in
the last 3 years. We have seen growth in this economy. The stock market
has boomed to levels we never dreamed of a couple of years ago. Export
sales are up. Everything is going exceedingly well. This economy is as
strong as it has been almost in my lifetime. So this administration has
been probusiness. There are a lot of things we have proposed that are
probusiness, but we ought to say probusiness also ought to mean
proworker, making sure that not only corporate executives benefit from
this wonderful growth in the economy, but the workers do, too: that the
workers have a chance to benefit, whether it is in health care, a good
paycheck, or retirement security. Those kinds of things ought to be
part of the overall economic agenda here so that we do not see the
stratification within our economy that we are seeing right now.
Be probusiness and proworker. If we do that, I think we can look
forward to a lot stronger economy and a lot more blessings for all the
American people than we have had in the last couple of years.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we would certainly be agreeable we could
have three separate votes, gas tax repeal, TEAM Act, minimum wage. In
fact, we are prepared, if cloture is invoked, to have three separate
votes. We cannot get agreement to have three separate votes. So they
will have to filibuster gas tax repeal and increase in minimum wage
because of the one deal that upsets the labor bosses. That is certainly
a right they have.
Somehow the Washington Post and other papers will figure out some way
to make it sound good, but the facts are the facts. We are prepared to
move right now. The Senator from Massachusetts said on the floor, and I
have his quotes here, a couple of times he only needs 30 minutes on the
minimum wage. We will have 30 minutes on that, 30 minutes on TEAM Act,
and 30 minutes on gas tax. That is an hour and a half equally divided,
and then we can vote.
The Senator from North Dakota has some amendment, if he has figured
out a way to make certain that in every single case the 4.3 cents will
go back to the consumer, maybe have to station a policeman at each
service station, or a Federal employee, that would be one way to do it.
I am not certain what he has in mind.
The bottom line is we are prepared to take action. So now we have on
this floor the minority saying we will not let you do anything unless
you do it our way. We want to do it our way, and even though you are
the majority, you do it our way. As I said, I had a little trouble
explaining that to my policy luncheon yesterday. They said if they can
have their way, why can we not have our way? My view is why not
everybody have their way? We will have a separate vote on minimum wage,
a separate vote on gas tax repeal, and a separate vote on TEAM Act. It
seems fair and reasonable to me.
I hope that will be the resolution. If there are amendments that
should be offered, we have always been able to work out reasonable
amendments. But that is not the thrust coming from the other side. The
thrust is they will raise this, the experts say maybe the 4.3 cents
will not get back to the consumer and this is somehow antiworker, it is
antiboss, it is antilabor boss, it is proworker.
Again, let me quote the President of the United States who said in
the State of the Union Message last January, ``When companies and
workers work as a team they do better and so does America.''
Mr. FORD. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DOLE. Not right now.
We are prepared to accept the President--in fact, the Senator from
Kansas, Senator Kassebaum, chairman of the Labor Committee really
understands the TEAM Act--and explain how this statement by the
President sort of underscores and supports what we are trying to do
here today.
We have the support of the President, apparently, on the minimum wage
and on TEAM Act. I do not know where he is on the gas tax repeal.
CLOTURE MOTION
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, just so we can bring this matter to a head,
I send a cloture motion to the desk and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The bill 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 the pending Dole
amendment, No. 3960:
Bob Dole, Orrin Hatch, John Warner, Trent Lott, Thad
Cochran, Slade Gorton, Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey
Hutchison, Connie Mack, Strom Thurmond, Dan Coats,
Craig Thomas, Dirk Kempthorne, Jesse Helms, Bob Smith,
Jim Jeffords.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding
rule XXII, the cloture vote occur at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 9, the
mandatory quorum being waived and the time between now and 5 p.m.,
Thursday, be equally divided in the usual form for debate.
Mr. DASCHLE. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Mr. DOLE. So the cloture vote will occur on Friday, but I ask
unanimous consent at this time if cloture is invoked on amendment 3960,
the amendment be automatically divided, with division I being the gas
tax issue, division II being the TEAM Act, and division III being the
proposal for minimum wage, and the time on each division be limited to
2 hours each, equally divided in the usual form, and following the
conclusion or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on
division I, division II, and division III, back to back, with no
further motions in order prior to the disposition of each division.
Mr. DASCHLE. Reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent
that the unanimous-consent agreement also include campaign finance
reform and MFN.
[[Page S4820]]
Mr. GRAMM. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Is there objection?
Mr. DASCHLE. I object.
Mr. DOLE. Objection to this.
So, we will have a cloture vote, then, on Friday, if not before. If
there are amendments, we always try to accommodate our colleagues.
I learned about how you introduce and file cloture by my friend, the
former majority leader, Senator Mitchell. I thought it was very
effective. I made notes at that time.
Mr. FORD. Fill the tree.
Mr. DOLE. We do not have it down to the art he had it down to, but we
want to tell the press how to spell ``gridlock,'' something they used
extensively when we were in the minority. You never see the word.
Suddenly the word has disappeared. This is gridlock. This is Democratic
gridlock, because the labor bosses do not want this to happen. And he
who controls the purse I guess controls the agenda. We will see what
happens in the next few days.
Mrs. KASSEBAUM addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader. The Democratic leader
is recognized.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me just respond briefly. I know a lot
of our colleagues want to be able to speak.
This is unnecessary gridlock. This has nothing to do with the
Democratic minority. This has everything to do with Republicans simply
not allowing the Senate to be the Senate. I do not recall a time--and
we can go back and check--when my predecessor, Senator Mitchell, filled
the tree every single time a bill was presented on the floor. I would
like to go back and find that time in the last Congress when that
happened.
I can recall, woefully, how many times we worried about Republican
amendments and how we were going to come up with second-degree
amendments because we were not going to stop them from being offered.
And they were offered.
So, Mr. President, we have different views about what happened in the
last Congress. I will tell my colleagues on the other side, we are
taking notes, and should we have the opportunity again--and I know we
will--to be in the majority, what goes around comes around. It may be
that we are going to have to extend the session of Congress to 4 years
rather than just 2, because I am not sure we are going to get anything
done in 2 anymore. How unfortunate. How unfortunate.
This does not have to be gridlock. We did not want gridlock. Just
last week we passed some good legislation. We can do that again. We
ought to do that again, but we ought to be respectful of the minority
and the opportunities that we have always had to offer amendments. That
is all we are asking. In the name of fairness, in the name of
tradition, in the name of this institution, we owe it to the American
people to have these reasonable and fair debates.
The majority leader offered a unanimous-consent to have up-or-down
votes on amendments collectively to a bill that he knows is going
nowhere. What we have said is, let us have independent votes, free of
the opportunity to obfuscate these issues, opportunities to offer
amendments, opportunities to ensure that we can have a good debate
about each of these issues--no limits, no filled trees, simply a good,
old-fashioned Senate debate about all the issues that the majority
leader and I and others want to confront.
So as soon as that happens, I have a feeling we can get a lot of work
done. But until that happens, nothing will get done.
Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DASCHLE. I yield for a question.
Mr. DORGAN. I want to inquire of the Senator from South Dakota,
having listened with great interest to the presentation by the Senator
from Kansas, which was an interesting political presentation but a
presentation that complained that there was stalling and gridlock in
the Senate, first, and then a second presentation that concluded with a
cloture motion being filed to shut off debate on something where debate
has not yet started, I guess the presumption is that we are pieces of
furniture on this side of the aisle, we are not living, contributing
Senators that are interested in legislation. But we are more than
furniture. We have a passionate agenda that we care deeply about.
I guess I am confused by someone who alleges that there is stalling
and then files a cloture motion to shut off debate before debate
begins. What on Earth kind of process is this? It does not make any
sense.
I ask the Senator if he finds it unusual that we have a circumstance
where the majority leader and others come out and they offer a
proposition to fill up the tree so that no one else can intervene with
amendments and then claim somehow that somebody else is causing their
problems. Is it not true they are causing their own problems?
The way the Senate ought to do its business is to come and offer
legislation on the floor of the Senate, in a regular way, and ask for
those who want to amend it to offer their amendments, have up-or-down
votes, and then see if the votes exist to pass legislation. But instead
we have these parliamentary games, and then we have this pointing
across the aisle to say, ``By the way, you're the cause of this,'' and
then the filing of a cloture motion to shut off debate before debate
begins. Apparently, it is a new way to run the Senate.
Mr. DASCHLE. Apparently the Senator is right. That is the essence of
the problem we have here. It is why we are absolutely paralyzed until
we can resolve it. All we are trying to do is have the opportunity to
have a good debate about each of these issues.
We can debate the TEAM Act. We are not averse to having a good old-
fashioned debate about whether you roll back 60 years of labor law. We
can debate the gas tax and figure out whether there is a way to address
the issue that the Senator from North Dakota and others have raised
about making sure the consumer, and not the oil companies, get the
benefit.
Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DASCHLE. We can debate the minimum wage for whatever length of
time we want. A half-hour is fine with us, but if they want more time,
we can do that.
Mr. COCHRAN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DASCHLE. I will be happy to yield to my colleague on my side, the
Senator from Louisiana, and then to the Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. JOHNSTON. I thank the distinguished minority leader for yielding.
There has been some negotiation and talks on the floor about votes on
these three different issues. I just want to ask the leader whether he
has had any discussion about packaging the three, because I do not
propose, myself, to allow that, except to the extent the rules allow
it, for a vote to come up on this gasoline tax, because I think that is
one of the wackiest ideas I have heard. To the extent that we can
successfully filibuster, yes, filibuster. Call it gridlock, call it
what you want. I am opposed to it. I am not willing to let that come
up. I think there are a lot of people who feel like I do.
I wonder if there has been any negotiation toward saying, ``Well,
we'll let you have that on a majority vote as opposed to 60 votes, as
long as you will allow a vote on minimum wage''?
Mr. DASCHLE. There have been a lot of different discussions regarding
various packages and various scenarios, and it is obvious from the
exchanges this morning that no decisions and certainly no agreement has
been reached.
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
Mr. DASCHLE. I yield to the Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. EXON. I thank my friend. I was trying to seek the floor in my own
right. I would ask a question.
Mr. DASCHLE. I will be happy to yield to the Senator from
Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. I appreciate very much the distinguished Senator
yielding to me for a question. My question is, when I heard your
discussion of the unanimous-consent request propounded by the
Republican leader, there seemed to be--is this correct--the complaint
that the minimum wage issue is something that had not been scheduled
and, therefore, this was an issue that needed to be scheduled and have
a full debate, and we had to have votes.
My question is, why were there not debates and why were there not
votes
[[Page S4821]]
when the Democrats were in the majority in the Senate and in the House
and in the administration for the 2 years in the previous Congress?
