[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 36 (Thursday, March 26, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H1558]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   WORKERS SHOULD BE ABLE TO ORGANIZE

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of working people to urge 
Congress to reject H.R. 3246, a bill to restrict workers from 
organizing.
  H.R. 3246 will make it much more difficult for workers to organize 
other workers for better pay and benefits. It would allow employers to 
refuse employment to workers on the basis of their outside group 
affiliations. It would do this by overruling a Supreme Court decision 
which held that employees who took jobs at nonunion employers to assist 
other workers to form a union, that those employees could not be fired 
for disloyalty.

                              {time}  1030

  H.R. 3246 turns the clock back to the 19th century when workers had 
few rights. I urge my colleagues to defend the rights of workers. Let 
us unite to declare, people have a right to a job, a right to decent 
wages and benefits, a right to safe working places, a right to 
compensation if they are injured on the job, a right to decent health 
care, a right to organize, a right to join a union, a right to grieve 
about working, and a right to participate in the political process. We 
in Congress have an obligation to protect the rights of working people.

                          ____________________