[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H4607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H4607]]
                        DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKE

  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 take a few moments to pay 
tribute to some of the bravest and the strongest people that I know, 
those 2,000 men and women who are taking on two of the largest and the 
wealthiest and the most powerful corporations in our country, those 
2,000 men and women who are standing strong in Detroit against Gannett 
and Knight-Ridder, those 2,000 men and women who have put their lives 
on hold for two years, been challenged economically, physically, 
emotionally, but are fighting for fairness and for justice and for what 
they believe in.
  They are people like Kate DeSmet and Sandra Davis, they are people 
like Frank Brabanec and Stephen Olter, Mark Naumoff and Ben Solomon. 
They are the people that I met with last weekend when we held a rally 
and a march and did a civil action against those who would deny the 
over 2,000 men and women in Detroit their jobs at these newspapers.
  We had over 120,000 people attend a rally in support of these brave 
men and women. Last Saturday morning I heard Frank Brabanec tell of 
being struck in the head, beaten, drug across the pavement. I saw 
hundreds of people holding picket signs with a picture of him being 
kicked. I heard Stephen Olter tell of being struck with a baton and a 
metal nut launched from a sling shot. I heard Mark Naumoff tell of 
being pinned under a gate when a truck knocked off its hinges and 
knocked it into a peaceful picket. I heard of Ben Solomon being 
handcuffed and then having pepper sprayed in his eyes.
  These are the stories of the voices of the Detroit Newspaper lockout. 
They are the struggles that these men and women go through nearly every 
day as they fight for what is right. They are the same struggles our 
parents and our grandparents fought for, bled for, and sometimes died 
for. But they are the struggles that brought us a decent wage, that 
brought us pensions and health benefits, that brought us the weekend, 
that brought us safe working standards, that brought us overtime pay, 
that brought us all the things that help make the middle class in our 
country today and make our country as productive and as wealthy as it 
is.
  They are the struggles that have raised the standards of living for 
every single American citizen, whether they belong to a union or not. 
We owe them a thank you. We owe them a thank you, not a kick in the 
side, as they were given in their efforts to bring justice to the 
workplace.

  So tonight, Mr. Speaker, I say thank you to Frank and Stephen and to 
Mark and Ben, and to everyone who has fought for the dignity of 
American workers. I also stand with you. This is a struggle for human 
rights, for fairness and for justice; it is a struggle worth fighting 
for, and I can tell these workers, and I can tell 120,000 people who 
came from all over the country last weekend. In fact, we had people 
come from Europe to stand with our brothers and sisters, that we will 
win this struggle, because the News and the Free Press, the two papers 
in Detroit owned by Gannett and Knight-Ridder are wrong, they are 
disobeying the law, they are guilty, they are guilty of disrespect for 
the law by keeping these workers out.
  A judge just last week ruled that they conducted themselves with 
unfair labor practices. They need to return these people to work so 
they can provide for their families. And we will be talking about this 
issue as we talked about the issue of the workers, the strawberry 
workers in California who are struggling to be able to be recognized 
with a decent wage and decent benefits. We will be talking about 
workers struggling in the poultry facilities in the Carolinas or the 
textile mills in the South or the steel workers at Pittston or the 
Caterpillar workers who have been struggling for years. These are 
American workers who deserve the respect of their government, of the 
corporate leaders in this country, and certainly their citizens.
  So again, I thank those at the Detroit News, those who are fighting 
the News and the Free Press for justice and fairness for the American 
worker.

                          ____________________