We never had an amendment offered by a Democrat, we never had a bill
offered by a Democrat, and we never had a unanimous-consent request on
the floor propounded by the Democratic leader on that issue. Now, on
another unrelated issue, we have to stop now and cannot proceed to take
up anything because of the request being made on the Senator's side
that there be an immediate debate and a vote on a minimum wage proposal
that has never been to committee and never had any hearings in either
the last Congress or this Congress. All of a sudden the facts are
overwhelming that this is something that has to be done right now. Why
is that?
Mr. DASCHLE. I am so blessed that the Senator from Mississippi asked
the question. I was hoping that one of my colleagues would ask it,
because obviously it is an issue that has come up before.
We made a very calculated decision in the beginning of the last
Congress that we were not going to be able to do both health care and
the minimum wage. Obviously, if we could have done both and had the
agreement of our Republican colleagues to do both, we would very much
have wanted to be able to do that. But we decided that at best--at
best--we were going to be able to pass a bill that does a lot more than
90 cents for the American worker.
So what we decided to do--and people could accuse us of being
conservative here and not wanting to do both--but what we decided to
do, in a conservative approach to our agenda, was to say, ``Look, we'll
take this one step at a time. Let's pass health care. Let's find a way
to deal with health care that will affect every one of our workers in a
monetary, as well as a personal way.'' That is what we decided to do.
Unfortunately, because of the opposition of our colleagues on the
other side, we could not even pass benefits for our workers for health
care in the last Congress. So we are relegated now to the Kennedy-
Kassebaum bill, and we may not even pass that, given the insistence by
some on the other side to add unrelated and very devastating provisions
to this bill that would deny the American worker some opportunity for
benefit. So that is the answer to my colleague and good friend from
Mississippi.
I yield the floor.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeWine). The Senator from Nebraska is
recognized.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, let me suggest that it appears to this
veteran of 18 years in the U.S. Senate and, before that, 8 years as
Governor of Nebraska, that this place is more off balance than any
supposed representative body that I have ever witnessed. To put it
bluntly, it has gone bonkers.
Here we have a group of supposedly thoughtful and mature men and
women wallowing in politics, throwing aside what is right for America,
in a seizure of fiscal madness, at the very time we are about to vote
on a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget by the year
2002.
No one--no one--in this body has been more intent on amending the
Constitution to require a balanced budget. But the irresponsible bed
that we are making, and the grandiose plans for what represents fiscal
balance down the road, is so fraught with craziness that I am
reconsidering my support.
I am very concerned that the recent political circus, with more than
three rings, designed to present ``The Greatest Show on Earth'' and
prove beyond a doubt that there is ``a sucker born every minute,'' will
go down in history as one of the most shameful exercises in the history
of the Senate. This year, 1996, could go down as the year that we deep-
sixed the people under a guise of fiscal sanity that is, in reality,
insanity.
Mr. President, America deserves better. Unfortunately, the
ringmasters of all of this are the Republican majority leadership in
the House and the Senate. The Republican majority leader in the House
even suggested making up the billions in lost revenue by reducing
education funding even more than the Republicans have previously
announced. That will not fly.
The Senate majority leader, 20 points behind in the race for the
Presidency, has come up with a gimmick to reduce the gas tax by 4.3
cents, which would cost the Treasury $34 billion in revenue by the
magical year 2002, when we are already far short of any attainable goal
to meet the constitutionally guaranteed balance by that date.
It is politics at its worst. Sooner or later, the American people
will see it for what it is, if they have not already.
I call on the Republican leadership to announce that they have come
to their senses and renounce their fiscal indiscretion, and get on with
balancing the budget, passing a constitutional amendment to balance the
budget, and putting the campaign back on a sane course.
Mr. President, I have long supported a balanced Federal budget and a
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I used to think that if
you favored one, you almost had to support the other. But I have to
admit that the antics around here on the gas tax have caused me to
question whether people who favor a balanced budget amendment in
speeches really do want to balance the budget at all.
You hear all of these pious speeches about how we want to balance the
budget. I suggest that if we had a dollar for every speech in the
Senate that favored a balanced budget, we would have reached a surplus
a long time ago.
But then comes along a year divisible by 4, and all of a sudden
Senators are falling over themselves to cut taxes. I heard one Senator
say this was not the first tax that he would cut, but, heck, it was an
opportunity to cut taxes, and he was not going to miss it. It is a
transparent political ploy, Mr. President, and this Senator, for one,
has had about enough of it.
Repeal of the 4.3-cent gas tax is a costly enterprise. Between June
of this year and the end of the year 2002, it would cost $34 billion in
lost revenue, and it would worsen the deficit by the year 2005 to $52
billion. Yes, I say, ``worsen the deficit,'' because the offset that
the majority cobbles together to pay for the tax cut will, in all
likelihood, be something we were already counting on, or desperately
need, to help balance the budget by the year 2002 under a
constitutional amendment. One way or the other, we are going to have to
come up with another $52 billion in additional deficit reduction, or
increase taxes, over the next 10 years. I suggest, Mr. President, that
that will not be easy.
As I said when I started these remarks, this whole gas tax charade
has made me reconsider the sincerity of the debate that I have heard
about the balanced budget amendment. The willingness of Senators and
Congressmen to rush headlong to cut the gas tax makes me question
whether I want to be a part of an enterprise that promises to balance
the budget down the road but avoids every hard vote to cut the deficit
in the here and now.
In closing, Mr. President, I want to say that I will consider very
closely and see how Senators vote on the balanced budget amendment to
the Constitution. I certainly feel that, as of now, the balanced budget
amendment to the Constitution that I voted for previously, and
supported, needs to be examined as to how Senators vote and how sincere
they are, which will be keenly measured, I suggest, on the gimmick of
repeal of the 4.3-cent gas tax. If people vote to cut taxes with wild
abandon and then ask me to join them in support of a balanced budget
amendment, they may find this Senator unwilling to go down that crooked
road of no return.
The people should understand that if the tax cut proposed by the
Senate majority is followed with a constitutional amendment to balance
the budget by the year 2002, the Congress at that time will face, by
far, the largest tax increase ever imagined in history.
I do not want a small tax cut now that probably would trigger and
find its way into higher taxes in the future. In this regard, I must
also say that even if the Senate and the House would invoke a law that
eliminates that tax, there is no assurance whatsoever, or likelihood,
that the money would end up in the consumers' pockets. It would end up
elsewhere. Unless someone can rationally explain to me how the numbers
work out on this, I will not vote again for a constitutional amendment
under the Republicans' changed scenario.
[[Page S4822]]
In my view, Mr. President, as a fiscal conservative it would be the
height of fiscal and budget irresponsibility to do so.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I tried to be recognized earlier
because I wanted to ask the distinguished minority leader a question
when he was on the floor talking about the TEAM Act. I find it hard to
think that the people of South Dakota would not be very supportive of
the ability to have employers and employees form teams in which they
can talk about conditions in their own company. These teams clearly
will enhance the quality of work, the quality of working relationships,
and the productivity of the company.
I think there is broad support for that. The distinguished majority
leader indicated that President Clinton in the State of the Union
speech mentioned the importance of working together as a team and how
that enhances the productivity and the competitiveness of American
industry. We all know how important that is today.
The other side of the aisle suggests that the TEAM Act permits sham
unions. That is not correct, Mr. President. The legislation does not
permit sham unions in any way.
The question was raised, why do we need the legislation? I would
suggest that one of the reasons we need the TEAM Act is that we need
clarity regarding the barriers in Federal labor law regarding worker
and management cooperation.
William Gould, who was appointed Chairman of the National Labor
Relations Board in 1994 by President Clinton, made the following
statement on employee involvement to a seminar at Indiana University
School of Law on February 29, 1996. I want to state that Chairman Gould
is opposed to the TEAM Act, but he did say that although he opposed it,
he does feel that an amendment to section 8(a)(2) is necessary to
promote employee involvement. He said:
Nonetheless, as I wrote three years ago an agenda for
reform, a revision of 8(a)(2) is desirable. The difficulties
involved in determining what constitutes a labor organization
under the act as written subjects employees and employers to
unnecessary and wasteful litigation, and mandates lay people
to employ counsel when they are only attempting to promote
dialog and enhanced participation and cooperation.
Mr. President, I can think of no more effective statement than that
of the Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.
This is not a question of wanting to roll back 60 years of labor law;
not at all. It is really designed to enhance labor law so that we can
enter a new century and a new time in the strongest, most productive
fashion. And it is only common sense, Mr. President, that would say
employers and employees should be able to sit down at the table and
reason together. This is not an effort to do away with unions. It is an
effort to bring some clarity to section 8(a)(2), as was mentioned by
Chairman Gould, so that there can be an understanding of what indeed
constitutes, or does not constitute, a violation of Federal labor law.
I would just suggest, Mr. President, that workers know their jobs
better than anyone else. They are the ones who are there day in and day
out listening to customers, making a product, and delivering it to
clients. Their contributions improve productivity, reduce environmental
waste, increase quality, and perhaps most important raise job
satisfaction. Participation means that there is a commitment then to
the success of that company. Yet Federal labor laws have stood in the
way of unleashing, I suggest because of this lack of charity, a vast
reservoir of human capital in America's workplaces.
Yesterday there was I thought an exceptionally good exchange, and an
elaboration of why the TEAM Act is important, between the Senator from
Vermont [Mr. Jeffords] and the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Ashcroft].
Just to quote from Mr. Ashcroft briefly:
More importantly than trying to strike a balance from
Washington, DC, we should provide American workers with the
ability to strike that balance for themselves.
Senator Ashcroft went on to lay out examples of reasons why this
would become very apparent. Senator Jeffords had said, ``Why in the
world would unions oppose this?'' It really is not trying to undermine
the unions as has been portrayed. He said, ``They are nervous because
they have been going down, and they did not want to do anything that
would in any way enhance the workers and management to get together to
improve productivity. Is it being done out of fear that, indeed, the
unions would no longer be able to control the agenda?''
I hope not, Mr. President, because that is not the intent of this
legislation. I myself would like to provide an example to illustrate
the obstacles to employee involvement.
A group of workers in a manufacturing plant want to discuss health
and safety issues with their supervisor. The supervisor forms a safety
committee with the foreman and three or four workers and the group meet
once a week. The workers know that the floor is often slippery, and
workers have fallen causing injuries and significant worker
compensation costs for the company. The workers also note that most
accidents happened on Mondays. So perhaps a brief safety reinforcement
briefing at the start of the shift coming off the weekend would improve
plant safety.
