[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 75 (Friday, May 24, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E763]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          REINTRODUCING ``JUSTICE FOR WARDS COVE WORKERS ACT''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JIM McDERMOTT

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 24, 2013

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to reintroduce the ``Justice 
for Wards Cove Act'' 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. Each time I introduced this bill, it received 
bipartisan support but was never voted on the floor of the House of 
Representatives. 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. This issue is about justice and fairness.
   Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me in honoring the Wards 
Cove workers by supporting this bill.

                          ____________________