[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 82 (Monday, June 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H4959-H4960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ON WORKERS' RIGHTS TO ORGANIZE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Blunt). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, as I had indicated, there are a number of 
moves that have been done in this Congress.
  I started to talk about the fact that there is a Section A(2)(a) in 
the National Labor Relations Act which gives the board equal footing. 
It is pro-labor, it is pro-corporate. But there is an attempt now to 
weaken the labor part of the National Labor Relations Act.
  We have seen the TEAM Act, which is a bill that would allow the 
employer, the boss, to select a negotiating team. I think that we know 
that if you have the ability to pick the people who will negotiate with 
you, you will indeed select the weaker person.
  There is an attempt in the District, in an appropriations bill, there 
was an attempt to eliminate Davis-Bacon on school construction in the 
District of Columbia. Davis-Bacon was a bill passed by two Republicans 
who wanted to keep the prevailing wage for working people when 
scalawags and carpetbaggers came in to drop the wages from the South 
into the North. Here we see an attempt to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act.
  We have seen an attempt to end salting. Salting is simply a union 
worker who works in a nonunion shop, holds a card and on his time off, 
after work, on lunch hour, he may talk to other employees about perhaps 
becoming a member of a union. There is a bill working its way through 
the House to make it illegal for a person who is a salter to work.
  We have seen the comp time. I worked on the clock. I drove a truck. I 
was a warehouseman, I was a lumber worker, I was a longshoreman, I was 
a waiter. Overtime was what was important as I worked my way through 
college and worked to keep my family's income high enough to support my 
family. The comp time bill will eliminate overtime. You will then get 
time off when the employer finds that there is time that things are 
slow. That is not fair. People need overtime. Low wage workers look 
forward to overtime. That is the only way they are able to make ends 
meet.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that we must continue to push. 
June 24 is a time that we should all come together.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the minority whip to allow him to wrap up 
this outstanding job that he has done.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to applaud working Americans who on 
Wednesday, June 24th will make their support for the right to organize 
a union heard nationwide. They will share with us their desire to 
improve their working conditions and how unions have helped them 
achieve their goals for a better workplace. They will emphasize the 
fact that organizing unions is a basic legal right of all Americans. I 
believe that it is also a basic need for working Americans. Workers 
need to have the ability to join together and promote policies which 
advance their best interests. If workers are unable to express their 
views in an organized way, their voices will be silenced. Many 
companies and industry leaders support unions.
  However, still others work to keep unions out of their shops and 
factories in an effort to silence the voices of their employees. For 
example, it has been documented that 77 percent of employers distribute 
anti-union literature and 50 percent of employers in one study 
threatened to fire all workers if they joined a union. Such anti-union 
efforts harm the working American in many ways. First, on average non-
union workers earn 33 percent less than their union counterparts.
  Second, these activities hamper the ability of working Americans to 
express their views on their work experience to their employer. And 
most importantly, anti-union efforts block working Americans from being 
involved with industry decisions that affect their lives and the lives 
of their families.
  The Republican-led Congress has done their part to suppress the 
voices raised in support of working Americans. They have attempted to 
pass legislation which would have eliminated the ability of working 
families to participate in political activity cloaked under the guise 
of campaign finance reform.
  They have attacked the National Labor Relations Board, the body 
responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act. And because 
those efforts have been unsuccessful, they have sought to overturn the 
National Labor Relations Act itself. We have seen the TEAM Act which 
allows the employer to select the negotiating team for the employees 
which would give the employer, the boss, unfair advantage in the 
negotiations. In an attempt to repeal Davis-Bacon, the prevailing wage 
law here in the District of Columbia for school construction there is a 
move to pass a law which will eliminate salting, a person who is a 
union member working at a non-union shop who on his or her own time 
tries to encourage people to consider becoming a member of a union. The 
Republican Party is opposing the proposed increase in the minimum wage. 
The Comp Time Bill which eliminates overtime because workers will be 
required to work overtime at straight time and will be given comp time 
at a later time.
  The stakes are high. With all the anti-union sentiment among 
employers and the support that they have here among the Republican 
leadership in Congress, workers now more than ever before, must be 
empowered to advocate for and effect change in their working 
conditions.
  There is no doubt that without unions, we will silence the average 
hard-working American. Such silence will only widen the income gap and 
increase the number of dissatisfied workers. That is why June 24th is 
important.
  On that day we must celebrate those who have come together and worked 
for better representation and respect through union involvement. We 
also must make more Americans aware of their right to organize and help 
them not to be discouraged by their employers in their effort to 
organize.
  In closing, I urge my colleagues here in Congress to support American 
workers everywhere by recognizing and celebrating the importance of 
union organization on Wednesday, June 24th.
  Mr. BONIOR. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude with this final remark. The people 
that we are talking about tonight are the people who take care of our 
children in day care, the right for them to organize; the people who 
take care of our

[[Page H4960]]

parents and grandparents in elder care, the people who clean our 
offices, the people who make our roads and our bridges and build our 
buildings. These are the workers of the country. They have a right, a 
fundamental American, democratic right to come together and to organize 
and to bargain for their work, for decent wages, for good benefits. 
They are a part of the community. What we are saying this evening is 
that their rights to bargain collectively together, to organize, are 
being impeded in a way that none of us thought was possible nor would 
happen when the laws were developed, taking 2, 3, 4, 5, sometimes 6 and 
7 years to get organized by the National Labor Relations Board because 
of all the loopholes in the law today. We need to come together as a 
community, religious leaders, civic leaders, political leaders, and 
stand up and say, ``This is wrong. Folks have a right to come together 
and to organize.''

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