Acting on these employee suggestions the supervisor makes sure that
mops are available to mop the floors and institutes a 5-minute safety
meeting for workers each Monday morning. Sounds reasonable. I would
think most of us would agree that these suggestions are reasonable
ideas for workers to bring to their supervisor.
What is incredible is that this type of employee involvement is
illegal under Federal labor law. The National Labor Relations Act
actually prohibits nonunion employees and supervisors from meeting in
committees to discuss workplace issues like health and safety.
I have never viewed the TEAM Act as a union-management issue.
Instead, I think it is a quality of life issue for workers who do not
want to just say, ``We are on the floor of our workplace and do what we
are told to do and have no input into what we see may be something of
real benefit in improving the quality of life there.''
In the example I just mentioned the workers are the ones who observed
the wet floors. They are the ones who were there. They are the ones who
are injured when they slip on the floors, and they are the ones who
have suggestions for dealing with the problem. This, I think, is the
quality of work life issue for workers, and not a labor-management
issue.
And for firms, employee involvement is a necessary way to enhance the
efficiency of the plant. That has been proven over and over again
where, indeed, companies have had team relationships that have proved
successful.
I think since the 1980's many American companies have tried to copy
what companies were doing in Japan, because frequently there were
employee-employer relationships that our Japanese competitors were
using some years ago that were found to be successful.
We can even improve on what the Japanese have done. I would suggest,
Mr. President, that employee involvement is a necessary way to enhance
the efficiency of our workplaces. And more importantly, there are
significant contributions that I believe workers can make with
innovative and thoughtful ways of improving the workplace.
Unfortunately, the National Labor Relations Board has issued a series
of decisions beginning in 1992 that interpreted Federal labor law to
prohibit many forms of employee involvement. These decisions have
created uncertainty as to what types of employee involvement programs
are permissible, as Chairman Gould pointed out.
These decisions have cast doubt on all employee involvement in
nonunion settings. In union settings it works all right. But in
nonunion settings it has raised suspicion, doubt, fear, and an
aggressiveness that I think has proven totally counterproductive on the
part of the unions. I think we need a legislative solution to address
the problem.
Mr. President, the TEAM Act removes the barriers in Federal labor law
to employee involvement. It clarifies what that involvement can be. At
the same time, the legislation maintains
[[Page S4823]]
protections to ensure that workers have the right to select union
representation. The TEAM Act assures that employee involvement programs
may not negotiate collective bargaining agreements or seek in any way
to displace independent unions. And nothing in the TEAM Act permits
employers to bypass an existing union if that is what the union and
that is what the workers have chosen.
Finally, I point out that the Congress prohibited company unions in
the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. They were prohibited then
because firms were negotiating with company unions and refusing to
recognize independent unions which the workers had selected. But the
TEAM Act requires employers to recognize and negotiate with independent
union representatives if that is what the workers have decided they
want. It really is urging that workers become more involved. The
workers are encouraged to participate and employers are encouraged to
listen to their employees.
I suggest, Mr. President, that the TEAM Act is good for workers. It
is good for firms. It is good for America. It is not attempting to roll
back labor law. It is attempting to enhance it in ways that I think
will be far more constructive and productive.
I yield the floor.
Mr. JOHNSTON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, the Presidential years are referred to
as the ``silly season'' and certainly this Presidential year is the
silly season. The competition for the award for the most improvidently
proposed bill is very keen in the Chamber, Mr. President, but surely
the 4.3-cent gasoline tax decrease has got to take the cake for this
year.
Mr. President, all this Congress we have heard about the balanced
budget. I endorse the balanced budget. I am part of that bipartisan
group of Senators that is trying to get a balanced budget passed. But
now that we finally propose it, it is not being accepted by my friend,
the majority leader.
On top of that, with budget deficits continuing, with no plan
approved for the balanced budget, we now have a proposal to cut taxes.
Surely, Mr. President, this has got to be in the category of bread and
circuses of ancient Rome when proposals are put out not for the good of
society but in order to please the voters.
Now, the American voters may not be very smart on some issues, but
they are not stupid, and they know that this is not good policy. At a
time when we are trying to cut all kinds of programs, all across the
board, to come in and then cut taxes on gasoline is surely not good
policy. Gasoline in the United States is somewhere between one-half and
one-fourth as expensive as it is in Europe. In France, in Germany, in
Italy, in those countries you pay three and four times as much for
gasoline as you do in the United States. But if the gasoline goes up a
very small amount in the United States, it is used as a trigger to try
to cut those taxes.
Mr. President, let us look at the facts about gasoline.
If you look at gasoline in real prices, in inflation adjusted prices,
this chart represents what gasoline prices have been since 1950 through
1996, and it shows that in real inflation adjusted prices, the price of
gasoline is close to the lowest it has been since 1950--almost 50
years. Now, to be sure, there is a small blip of, what, 20 cents a
gallon in some places. But in terms of the actual purchasing price that
you have to pay for gasoline, it is almost a historic low.
The next question is: what is going to happen from here? Is this
increase in gasoline prices permanent or is it likely to come down?
It is clear it is going to come down. When you look at crude oil
prices--these first two blocks on this chart are actual prices from
April and May--you will note that they have come down from over $25 a
barrel already to about $21 a barrel. Those are actual prices that are
coming down very fast.
These prices on this chart are futures prices, and futures prices, of
course, are real prices. You can purchase the crude now for delivery in
May or September or whatever these months are, so they are price
reductions already realized. So we already have realized price
reductions in the price of crude oil from over $25 a barrel to about
$19 a barrel, or a decrease of $6 a barrel already realized in the
price of crude oil.
Now, Mr. President, this rather busy chart shows the relationship
between crude oil and gasoline prices. On the bottom, we have crude oil
prices, which shows a slight up-tick in crude oil for the month of
April, and it already shows that crude oil is going down. With respect
to wholesale regular gasoline prices--these are in real prices--we see
that went up for the month of April and has already begun to go down.
Wholesale California reformulated gasoline is already coming down
rather precipitantly. California is the area of the country, of course,
which has the greatest concern about this because you have the greatest
runup in prices. But wholesale California reformulated gasoline prices
are coming down very fast.
Retail gasoline prices in the United States and retail in California
have leveled off. They are not yet reflecting these downturns in prices
of crude oil, wholesale regular gasoline and wholesale reformulated
gasoline in California. But these prices will begin--already in retail
it has come down slightly in California and leveled off in the United
States generally. However, as night follows the day, it is inevitable
that these prices will come down and come down precipitantly because
wholesale prices are coming down.
Mr. President, what caused the shortage and the runup? On this rather
busy chart here, these hash lines show the historical range of gasoline
stocks, and they go up and down every year because the summer driving
season and the heating season call for greater or lesser supplies and
usually the actual amount follows within those hash mark lines, and
when that happens supply and demand are in balance.
When we go to January and the spring of 1996, our supply line drops
well below the traditional levels. And why was that? Well, it was,
first of all, because the winter was much colder than usual. Second,
because many refineries across the country, particularly in California,
were down. Third, because there was an anticipation that the embargo on
Iraqi oil was to be lifted, and that was not lifted as expected, so the
influx of Iraqi oil was not as we expected, plus driving was up as well
as the fuel efficiency of cars was down. That caused our stocks to be
down. However, this is already being corrected. As you can see, the
stocks have begun to come up. This chart shows gasoline imports, and
gasoline imports are up precipitously.
This is caused by two things. First of all, the market. When the
price is high, then that extra refining capacity in Europe is used to
export to the United States. Consequently, our imports are drastically
up. With imports coming up, it is clear that this upswing in gasoline
prices is soon to be over with. I mean it is not a problem to worry
about in the first place, as I mentioned, because we are at almost
historic lows in the price of gasoline--almost. We are up only slightly
from historic lows for the last 50 years. But even that small upswing,
about 20 cents a gallon, is soon to be over with because of these
factors: Additional imported crude oil, the supply; imported gasoline;
supply of crude oil coming up.
Finally, there is this vexing problem of why is it? I mean, are we
being ripped off? Is there price gouging by the oil companies? Oil
companies, I know, are those we love to hate. People think this market
does not work. The fact of the matter is, it is a highly competitive
market and it does work, as those imports of gasoline show. This is
evidence that that market is working. As the price goes up, the imports
of gasoline go up.
Let us deal with this question of profits. What this rather busy
chart shows is the spread between gasoline prices and the price of
crude oil, in this case west Texas intermediate, which is usually the
marker for the price of crude oil. The gasoline is the New York harbor
price of gasoline.
This shows the spread, starting in January 1989 through April 1996.
You will notice that there are ups and downs every year. There is a
higher spread starting in the spring and that always ameliorates every
single year as you get further, as the summer driving season is over
with. What this shows is that there is an increase in price level, an
increase in the spread in
[[Page S4824]]
April 1996 compared to March 1996. However, if you go back to Aprils--
go back to April 1995, the spread was even greater. The spread was less
in April 1994, slightly less in April 1993, but in April 1992 it was
more, and in April 1991 it was much more, in April 1990 it was much
more, and in April 1989 it was much more.
What does this tell us? It tells us that, if you look at the last 7
years, the spread between the cost of crude oil and the price of
gasoline is less now, on the average, than it has been in the past 7
years. It tells you that this is not an unusual spread compared to past
years. It also tells us that April is one of the very highest months
and that the spread comes down from April because of competitive
pressures.
I mention this because many people think--there have been these
charges without one shred of evidence, without a whisper of evidence to
support them--that there is a conspiracy to make that price go up. But
as you can well see, profit margins are less than the average they have
been in the last 7 years, even though slightly more than they were in
1994, but less than they were in 1995.
Any legislation such as an amendment I have heard that would say, in
effect, that it shall be unlawful for any person to fail to fully pass
through a price reduction--it would be completely impossible, as you
can see, to identify what the price reduction is, because every year
there is wild fluctuation between the price of crude oil and the price
of gasoline, the spread between those two prices. So if you say you
have to pass through this price reduction--compared to what? What is
your baseline? Is it the average of the last 7 years? Is it this
month's price the day on which you price it? Suppose you had a big
spread on the day on which this amendment passed; can you rely upon
that? Could you up your prices at the pump on that particular day and
thereby say, I am going to pass this on by giving you 4.3 cents less
than the highest level we have charged in the last 7 years?
I think any such amendment would be impossible to draw, impossible to
enforce, and a very improvident thing for this Congress to do.
It is always nice to be for a tax decrease. But at a time when we are
trying to bring this deficit down, to decrease taxes, whether they be
income taxes, whether they be taxes on beer or gasoline or anything
else, I believe the American public has sense enough to be able to see
through that kind of political pandering. That is all it is, to try to
pander to the American public and give them a little bread and
circuses.
