[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 22, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H4672-H4673]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FREEDOM TO CHOOSE A VOICE AT WORK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BONIOR. Madam Speaker, earlier this year a number of us heard 
some powerful, real-life stories and experiences of workers from North 
Carolina and Las Vegas, Nevada, who were trying to organize. Their 
stories are the

[[Page H4673]]

stories of millions of working men and women who want a stronger voice 
in our workplace. Their stories are about improving lives and building 
better communities. They are stories that need to be told across this 
country. All of us need to hear the challenges workers face when they 
choose to organize.
  When the American public learns about the tactics that employers use, 
threats of losing their job, verbal and sexual harassment and mandatory 
antiunion meetings, they overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly support the 
freedom to choose a voice at work. That is why the AFL-CIO has launched 
the ``Seven Days In June,'' a week-long series of community forums and 
rallies and demonstrations all across this country.
  From the June 19 to June 25, we will hear more and more of these 
stories. There will be more than 120 activities in 36 States, 
activities which started last Saturday with our colleague, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez) holding a community forum in 
Orange County, California.

                              {time}  1315

  Bringing dignity to the workplace is not easy, but it can and is 
being done. In fact, on the 27th of February of this year, 75,000 home 
care workers in Los Angeles won the largest organizing victory in 60 
years when they voted to join the Service Employees International 
Union. This was a tremendous victory, but it did not happen overnight. 
It was the culmination of 10 years of hard work, of building a broad-
based coalition, of gaining the support of home care consumers and 
political leaders.
  In the end, it was about bringing the community together, uniting 
families behind the notion that those who take care of our parents and 
our grandparents ought to have some basic worker rights: A decent wage, 
not $5 an hour, $6 an hour, $7 an hour like they are making today; safe 
working conditions, and adequate benefits.
  These kinds of victories are occurring more and more. The doctors in 
our country are starting to organize unions because of their 
frustration with the health care system that will not let them practice 
what they have learned and took so long to learn in their studies.
  The graduate assistants teaching at universities and colleges all 
over the country are now organizing, with great victories recently 
occurring at the University of California.
  Workers are holding and winning more union elections than in the 
previous year, winning 51 percent of the time in 1998. That figure is 
particularly remarkable when we look at the tactics that employers use 
to squelch organizing drives: Firing pro union employees, using 
intimidating and verbal harassment at the workplace, holding closed-
door one-on-one shakedown sessions with workers, and spending millions 
on anti-union consultants.
  With all these cards that are stacked against the workers, how do 
they win? First and foremost, it comes from deep down. It comes from a 
resolve and a commitment to be treated with dignity and with respect.
  It also comes from raising awareness, from building coalitions with 
the religious community, the civic communities, with political leaders, 
and from building a stronger community in general.
  For those of us who care deeply about working families and 
strengthening our community, we have a responsibility and indeed an 
obligation to lend our voices to workers who have chosen to organize. I 
know some who have joined the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pallone) 
and myself recently in sending a letter to A&P foodstores simply to 
allow strawberry workers the choice to organize. I thank Members for 
that.
  For those who are unaware of the situation, the California strawberry 
industry is booming with the annual sales of $650 million. Yet, workers 
stoop to pick the berries for at least 12 hours a day and earn only 
$8,500 a season. Last spring the Wall Street Journal reported shocking 
sanitation conditions at these farms, where workers have insufficient 
drinking water, squalid restrooms, where workers have not been paid for 
overtime for 4 years, and where there is widespread sexual harassment 
against female employees.
  To bring some semblance of dignity to their workplace, the strawberry 
workers simply want the ability to choose their own representation, but 
they have repeatedly faced attacks by the industry, including plowing 
under the fields, and flying in sham workers to vote in union 
elections, just to break the union. They would plow the fields under 
and import workers from other parts of the country, or other countries.
  This is the exact type of situation that deserves the support from 
elected leaders, and there are many more situations just like that 
going on throughout this country.
  So raising our voices and standing with the strawberry workers is one 
thing we can do to be helpful, but there are many more. During these 7 
days in June, there are opportunities for all of us to participate in 
activities which will help our families have the freedom to choose a 
voice at work.
  I invite all of my colleagues to stand together with workers, clergy, 
community leaders to highlight the hopes and dreams of families who are 
seeking to bring basic human compassion to their workplace, because 
when we do that, we not only build a better workplace for workers who 
are unionized, but for workers who are nonunionized. We set the floor, 
we set the standard for them. But beyond all of that, we build better 
communities.
  I thank my colleagues who have come to speak on this and who have 
spoken. I ask my other colleagues to join us in these 7 days in June.

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