[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 86 (Thursday, June 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4069-H4070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  WORKERS STANDING UP FOR THEIR RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to talk about workers in this 
country. Workers all over this country are standing up for their 
rights, organizing and they are demanding justice. From the hog 
processors in North Carolina to the nurses in San Diego, from the 
strawberry workers in California to the newspaper workers in Detroit, 
workers are raising their voices, and those voices are being heard.
  This weekend we will again hear those strong voices loud and clear in 
Detroit. At least 50,000 workers and their families and supporters are 
expected to participate in Action Motown 1997, which is a mobilization 
of solidarity for the Detroit community locked out newspaper workers 
and union members. I am going to be there, and we will be speaking out 
for the workers, the labor movement in our community, against the 
management of the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. The News and 
the Free Press have locked out nearly 2,000 hard-working men and women 
since February of this year when they sought to resolve a 2-year labor 
dispute by unconditionally offering to return to work.

                              {time}  2130

  How were they treated when they tried to jump start contract talks 
and return to work? They were locked out, replaced, and told to go 
home.
  It is clear to me that the News and the Free Press are willing to 
lose millions of dollars in an attempt to break the unions. How clear 
is it? Well, their combined circulation is down almost 300,000 despite 
a huge ad rate discount. Fifteen hundred advertisers have stayed away 
from the paper, costing them a 24-percent dip in advertising revenue.
  Yet the most startling fact is not a statistic, but a quote made 1 
month after the newspaper workers took the stand for justice by the 
Detroit News editor and publisher Robert Giles. This is what he said: 
``We are going to hire a whole new work force, go on without unions, or 
they can surrender unconditionally and salvage what they can.''
  Now, does that sound like someone who is willing to bargain in good 
faith?
  Despite a 1994 Detroit Free Press editorial which stated that: ``The 
U.S. Senate should approve a bill that would prohibit companies from 
hiring permanent replacements for striking workers. The right to strike 
is essential if workers are to gain and preserve wages.''
  Despite that, they did another editorial. They did another editorial 
after their workers decided to engage in their rights to collective 
bargaining. Mr. Stroud at the paper, the editor who talks a good game, 
but when it comes to standing up for principle and backing up his 
words, he caved, he caved so quick, in a blink of an aye he caved when 
they came down to corporate headquarters. In fact, that same paper who 
claimed to support the right to strike in 1994 did an about-face in 
1995, and this is what they said: ``We intend to exercise our legal 
right to hire permanent replacements.''
  Perhaps our Cardinal, Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit, put it best 
when he said, ``The hiring of permanent placement workers is not an 
acceptable solution. If striking workers are threatened with being 
permanently replaced, this practice seems to undermine the legitimate 
purpose of the union and destroy the possibility of collective 
bargaining.''
  I would like to read to my colleagues a quote this evening about a 
great American who said, ``Labor is prior to and independent of 
capital. Capital is the only fruit of labor and could never have 
existed if labor had not first existed.'' That was Abraham Lincoln.
  The News and Free Press are owned by two of the biggest media 
conglomerates in the United States, Gannett and Knight-Ridder, who have 
deep pockets and are willing to lose millions to set an example in 
Detroit. They are tying to break the unions and deprive 2,000 workers 
and their families of a job and a living in a decent community. Their 
actions are unfair, they are unjust, they are illegal.
  We will be marching in Detroit, because many of our parents and our 
grandparents fought too hard and too long for the gains that unions 
have made: For the 40-hour work week, for pension benefits, for health 
care, for the weekend, for safe-working conditions, for overtime pay. 
That is what people struggled for in this country in the last 100 
years, and now people like the News and Free Press want to hire striker 
replacements in an effort to turn back the clock before we had these 
benefits.
  I encourage everyone to join us for Action. Motown 1997 this weekend.
  On another front real quickly, Mr. Speaker, those of us who went out 
to California and marched with the strawberry workers, people who make 
$8,500 a year, who have no representation, who are treated miserably, 
good news on that front. The biggest company, Coastal Berry, was sold 
to two new

[[Page H4070]]

owners and this is what they have said. The new owners want the company 
to take a neutral position with regard to union organizing campaigns. 
We want you to know that California law gives you the right to decide 
if you want to join or support any union organization effort, and we 
generally respect that right.
  We need more of that attitude out there in the corporate world.

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