I do not know what the polls show. I have heard that the polls show
that people like tax decreases, not surprisingly. But I believe that
any blip in polls caused by giving a small amount of decrease in price,
even if it was passed on--and who can possibly say whether it is passed
on or not? How can you identify a 4.3-cent decrease against the
background noise of swings, which are annual swings in the price? You
could not identify that.
So there is hardly anything that the driver in America can point to,
to thank the Congress for reducing his price, because you are not going
to be able to determine what that decrease is or, indeed, whether it is
passed along at all. But whatever that recompense, whatever that thanks
would be they would give would surely be short-lived because the
American public would understand that the deficit, about which we have
been preaching for 2 years solid, nonstop rhetoric about the deficit--
they would understand that that deficit is only to be higher because we
reduced taxes in an election year.
It is not a good thing to do. It is not good policy. Prices are lower
than they have been at almost any time in the last 50 years in real
terms in the United States. They are a third to a fourth what they are
in Europe. They ought to be higher, from the standpoint of
conservation. Whatever happened to conservation in this country? Don't
we care about that anymore? Do we want to encourage gas guzzlers? Do we
want to encourage bigger cars, more gas-guzzling cars? I guess so,
because that is the direction in which this goes.
It is not good policy, Mr. President. I hope we will not do it. If it
is done, it will not be with my vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, perhaps a brief review of what it is that
we are debating on the floor of the U.S. Senate might be in order at
this point for those who may be watching or listening. The bill before
us is to provide a modest degree of relief, the reimbursement of
attorney's fees and costs incurred by former employees of the White
House Travel Office who were fired at the beginning of the Clinton
administration and one of whom was unsuccessfully prosecuted. That bill
has passed the House of Representatives.
If the Senate were permitted to pass it, it would go to the President
and, I presume, be signed. It is not particularly controversial. But
the majority leader of the Senate has been unable to get consent from
the other side of the aisle simply to pass that bill and send it to the
President without conditions being imposed upon that consent.
So now this modest House resolution has had included with it a
reduction in the tax on motor vehicle fuel, the 4-plus-cents-a-gallon
tax that was imposed in 1993.
At the time at which it was imposed, at the time at which that tax
hike was passed, every Member on the Republican side of the aisle voted
against it. In some measure, that vote was simply a statement that we
did not feel that increased taxes was appropriate.
But there is another element in the opposition then and the desire to
repeal it now, which is equally important. That element is the fact
that for the first time in the history of the Congress and almost
without precedent in any of the 50 States of the United States, a motor
vehicle fuel tax was imposed to pay for various social and political
programs entirely unrelated to transportation. I think it is
appropriate to say that perhaps the least objectionable tax to most of
the people of the United States is a gas tax, a motor vehicle fuel tax,
when it is used to improve transportation, when it is used to maintain
or to build roads and highways or, for that matter, to improve mass
transit systems in our major metropolitan areas.
Lord knows that we have fallen far behind in that traffic
infrastructure. This gas tax increase in 1993, however, was not for
that purpose. That was not a part of the agenda at the beginning of the
Clinton administration. It was simply for the wide range of other
spending programs in which the then new President desired to
``invest,'' in his own words, to ``spend'' in ours. And so much of the
impetus for this reduction comes from the fact that that was a terrible
precedent to set.
The gasoline tax is not a general purpose tax, should never have been
used that way in the first place and should not be used that way now
and, therefore, ought to be repealed. If the President wishes to come
to the Congress with a proposal that would build our infrastructure by
the use of user fees, he would certainly get a more positive response
than he does when it is simply to disappear into the mass of hundreds
of other programs.
This view, that we ought to repeal this gas tax, is not partisan in
nature. There are, I think, at least a few Republicans who feel it to
be unwise. There are a significant number of Democrats who are quite
ready to vote for it, and the President has at least indicated that he
will sign and approve it. But, Mr. President, when the majority leader
asked that we deal with the gas tax repeal alone, he was denied that
right unless certain other unrelated demands on the part of the
Democratic Party were met.
So we cannot provide the relief for people wrongly fired in the White
House Travel Office; we cannot deal simply with a gas tax repeal which,
whether wise or not, is something the American people understand and
understand the debate about; no, we cannot do any of these things
unless, Mr. President, paradoxically we agree that we will, in fact,
have a vote on an increase in the minimum wage uncluttered by any
irrelevancies.
So it is do as I say, not as I do. Those on the other side of the
aisle demand the right for absolutely uncluttered votes on their agenda
but deny that right to the majority party.
Personally, I think an increase in the minimum wage undesirable for
the very people it is nominally designed to benefit. My inclination is
to believe
[[Page S4825]]
that it will cost a significant number of jobs, both among those who
lose their jobs, because their employers do not think that they really
produce this larger hourly wage, but even more significant, among those
who are attempting to work their way off welfare or are teenagers
coming into the job market who will not get jobs in the first place
because of a minimum wage that is too high.
It also seems to me that it is an extremely blunt instrument with
which to increase the obviously too low income of those Americans who
are the primary support for families and who are now on full-time
employment at the minimum wage, something like 3 percent of those who
are making the minimum wage at the present time.
But, I am perfectly willing to admit that there is an argument on the
other side of that question. Most middle-of-the-road economists think
that an increase in the minimum wage is neither a particularly good
idea nor a particularly bad idea; that it will not have all of the
harmful effects that some of its opponents state and clearly will not
have the positive effects that its proponents assert.
As a consequence, I think as a part of an overall look at the economy
of the country, it is perfectly appropriate that we vote on increasing
the minimum wage. But, Mr. President, I think it is perfectly
appropriate and far more logical that we vote on it at the same time
that we vote on something else which really will help the economy of
the United States, which will improve labor-management relations, which
will increase productivity and which will increase the number of jobs
that we have for people who are coming into the job market or seeking
to improve the position that they hold in it. But we are told that the
TEAM Act, which has actually been the subject of hearings in the Labor
Committee and approved by the Labor Committee, unlike a minimum wage
increase, is such a hard prospect that we will not be allowed to vote
on it by a minority that demands the right to vote clean on a minimum
wage increase.
Mr. President, that is simply an unsupportable position. If we are to
do something that clearly makes it more difficult for people who
provide jobs to provide them for those who are coming into the market,
we certainly at the same time are overwhelmingly justified in saying
that a practice that is now in place in some 30,000 places of
employment in the United States, the setting up of informal teams to
deal with questions of productivity and vacations and the incidental
frustrations that are a part of everyday life, should be validated as
against a decision of the courts not wanting that which says, ``No. You
can't do any of these things unless you have a union and engage in them
through collective bargaining.''
That is great for the people who lead labor unions. And there may
even have been the remotest justification for it in the 1930's. But in
the 1990's, and a more prosperous time, in a more competitive time, the
time at which the United States is very much in competition with the
rest of the world, and a time in which the ancient total antagonism
between management and labor is being increasingly succeeded by
cooperation, a system, a proposal which encourages that cooperation is
not only a good idea, it is a necessity.
So what we have before us right now is a refusal by filibuster,
however politely described, to allow a vote, to allow a majority to
determine whether or not we should have the passage of the TEAM Act,
very much needed in a growing economy, together with an increase in the
minimum wage, together with a reduction in the gas tax, and tend to
this horrid precedent that we use it for other than transportation
purposes, together with the relief of the victims of the White House
Travel Office.
Mr. President, that seems to me to be highly reasonable. If a
majority of the Members of the U.S. Senate do not like it, they can
certainly vote against it. Personally I think it is quite clear that a
majority of the Members of the Senate would vote for it. But the demand
that we can only deal with a minimum wage and that the minimum wage is
the only proposal to which this rule applies, without attaching
anything else to it, that it is so important, so pristine, that it must
go through without amendment, while everything else can be
filibustered, that is a demand that is as unreasonable as it is
unlikely to succeed.
So, Mr. President, my suggestion is that we go forward, we have a
debate on the merits, the shortcomings, of the TEAM Act, on the merits
and the shortcomings of a minimum wage increase, on the merits and
shortcomings of the gas tax increase, being the three elements in this
amendment, and then vote on the amendment and determine whether or not
we are for it, or alternatively, as the majority leader has suggested,
without acceptance, that we vote separately on those first two. And if
both are passed, they go out of this body together to the House of
Representatives. If one is passed, and one is defeated, the survivor
goes out as it is.
All kinds of alternatives have been offered to the minority party.
But it will accept only its own proposition for the way in which the
business of the Senate will be conducted. That is neither in the
interest of the Senate, Mr. President, or of the people of the United
States. Let us go forward and by the end of the afternoon vote on the
amendment that the majority leader has proposed for us, and get on to
other business.
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I fail to be persuaded by the argument of
my good friend from the State of Washington. I think that the point was
made very, very well by our leader that there were going to be some
amendments that would be offered to the gas tax. It would be directly
related to that issue to try and make sure that if there was going to
be a repeal, that actually it would go down to benefit the families
that would be going to the gas pumps. And that has effectively been
denied.
I know the majority leader said, ``Well, if there's an amendment that
makes some sense, we'll be glad to consider it.'' But this body is not
a traffic cop for just the majority leader or the minority leader or
any particular Member to say what a Senator can offer, outside of the
issues of cloture, to a particular measure. That is a rule of the
Senate. It might not be acceptable to some other Members, but that has
been the rule here for 200 years.
Effectively you are closing out the Senator from North Dakota, you
are closing out the Senator from Massachusetts, other members of the
Human Resources Committee, who offered other amendments to the TEAM Act
during the committee's consideration of the bill. All one has to do is
look over the debate that took place in the House of Representatives,
for example, and review that debate, and see that Congressman Sawyer,
for example, offered a substitute to try to address the kind of
questions about the particular language that some had raised to provide
some additional clarity about the effect of 8(a)(2). And that was very
thoughtfully debated over there.
I think the Sawyer amendment included a number of different measures
that I think the Senate would be interested in. It may very well help
work out a point of accommodation so that that legislation would pass
unanimously. But we are denied any opportunity to consider any such
possibility either today or tomorrow or after the period of cloture.
So with all respect, the right of Senators to offer amendments is
being cut off--and there might have even been Members who wanted to go
back to the original proposal on the minimum wage. That was 50 cents--
50 cents--50 cents over a period of 3 years, and also had an increase
in the cost of living, so that we would not have the situation where
workers would fall continuously behind. That is a directly related kind
of subject matter, probably worthy of debate, in trying to deal with
the fact that this program of the increase in the minimum wage it is
exceedingly modest. People are denied that opportunity as well and are
just foreclosed any opportunity to do anything other than speak. There
was not a desire to prolong the debate and discussion on any of these
measures, but we are denied the opportunity even to offer them.
