[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 51 (Wednesday, March 28, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E472]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           INTRODUCING THE JUSTICE FOR WARDS COVE WORKERS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JIM McDERMOTT

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 28, 2012

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the ``Justice 
for Wards Cove Workers Act'' in order to correct a grave injustice 
against thousands of Asian American workers that took place over a 
quarter century ago. In the 1970s, workers of Filipino, Samoan, 
Chinese, Japanese and Native American descent traveled north during the 
summer to work in the fish canneries in Alaska. Management at the Wards 
Cove Packing Company treated these migrant workers differently from 
white workers. They were forced to eat in separate dining halls, sleep 
in separate bunkhouses, and were unable to rise to top-paying positions 
in the company.
  In 1973, two Seattle Filipino labor activists named Silme Domingo and 
Gene Viernes led several class-action lawsuits on behalf of these Asian 
American and Native American cannery workers alleging discrimination in 
the workplace. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled against the Wards Cove 
workers, in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, which became a major 
impetus for the civil rights community to reverse the tide against 
employee rights. The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which 
became the most comprehensive civil rights legislation signed into law 
since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  However, what most civil rights communities forgot was that in the 
final hours before passage of the Civil Rights Act, a highly unusual 
and narrow amendment was inserted by two Senators from Alaska that 
exempted the Wards Cove workers from the expansive protections against 
workplace discrimination outlined in the Civil Rights Act. They feared 
that the Civil Rights Act could be applied retroactively to the 
workers.
  The Senators' amendment was inserted in Section 402(b) of the Civil 
Rights Act, and its sole target was the Wards Cove workers. To date, 
the Wards Cove workers remain the only people who have been denied the 
rights promulgated by the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
  Mr. Speaker, while my bill cannot retroactively alter the Supreme 
Court's ruling or grant retroactive rights for the Wards Cove workers, 
it does remove Section 402(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 as a 
symbolic measure to right the wrong.
  This is a legislative fight that I started in 1991, when I first 
introduced this bill. Every time I introduced this bill, it received 
bipartisan support but was never voted on the House floor. In 1993, 
then-President Bill Clinton wrote a letter of support for my bill, 
stating, ``It is contrary to all of our ideas to exclude any American 
from the protection of our civil-rights laws.''
  Too often, the struggles of Asian American and other ethnic 
minorities do not get the attention they deserve by policymakers and 
law enforcement officials. The savage beating and murder of Danny Vega, 
a Filipino-American resident of South Seattle, last November is one of 
many examples of the discrimination that minorities continue to face.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me in honoring the Wards 
Cove workers by supporting this bill.

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