So we will have a chance to vote whether the Senate is going to be
willing to be gagged or not gagged on the proposal that is now before
the Senate.
[[Page S4826]]
And all we have to do is look at the floor of the U.S. Senate right
now.
We invite all Americans to take a good look at the floor of the U.S.
Senate. There are three Members here. We are effectively being denied
the opportunity to address these issues that are going to affect
working conditions for workers, not only those that affect the 14.5
million that are part of a trade union, but the 110 million Americans
who are not union members, their interests, their wages, their hours,
their working conditions.
It just seems to me at a time when about 65 or 70 percent of the
American workers are falling further and further behind, it is
unfortunate that our Republican friends have made a pretty wholesale
assault on those conditions for workers by trying to fight the increase
in the minimum wage, fight the earned income tax credit, fight against
Davis-Bacon that provides an average of $27,000 for a construction
worker in this country, and other matters which we debated at other
times.
We are foreclosed from making any changes. They said you either have
to take it or leave it. I find it quite amusing to hear the leader talk
about, ``Well, we will have to go along with what the majority wants.''
The majority have indicated they favor the increase in the minimum
wage. He has the facts wrong. The majority of the Senators favor the
increase. When he says, ``Well, the majority is going to insist you
either take it our way or not,'' I do not think is a fair
representation of what the fact situation is. We are where we are, and
we will have to do the best we can. We will do so.
I want to take just a few moments to correct the record on
representations that were made in the last day or so and then speak
briefly with regard to the TEAM Act and respond to some of the points
that have been raised here. Then I will yield to others who want to
address the Senate. I see my friend and colleague and a member of our
Human Resource Committee, the Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon, on
the floor at this time. I was wondering if we might ask him--I know he
has been very involved and interested during the course of our hearings
on the TEAM Act, and also during the markup. I will ask him maybe a few
questions, if that is all right.
Mr. President, the Republicans say that an employer cannot talk to
his employees in a nonunion shop about things like smoking policies or
flextime schedules where employees work a 4-day week or whether to have
a pension plan or how to do the work safely; is that true?
Mr. SIMON. Absolutely not, I say to my colleague from Massachusetts.
That is hogwash. In a nonunion shop, the employer can talk to his
employees about anything. He can call them together as a group or talk
to them individually. Nothing in the law prevents a nonunion employer
from talking to his employees. In fact, section 8(c) of the National
Labor Relations Act specifically protects his right.
Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator.
As you know, this point was made yesterday about no smoking. There
were a whole series of issues that were brought out in one of the court
opinions, of which one was no smoking. But the rest of it dealt with a
variety of different workplace issues.
It is being used selectively in distorting and misrepresenting a
legal holding to suggest that this kind of communication is not
permitted at the present time. That is a gross distortion and a gross
misrepresentation.
It is interesting, our Republican friends must all be reading from
the same briefing sheet, because if you read through the debate in the
House of Representatives, you find exactly the same quotation. I would
have thought that perhaps Members of the Senate might have changed at
least a few words about it. I am glad to get the response of the
Senator.
Second, I mention that yesterday one of our colleagues said that the
law prohibits an employee from going to the employer to ask for a day
off to attend a child's award ceremony at school; is that true?
Mr. SIMON. Senator Kennedy, that is absolutely not true. When you
talk about distortions, you are absolutely correct. This thing has been
so distorted.
If this bill passes, we will have a huge imbalance. In a union shop,
the employees bargain with the employer to have personal leave days. In
a nonunion shop, under current law, any employee can bargain
individually or ask the employer as an individual for time off.
Mr. KENNEDY. Further, there were some suggestions yesterday that the
whole future of labor-management cooperation is threatened if what they
call the TEAM Act--I call it the antiworkplace democracy act myself--
but they say the whole future of labor-management cooperation is
threatened if this bill does not pass.
Now, does the Senator remember the testimony that we have had in
probably the last Congress by the head of OSHA, Mr. Dear, about actions
taken, for example, in the State of Washington, where employers and
employees worked effectively together to reduce hazards in the
workplace? As a direct result of that cooperation, we saw a 38-percent
reduction in workmen's compensation costs, and we see corresponding
increases in wages for workers. The associated industries from that
State praised that cooperation, which is already taking place, can take
place today without this legislation, that saved industry approximately
$1 billion over the period of the last 5 years.
Is the Senator aware of what is included in Senator Kassebaum's
findings, that we already have a multitude of these working
partnerships and relationships? Even in the Republican report that is
on everyone's desk here they acknowledge that they are taking place in
96 percent of the major corporations and over 75 percent of medium and
small companies. That seems to be working.
Mr. SIMON. Absolutely. This is taking place in thousands and
thousands of plants in your State, in my State, in every State here.
The law has permitted explosive growth in cooperative programs and
employee involvement plans.
The committee report claims that 75 percent, as you pointed out, of
all employers use employee involvement; 96 percent of large employers
do so. That has occurred without this so-called TEAM Act. I agree, it
is misnamed. The law has not changed one iota with respect to company
unions in 61 years. The TEAM Act is completely unnecessary.
Mr. KENNEDY. The reference was made yesterday by the majority leader
that this was necessary because of the NLRB holding in 1992, the
Electromation case in 1992, which allegedly changed the law and
allegedly prohibits teams and committees and quality circles. I know
the Senator is familiar with that case because it was a subject of a
good deal of discussion in our committee hearing.
It is always interesting that even after this case, as the Senator
knows, we had testimony before the Dunlop Commission by the various
groups that are pounding on the door. It is so interesting to listen to
those who are complaining about those who present workers' rights and
who complain about the money that is being spent presenting workers'
rights.
Maybe we should talk about the various companies and corporations
that are supporting this legislation and what they have contributed to
various candidates. Evidently that is the way you have to get along in
these times to try to impugn those who might have some benefit in here.
I guess that is what we are sinking to. We have not done that. I would
just as soon avoid it. But it is worth noting that many of those who
are going to benefit from this bill are companies and corporations that
have made sizable contributions, I daresay, not to Democrats but to
Republicans.
Let me ask the Senator, is the Senator not interested that this
legislation that purportedly is going to protect workers is being
driven not by workers themselves that want that protection, but by the
companies that are going to establish these company-owned, effectively
company-run unions.
Mr. SIMON. The Senator is absolutely correct. One of the things that
is wrong in our society today and wrong in this body is those who are
heavy contributors have an inordinate access and inordinate power. We
have to struggle to get millions of people who are getting the minimum
wage--they are not big contributors; 41 million Americans do not have
health care, and
[[Page S4827]]
they are not big contributors. But a few, a very few employers would be
affected here; they are contributing.
It is interesting, you mention the Electromation case. A unanimous
Labor Relation Board made up of Republican appointees held that the
Electromation case was a typical garden variety case of a company
union. It held that no new principles were involved in finding the
company union unlawful. The court of appeals again unanimously found
that the case had nothing to do with quality circles or productivity
teams. The case was about an employer who was trying to control
disgruntled employees by imposing on them a representative that they
did not ask for or choose.
I would add, when you mentioned the Dunlop Commission headed by
former Secretary of Labor John Dunlop, he was the Secretary of Labor
under a Republican administration. He says this kind of thing does not
make any sense.
Mr. KENNEDY. I think you noted that all of the members of the
National Labor Relations Board that made that unanimous judgment in the
Electromation case had all been appointed by Republican Presidents.
Mr. SIMON. That is correct.
Mr. KENNEDY. I suppose that the reason for that is the one that is
outlined in our own report. It says, on page 27 at the top:
No good purpose is served by allowing the employer to
choose and dominate the employees' representative.
Cooperation is not truly furthered because the employer is
not really dealing with the employees if he is dealing with
his own hand-picked representative. An employer does not need
the pretense of a team or committee if he only wants to
cooperate with himself.
Does the Senator think that sort of captures exactly what this piece
of legislation is about?
Mr. SIMON. I think that is well stated. It is a good summary of what
this is all about.
Mr. KENNEDY. Now, some claim that under the NLRB rule, management may
not include nonmanagement employees in the decisionmaking process, is
that true?
Mr. SIMON. That is not the case. Ever since the General Foods case in
1977, it has been clear that employees can be given decisionmaking
authority without violating section 8(a)(2). If management wants to set
up work teams and allow them to schedule their own hours, investigate
plant safety, or redesign job procedures, the law permits it.
Mr. KENNEDY. Now----
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, is parliamentary procedure being observed
here?
Mr. KENNEDY. The regular order is that the Senator from Massachusetts
has the floor and is recognized. That is the regular order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. And the Senator is so advised
that he may yield for a question.
Mr. KENNEDY. I would be glad to yield----
Mr. McCAIN. You would think that after some years the Senator from
Massachusetts would observe the regular procedure on the floor of the
Senate.
Mr. KENNEDY. Well, the Senator is doing that. Regular order, Mr.
President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has the floor.
Mr. KENNEDY. It might not be pleasing to the Senator from Arizona,
but that is the rule and that is the regular order.
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, if I may ask the Senator from Massachusetts
a question. We talked about the fact that quality teams are legal, as
long as they do not strain the questions concerning wages, hours, terms
and conditions of employment. But what if they do, or what if an
employer wants to appoint a safety team to figure out why so many
employees had back injuries, for example? Can the employer do that?
Mr. KENNEDY. Very definitely. As the Senator knows, management has
the right to direct employees to do the job it wants done, whether the
job is driving a truck or figuring out the best pension plan.
Management can direct employees working as a team to solve safety
problems or production problems. What it cannot do is to appoint
employees to a safety committee that is supposed to represent the views
of other employees--other employees--about what pension benefits they
want, or what safety issues concern them. Management can find out what
the employees think by asking them, but it cannot establish an employee
organization, choose its membership and deal with the organization as
if it were the representative of the employees.
I think the Senator would understand the logic of that position and
the reason for it.
Mr. SIMON. Finally, the Republicans have said in their official
position that it is illegal for an employer to provide paper and
pencils or a place to meet for a team or a committee; is that true?
Mr. KENNEDY. No. That is completely untrue. I just ask those that are
coming up with those speeches to read the debate over in the House of
Representatives, where the same examples are being used. These are pat
and standard, evidently, speeches being handed out and used by our
colleagues here, because the same language is included in the House
debate. I do not know whether it would be worthwhile to include the
debate that took place over in the House. But I urge my colleagues to
read it because I think it is incisive as to what this whole issue is
really about.
I thank the Senator very much for those interrogatories. I will just
speak briefly about this legislation that is before us.
As I mentioned earlier, my good friend and highly regarded
chairperson of our committee, Senator Kassebaum, indicated that the
principal reason for this legislation was some ambiguity in terms of
the language of certain holdings. I find myself at odds with that
understanding and, if that is the difficulty, it is certainly not
reflected in the number of cases that are being brought to the NLRB. If
you look at the period of last year, and the year before, you are
talking about a handful of cases. It is not of such an urgency because
even if there is a finding that there is some misunderstanding about
what a company can or cannot do, there are no penalties. There are
problems out there in terms of protecting workers and workers' rights.
But, quite frankly, this does not appear to be one of them.
As I mentioned earlier, it is interesting to me that those who are
pushing this particular proposal--you can go back and examine the
testimony before the Dunlop Commission, in 1993, made up of a
bipartisan group of labor relation experts in business and academia.
They conducted an intensive study of labor-management cooperation and
employee participation. And the committee held 21 public hearings, and
had testimony from 411 witnesses, and received and reviewed numerous
reports and studies. The commission made one recommendation that is of
particular relevance. This is the recommendation: ``The law should
continue to make it illegal to set up or operate company-dominated
forms of employee representation.''
That is one of the strong recommendations, and that runs completely
contrary to the antiworkplace democracy act.
It is for very sound reasons, Mr. President. It makes no sense for a
company and a CEO to pretend to represent workers when that individual
has bought that representation lock, stock, and barrel, with the
paycheck. It is a disservice to those employees to appoint a worker and
to say, ``Well, that worker is going to represent all of you in the
workplace, and I am paying him. I have the ability to dismiss him, and
I have the ability to fire him tomorrow. I have the ability to tell him
when they are going to have a meeting and what the agenda is going to
be.''
That is what this legislation effectively does. It says that an
employer can name anyone they want to be the representative of workers,
and that individual is going to be paid by the employer, who can fire
them the moment that person makes a recommendation or a suggestion that
is at odds with the employer or the CEO, and they will set the agenda
for that worker and tell them what the nature of the debate is going to
be, and tell them who that worker will recognize in any debate, and
effectively control that person.
Now, if you call that representing employees, Mr. President, I do
not. That does not represent the employees. That is what this
legislation is about. It is not about just issues of cooperation.
As I mentioned just yesterday, in the legislation, S. 295, the bill
introduced
[[Page S4828]]
by Senator Kassebaum, on page 2, it says:
Employee involvement structures, which operate successfully
in both unionized and non-unionized settings, have been
established by over 80 percent of the largest employers of
the United States and exist in an estimated 30,000
workplaces.
That is good. It is happening. That is taking place today. The report
itself recognizes it.
On page 99, the report talks about the commission on the future of
worker-management relations. The survey found that 75 percent of
responding employers, large and small, incorporate some means of
employee involvement in their operation, meaning that larger employers,
those with 5,000 or more employees, the percentage was even higher--96
percent. It is estimated that as many as 30,000 employers currently
employ some form of employee involvement or participation. Amen. That
is the way to go. We urge that. It is taking place.
We looked at the provisions. If there is some question about that, we
looked at the various provisions to understand what is included and
permitted and what would be prohibited. Basically, we are talking about
encouraging people and company employee teams to work on everything
other than the wages and the hours and the exact working conditions.
There has been a point in talking about, Well, what about certain types
of working conditions? I had hoped at least to be able to address that
issue and work with our Republican colleagues to clarify that. I think
those measures have been clarified in the proposal that was advanced in
the House of Representatives when it talked about three different
committees that would be set up and how they would be set up to address
any possible question about what is permitted and what is not
permitted. But that was summarily dismissed in the House of
Representatives, which gives you a pretty good idea about what is
underlying this bill.
As a matter of fact, in the House of Representatives, they even
excluded these kinds of activities in the House version--excluded the
companies' employees who already had voted for representation. That was
the Petri amendment to H.R. 743. We have not done so in this
legislation.
Mr. President, I want to just take a few moments to talk about why
this concept is, I think, a dangerous one for working families, those
families that are represented by the 120 million Americans who are in
the workplace virtually every single day, not just the 13.5 million who
are members of the trade union movement, but all working Americans. We
know--and we have examined here on the floor very considerably--what
has happened to the American work force from 1947 to 1970. All
Americans had moved up with the expansion of the economy. All had moved
up.
What we have seen since 1972 to 1992 is that more than 60 percent of
Americans have actually fallen further and further behind. It is close
to about 75 percent. Many of us believe that is a major issue and
challenge for us as a society.
It boils down to one basic question. Are we going to have an economy
in the United States of America that is only going to benefit the
richest and the most powerful individuals in our country and society,
or are we going to have an economy in which all Americans participate
in a growing economy?
I believe that was really the concept that was supported by
Republicans and Democrats for years, and years, and years. It is now
being undermined by these assaults on working families. We saw it in
the early part of this Congress when one of the first actions of our
Republican friends was to try to eliminate the Davis-Bacon Act. The
Davis-Bacon Act provides a prevailing wage for workers who work in a
particular geographical area. It works out effectively to about $27,000
a year for working families that work in construction.
I do not know what it is about our Republican friends that they feel
that one of the major problems in this country is to try to undermine
workers that are working for $27,000 a year. There are a lot of
problems that we have in our society, but that does not seem to me to
be uppermost, and it should be uppermost in the minds of the Members of
the Senate. But that was there.
Then, second, we have gone along a few weeks. We saw the assault on
the earned-income tax credit. That is important as we are talking about
the increase in the minimum wage because the earned-income tax credit
helps those workers that are on the bottom rung of the economic ladder
and who have children, and it goes on up to $25,000, $26,000, and
$27,000. Sure enough. We saw that the one part of the Republic budget
that was before the Senate was not only to provide $270 billion in tax
cuts for the wealthy individuals but to cut back on that help and
support for working families that have children. It was about the same
time that Republican opposition came about in terms of opposition to
the increase in the minimum wage; about the same time.
What is it about--$27,000 for construction workers and $23,000 for
working families with children--the opposition to the increase in the
minimum wage that helps working families if they are by themselves, or
just a couple? Families are aided more by the earned-income tax credit
if they have several members in their families and working in that
particular area. But we have the cutbacks in the earned-income tax
credit and the opposition in terms of the increase in the minimum wage.
Then we came out on the floor of the U.S. Senate on that budget which
provided corporate raiders the opportunity to invade pension funds. We
had a vote here of 94 to 5 to close that out. That went over to
conference with the House of Representatives, and the doors had not
even closed, and the action that was taken overwhelmingly by the Senate
was effectively eliminated.
We should not have been so surprised at that because when we tried to
close the billionaires' tax cut that provides billions and billions of
dollars to a handful of Americans who make it in the United States and
then renounce their citizenship--the Benedict Arnold provisions--and
take up citizenship overseas to escape paying their taxes here, we
repealed that two different times, and we could not kill it. We went
over in the conference, and it kept coming back. There just was not a
tax break out there for powerful interests that the majority was not
prepared to support.
Here they go again looking after the company heads, those heads of
companies that want to set up phony unions and exploit the workers.
That is what this is all about. It was virtually unanimously rejected
by the Dunlop Commission, a Republican, former distinguished Secretary
of Labor, a balanced commission of Republicans and Democrats,
representatives of employees and employers. They rejected that concept
of going in this nefarious direction. We have got it back now.
I talked earlier today about how Republicans cheered with the
emergence of solidarity in Poland in opposition to effectively have
company-run unions and company-structured benefits and wages in all
workplaces in Poland and, for that matter, for all of Eastern Europe.
The reason Republicans--President Bush, Republicans all over--hailed
Lech Walesa and those brave shipyard workers--many of us have had a
chance to visit that shipyard, and we have seen the memorial outside
where those shipyard workers had faced down the military that shot many
of them in cold blood as they were demonstrating for their own economic
rights. We cheered them on and we supported them. Why? Not because they
had a government-run union or controlled company union, but because
power was going to the people and they were representing themselves and
working for democracy and fighting tyranny.
Now we are going just in the opposite direction here. We are falling
over ourselves with time limits and no effective debate on this issue,
which I call the antiworkplace democracy act.
Mr. President, it will undermine that kind of effective empowerment
which permits workers to be able to sit across the table and to be able
to represent their own interests and to be able to try to work out a
process by which their sweat and their work will be respected instead
of being dictated to as was the case before the National Labor
Relations Act.
So, Mr. President, this issue that is before us today is basically
about workplace democracy. It is about whether workers should have the
right to choose their own representatives
[[Page S4829]]
and not have them dictated by the company, or the Government. This is
not a new issue for our country or the world. This very issue was
fought out in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union over many years. When
the Communist Party controlled the governments in those countries, they
established sham unions which were completely dominated by the
government instead of being freely elected by the workers. In effect,
these sham unions were the means by which the Communist Party
subjugated workers throughout these countries, suppressing their wages
and living conditions.
The effect of the company-run unions is to suppress the wages and
working conditions and living standards. As we know, Lech Walesa
finally stood up and challenged the antidemocratic system when he
jumped over the wall at the shipyard in Gdansk and led workers out on
strike. The central issue was workplace democracy.
This legislation, this antidemocracy piece of legislation, is not
about empowering workers and workers' rights; it is about empowering
companies and management rights. That is what it is about. That is what
we are basically talking about. It is not just a little bill to talk
about cooperation. We have already addressed that issue. We have
cooperation. It is important. We support it. That is not what this is
about. That is not what this bill is about.
Now, thanks to the courageous actions of Lech Walesa and thousands of
Polish workers, they finally prevailed in their struggle for workplace
democracy, and the strike at Gdansk not only led to solidarity of the
free and independent Polish trade union but also led ultimately to the
collapse of communism.
When Lech Walesa visited the United States, he was widely honored and
acclaimed by Republicans and Democrats for his courageous struggle on
behalf of workers' rights and democracy.
Mr. President, I submit that American workers are entitled to the
same fundamental rights as the Polish workers and workers throughout
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. If we believe that workers should
have the right to choose their own representatives in these countries,
then we should also be committed to the principle that American workers
should also be guaranteed this same right. If it is wrong for the
government-run companies in Poland and other Communist countries to
dictate who would serve as the representatives of their workers, then
surely it is wrong for companies in this country to dictate who will
serve as representatives of American workers.
I do not understand why that concept should be so difficult to
understand. We cannot shower Lech Walesa with praise and honors for his
leadership in the fight for workplace democracy and then try to deny
democratic rights to American workers. That is what the fight over S.
295 is all about. That is why this bill should be known as the
antiworkplace democracy act, because that is what it is designed to do.
It is designed to undermine the rights of workers to democratically
elect their own representatives who can sit down as equals with the
employer to discuss wages, hours and other terms and conditions of
employment. It is designed to allow employers to establish sham,
company-dominated committees which can be controlled and manipulated by
management as a means of suppressing legitimate worker aspirations. And
it is no secret why big business is pushing the antiworkplace democracy
act.
Just as the Communist-dominated unions in Poland and the Soviet Union
were an instrument for suppressing workers' wages and benefits, the
sham company-dominated unions which would be legalized under S. 295
would be used as a mechanism for holding down wages and benefits of
American workers, just at a time when I thought we were beginning to
understand the importance of addressing this fundamental development in
our economy that working families are being left further behind in the
last 10 to 12 years, and we ought to be trying to find ways of working
together to try and see that they are going to participate in the
economic growth and expansion of our society rather than freeze them
out.
If workers are denied the right to have their own independent
representatives, clearly it becomes much easier for the employers to
say no to their demands for better wages, better health care, better
pensions, and better and safer work conditions. For as long as
employees are precluded from having their own independent,
democratically elected representatives, then it becomes very difficult
for workers to improve their standard of living and conditions of work.
Thus, the current effort by our Republican friends to pass S. 295 is
simply another example of GOP attacks on workers' rights and the
standard of living of working men and women.
The Republican leader continues to block the efforts to pass a modest
increase in the minimum wage which would help provide a living wage to
millions of low-income working families at the same time their leaders
are pushing S. 295 in an effort to give big business another weapon for
suppressing the wages of millions of workers throughout this country.
It is time to call a halt to these attacks on American workers. It is
time to stand up for democracy in the workplace and the right of
workers to choose their own representatives, not have them be dictated
by the company or the Government. It is time to stand up for the rights
of workers for better wages, better benefits, and better conditions of
employment--in short, the right of workers to freely and democratically
improve their standard of living.
Mr. President, we will have an opportunity, I imagine, to address the
Senate further on this issue. I see others of my colleagues wish to
address the Senate, and I will return to this subject at the
appropriate time.
Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I have listened intently to the impassioned pleas of my
good friend from Massachusetts, with whom I have served either across
the bodies here in the House and Senate or across the aisle in the
Senate for 22 years now. He is articulate. He believes strongly in his
issues.
I would like to, however, try to get us back to the issues as I see
them and as I believe they are before us in this body. Few of my
colleagues in the Senate support all three of the measures that are
before us today. I am one of those. I support repeal of the gas tax
because it does not go where it ought to go--into infrastructure
repairs which would benefit the users. I support increasing the minimum
wage because I believe it is due time that it be increased to reflect
the reality of the wages and cost of living in our country. And I am an
original cosponsor and a strong supporter of the TEAM Act because I
believe we are here talking about not the issues which have been raised
by my good friend from Massachusetts but, rather, about improving
productivity and working together to straighten out some provisions of
the law which have created havoc with respect to businesses working in
a friendly relationship with employees in order to improve
productivity.
That is the issue which we have before us. It is a volatile issue
because the unions sense that this will somehow inhibit them from being
able to organize and represent workers. However, they are wrong. The
bill does not apply if there is a union present.
We have also in the act before us, S. 295, specifically stated that
it will not interfere with union operations or interfere with the
desires of a union.
Let me just read those words, and then I will be happy to yield to
the Senator from Arizona.
What we do is we modify the provision of the law which does define
these matters, and we add these words. First of all, we do not change
in any way section 8(a)(5), which defines the employer obligation to
bargain collectively with the union that is the certified
representative of the employees. We do change section 8(a)(2) because
of the ambiguities inherent in the act. There are some 70 cases now
which have tried to define the line as to whether or not discussions by
employer-employee work teams or other cooperative groups are infringing
upon workers' rights to only be represented by a union. But there is no
clarity on this issue.
We add these words. They can discuss matters of mutual interest,
including issues of quality, productivity and efficiency, and then it
adds:
And which does not have, claim or seek authority to
negotiate or enter into collective
[[Page S4830]]
bargaining agreements under this act with the employer or to
amend existing collective bargaining agreements between the
employer and any labor organization.
That just clarifies it. What you have now is they say, well, why
bother, because you have thousands and thousands of these teams out
there, but every one of them, if you take a look at those 70 cases
which cut one way or another, what you have is 70 areas of confusion,
leaving employers in a position to have an action brought before the
National Labor Relations Board where they can get a cease-and-desist
order and demolish the team, they can be fined. So this is just an
attempt to make sure that what ought to be done can be done and there
should be no disagreement about it.
I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. JEFFORDS. For a question.
Mr. McCAIN. I wish to ask a question of Senator Jeffords.
I ask my colleague and the Chair if I was appropriate in demanding
regular order as an aggrieved Senator when the Senator from
Massachusetts and the Senator from Illinois were in a colloquy which
was not within the rights of the Senate. I would ask the Chair if I was
within my rights in calling for regular order at that time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may call for the regular order.
Mr. McCAIN. At any time, whether I happen to have the floor or not?
If I saw a violation of the rules of the Senate, I was within my rights
as a Senator to call for regular order; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By the rules of the Senate, you are correct.
Mr. McCAIN. It is very unfortunate, I say to my friend from Vermont,
the Senator from Massachusetts continues to violate the rules of the
Senate and then--he has been here for more than a few years--and then
rides roughshod over a legitimate objection made by a colleague. You
know, it has characterized, I am sorry to say, my exchanges with the
Senator from Massachusetts. I want to let it be on the Record that when
I see the Senator from Massachusetts violating the rules of the Senate,
I will act within my rights, and I hope the Chair, rather than what
happened, his yelling for regular order, that the Chair will intervene,
because I was fully within my rights as a Senator to intervene when the
rules of the Senate were being violated.
It is very unfortunate, and it does not help the comity around here,
when the Senator from Massachusetts deliberately violates the rules of
the Senate and then, when called that those rules are being violated,
continues to just act in a bellicose fashion.
I think he owes the Senate and me an apology.
Mr. President, very briefly, the Democratic leader came to the floor
of the Senate and, in response to a request for a unanimous consent--a
request by the majority leader--he then asked that campaign finance
reform be added. When the majority leader refused, the Democratic
leader, Senator Daschle, then objected to the proposed unanimous-
consent agreement.
I know it is getting very politicized around here. I know things are
getting rather tense. I understand the tactics that are being employed
by the minority. I understand them, and I do not disrespect those
tactics.
But when the Senator from South Dakota, the Democratic leader, comes
to this floor and talks about campaign finance reform and politicizes
that issue, when I have been working with the Senator from Wisconsin
and others on a bipartisan basis, and attempts to use it for political
gain, then I have to come to this floor and take strong exception to
this crass politicization of this issue which for 10 years was blocked,
was blocked because it was politicized.
The Senator from South Dakota is not a cosponsor of the bill. He has
announced that he is opposed to certain portions of the bill. Yet, he
has the chutzpah to come to the floor of the Senate and call for the
inclusion of campaign finance reform being included in a unanimous-
consent agreement.
I have been working with the majority leader and I have been working
with my friends on the other side of the aisle, trying to work out an
agreement where we can bring this issue up, where we can debate it and
dispose of it one way or another. If the Senator from South Dakota
wants to politicize this issue, then that is fine. But what he will do
is politicize this issue, and then we will make no progress.
I remind my colleagues, for the first time in 10 years we have a
bipartisan bill, and we have to move forward in a bipartisan fashion.
The distinguished majority leader has expressed his willingness to try
to work out some kind of accommodation. But if the Democratic leader
comes to this floor and politicizes this issue, then we will make no
progress. Again, the American people will be deeply disappointed. I
hope--I hope--the Senator from South Dakota will let us work through
this, bring it up this month and have this issue disposed of one way or
another.
Again, I express my deep disappointment that the Senator from South
Dakota should stoop to politicizing this issue in that fashion.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The Senator from Vermont has the
floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Could I ask my colleague, and this is asking for a
courtesy, that I might have a moment? It will not be acrimonious at
all.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield for a question only. I am trying to get back on
the discussion.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Just in the form of a question, I guess. The Senator
yielded for a question from the Senator from Arizona; is that correct?
It sounded like----
Mr. JEFFORDS. If you have a question for me, I will be happy to yield
to you for the question.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I do. I will be brief. I am sorry to put it this way
but it is a question, in the form of a question, but it is a point. In
the spirit of honesty, I just wonder whether the Senator from Vermont
knows--whether or not the Senator from Vermont knows that, as much
respect as I have for the Senator from Arizona, and I love working with
him on issues, that I believe that this morning--I could be wrong, we
can look at the record, but I was here out on the floor--I wonder
whether the Senator from Vermont knows that when the minority leader
came out, he was just simply saying that, if we keep putting together
all these different kinds of pieces of legislation, what will be the
final combination? He then went on to say, we could have campaign
finance reform, we could have foreign policy, we could have something
dealing with arms agreements.
I do not think it was an announcement that in fact the minority
leader intended to put the campaign finance reform bill, the bill so
many of us have worked on, as an amendment on this.
I wonder whether the Senator understands that? That is a
clarification.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I am not clear as to what all the discussion was on the
floor at that time, so I will have to let the record speak for itself
in that regard.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Senator for yielding to me.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I think we ought to get back to the
extremely important issue which is before us today, and that is the
TEAM Act.
I am a cosponsor of the TEAM Act because I believe that cooperation
between employers and employees is the wave of the future, and it
should have been the wave of the past.
We went into it at length yesterday, in discussing what happened some
40 years ago when the issues were how management and labor can get
together and go into the future in order to work hand in hand to
improve productivity. The problem was we did not change the then so-
called Taylor policy of real confrontation and arm's-length
negotiations between the workers and management.
Our competitors--and this is the issue of the day--on the other hand,
in Europe and in Asia, said, ``Great idea over in America. You have a
great idea.'' Briefly, I would say, there was a U.S. company that did
the same thing, the Donnelly Corp. If you want to read a record of the
difficulties they have had over the years, trying to defend what is
entirely within the TEAM Act's perspective and would be allowable
matters for them to get together
[[Page S4831]]
and improve productivity, you will understand why we are here today--to
get rid of the ambiguities, to make it crisp and clear that, if a
company works with employees on productivity, as long as they do not
get into matters of collective bargaining, et cetera, it is perfectly
allowable. But right now there are thousands of teams that are out
there that are in jeopardy of being brought to the NLRB and then being
given an order to get rid of the team they are working with, and they
could be fined.
So that is where we are. I want to make sure we understand that. Over
30,000 companies use employee involvement programs. The TEAM Act
addresses the concern that the National Labor Relations Board, the
NLRB, will discourage future efforts at labor-management cooperation.
Specifically in the Electromation decision, the NLRB held that the
employer-employee action committees that involved workers meeting with
management to discuss attendance problems, no-smoking rules, and
compensation issues constituted unlawful company-dominated unions.
Congress enacted section 8(a)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act
forbidding employer domination of labor organizations to eliminate the
sham unions of the early 1930's. No one disagrees with that. The TEAM
Act is a direct recognition that the world of work has changed since
the 1930's. In that era, many American businesses believed that success
could be achieved without involving workers' minds along with their
bodies. In those days, with the kind of work that was there, that is
probably true. But today, recognition is widespread among business
executives that employee involvement from the shop floor to the
executive suite is the best way to succeed.
The employee involvement efforts protected by the TEAM Act are not
intended to replace existing or potential unions. In fact, the language
of the bill that I read earlier specifically prohibits this result. The
legislation allows employers and employees to meet together to address
issues of mutual concern, including issues related to quality,
productivity and efficiency.
However, those efforts are limited by language that prohibits the
committees or other joint programs from engaging in collective
bargaining or holding themselves out as being empowered to negotiate or
modify collective bargaining agreements. That is all it does.
Mr. President, the essence of the matter is that the definition of
labor organization under the NLRA is so broad that whenever employers
and employees get together to discuss such issues, that act arguably
creates a labor organization. In that situation, the existing language,
section 8(a)(2) comes into play. The question becomes whether the
employer has done anything to dominate or support that labor
organization. Such domination and support can be as little as providing
meeting rooms or pencils and paper for the discussions. This is simply
too fine a line to ask employers to walk successfully.
We want to clear that line up to make it absolutely clear that things
everyone would agree are sensible, logical and appropriate can go
forward without having the NLRB stop in and say, ``No.''
Earlier, I heard Senator Kennedy state that upward of 80 percent of
American companies are engaging in some form of teamwork or other
cooperative workplace programs. Fine. His conclusion is that all this
activity is going on out there now without a change in the law, so
there is no need to change the law.
What that argument misses is the fact, as I have said, that much of
this activity is a technical violation of existing law. While these
programs may be doing wonders for the productivity of the company where
they are employed, any one of them is no more than a phone call away
from running afoul of the NLRA.
What we have to remember is that the NLRA is very specific in all of
the decisions, some 70 of them, where all these kinds of borderline
cooperative activities are illegal and the defense of an employer is
very fragile.
It is no defense to an unfair labor practice charge that the program
is working, that working conditions and productivity have improved and
the company's bottom line has risen. None of this matters if it is a
technical violation of the antiquated rule. The NLRB will shut down the
team, fine the company and force it to sign papers swearing it will
never do it again. The TEAM Act will prevent continuation of these
absurd results so detrimental to the national interest.
I recently was visited by a workplace team from my own State of
Vermont. I am certain that many of my colleagues in the Senate have had
similar visits, since there are successful teams operating all over the
country. The workers who visited me were from IBM, the computer-
chipmaking facility in Burlington, VT. The more traditional top-down
management style still prevails on most shifts and in most departments
at their plant. However, on the night shift at this plant, the workers
decided about 3 years ago to try a cooperative work team. They chose
the name Wenoti, meaning ``We, Not I.'' In other words, the workers and
the company would work together toward common goals. Wenoti was their
group. That name is a combination, as I said, of the words ``We, Not
I'' to symbolize their focus on what is good for all and not just one.
When the team representatives came to my office a few months ago,
they were as proud a group of employees as I have ever met. The Wenoti
team consistently leads the plant in all productivity and quality-
control measures. Moreover, they told me that their job satisfaction
has risen directly in relation to their ability to contribute
meaningfully to the successful completion of their job. That is what
this is all about. For God's sake, what is wrong with it? How can
anybody argue that fostering this progress is not good for the country?
IBM is a profitmaking organization. It is not promoting employee
involvement solely out of altruism. Rather, IBM has come to the
realization that employee involvement is vital to the company's bottom
line. Doing so has the added dividend of giving employees a greater
stake and greater satisfaction with their jobs.
Time and again you hear employees praise companies that do not ask
them to check their brains at the door. So if affected employers and
employees support this legislative effort, what is the problem? It
comes as no great surprise that organized labor takes a dim view of it.
Oddly enough, to do so, it must take a dim view of American workers as
well.
Organized labor's arguments are based on the assumption that workers
are not smart enough to know the difference between a sham union and a
genuine effort to involve them in a cooperative effort to improve the
product, productivity and their working environment. I think workers
are smart, and I think that is exactly why employers are trying to
harness their brains in the workplace as well as their backs.
The real problem for unions is that under current law, they have a
monopoly on employee involvement. Like the AT&T or the Vermont
Republican Party of old, nobody likes to lose their monopoly. But
consumers or voters or workers profit from choices and competition, not
from static responses to a changing environment. This is clearly the
trend of the future.
Yesterday, I spent some time before my colleagues going back into the
history and pointing out that I thought it was ironic--if you can just
get the unions to sit down and look at what has happened in the last 40
years--that it was back 40 years ago when the leaders in academia and
others who had studied business and were looking toward the future and
wondered what could be done to ensure that we improve productivity in
this Nation. They came up with concepts that said if we could get
workers and business to work together so that there is productivity and
then profit, and then that profit can be split, everybody gains,
everybody benefits.
All sorts of suggestions were made. I went through them yesterday.
What about dividends to the employees in terms of stock profit-sharing
or stock options or even going so far as to put a member of the union
or the workers' representative on the board of directors?
What happened in this country? Little or nothing. A few companies
like Donnelly, which I mentioned before, took it to heart and were very
successful, but the majority of ours did not.
[[Page S4832]]
What happened overseas? The Japanese, the Germans, and others looked
at these and said, ``Hey, good idea.'' The ironic part is, their
unions, having adopted that philosophy, are now stronger and much more
dominant in their industries than ours are. So why would the unions in
this country want to continue to do what created, in my mind, their
failures? And that is, not to recognize that much more gets done by
working with management with an eye toward improving productivity.
Mr. President, if you really want to understand better what is going
on, Hedrick Smith, who I am sure many of my colleagues know, is a
Pulitzer Prize winner and author of ``The Power Game'' and ``The
Russians,'' wrote a tremendous book. It is ``Rethinking America: A New
Game Plan for American Innovators, School, Business People and Work.''
It really outlines the serious problems we have in this Nation. It
outlines those problems which are giving us trouble now. On education,
Hedrick, as he traveled all over the world going to education centers,
going to schools and examining what is going on in Japan and what is
going on in Europe and what is going on in this country, finds that we
have been placed way back in our ability to compete in our educational
system.
I will not dwell on it today. I dwelled on it before. That is a very
critical part. What they learned is, you have to start cooperation of
people in the schools. In Japan, for instance, they learn right from
day one that everyone works together. In the grade schools, everybody
works to make sure everybody reads, right on through.
Then they also realized--this is true in Europe also--that the time
for business to get involved, the time for business to get involved in
education, is not after a kid graduates from high school, but, rather,
when they are in high school or middle school. So they designed
programs for skill training where businesses come in and they are held
just to dramatize how the different systems are.
In this country, our businesses spend $200 billion a year--$200
billion a year--in the training and retraining of the kids that
graduate from high school in our work force. The Europeans --and that
is just Europeans--spend the same amount of money, $200 billion. You
know where they spend it? In high school and middle school, so when the
kids graduate from high school they are already a trained work force.
Our schools have failed to recognize the importance of that. We have
to change that. We are beginning to change that. I was in Mississippi
this past weekend, and the area has had a very difficult time with
their education. But they have learned from it. They are now
revitalizing their schools and their whole vocational-educational
programs to model them after what is going on in Europe and Japan. The
rest of the country has to do the same thing.
Hedrick Smith spent a lot of time putting this together. He went,
articulately, through and documents exactly what happens. But for
relevance today, he goes through what happened in the businesses in
Europe and the businesses in Asia after the 1950's when our academia
and some business leaders recognized that the wave of the future, due
to all the technology changes and all, was to make sure we had a
qualified work force that was available and ready to work but, most
important, that when they were working, with all the kinds of
technology changes and the complications of the industrial structures
now, that the workers are the best ones to know when the quality is
going down or what to do to improve the quality of your goods and
services. So they worked with them. And, lo and behold, we had to learn
that.
There are wonderful stories about how Motorola got involved in
understanding this and how they went through and realized that if they
did not improve the skills of their workers and did not work together
and get them to help them out, they could not compete in Japan. So they
changed their whole operation, and they were able to keep jobs here
instead of losing them.
Senator Kennedy talked about--maybe it was the minority leader--about
the huge expansion of the profits in our corporations, but if you
examine those profits, you will find that most of those profits are
coming from overseas ventures. We should be keeping those ventures
here. But we cannot do that if we do not improve our education but
also, as importantly, if we do not have the TEAM Act to allow the
workers to work with the employers, to improve productivity, to
understand what is going on on the assembly line, to correct the
problems which are creating goods that are not saleable before they
become that. That is the lesson that we have to learn in this country.
It is productivity that is the issue here. Is this Nation going to be
as productive as it can and must be in order to endure as a leader in
economics in this next century? We are about there now. We established
sometime ago--in 1983, we took a look at our educational system and
said, ``Hey, yeah, you're right. We have to improve it. The present
system isn't going to work.'' We have not entirely touched on improving
it. So we have to do that.
Also, essentially, at that time, especially with auto workers, there
is another example, and I would hate to see it kind of reverting back.
The UAW recognized that they had to change their ways when they saw the
flood of cars coming in, much higher quality from Japan and Europe, and
demolishing their markets. So they finally said, ``Oh, boy, we've got
to change our ways.'' So they sat down, and, working with management,
they improved their productivity, improved their quality and got
together. And we were able to change things to meet the markets.
We have to be ready to do that or we are going to be driven out. The
future of this Nation depends upon our ability to compete in the world
markets. There is fantastic opportunity out there, but we cannot be
dragged down by old concepts from the 1930's on what worker-management
relationships should be. We have to look to the future. The TEAM Act is
a leading tool to do that. It will clarify the law. It will legitimize
about 30,000 teams that are out there, which are in jeopardy right now
if we do not change the law.
So I urge all of my colleagues to please support the TEAM Act. As I
said earlier, I support all of these issues that we are facing. I have
no bias one way or the other. I am looking objectively at these things
and think we should pick and choose those. And, finally, I would thank
my colleagues for their time and would hope everyone would get down to
the real issues here and not try to get tied up with the emotionalism
and rhetoric.
Mr. President, I yield floor.
Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. President.
____________________