[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17207-17216]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. ENZI. I yield the Senator from Texas such time as he may require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. I thank the distinguished Senator from Wyoming and offer 
my congratulations, together with the entire Senate family, to our new 
Senator from Wyoming. He has big shoes to fill, but I know he is ready 
to work hard, and he certainly couldn't have come to this body at a 
more propitious and challenging time.


                           Immigration Reform

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as we continue to debate proposed 
solutions to our Nation's immigration crisis, we have heard a lot of 
strong language about how important it is that we find a solution. I 
couldn't agree more. At the same time we have been treated to some 
incredible claims, if not downright myths. That is not to say this bill 
is all bad, because it isn't. But neither is it true that it is all 
good and can't be improved by a little time to offer amendments and 
debate them. Instead of a reasonable approach, however, we have been 
told, for example, that this bill is better than the status quo which 
some have defined as de facto amnesty. I disagree. What we have now is 
lawlessness and disorder, not a de facto amnesty.
  It has been suggested this bill is better than rounding up 12 million 
undocumented immigrants, so the only option is to confer upon them the 
greatest gift America can give a human being, which is American 
citizenship. The American people can see through that argument in a 
heartbeat. There are plainly other options available, somewhere in the 
middle between those two extremes.
  Then we have been told unless we agree to what some have rightly 
identified as indistinguishable from the 1986 amnesty, we can't get 
border security or a secure means of identifying legal workers on the 
job. I ask: Why should security be made a hostage to those demands? 
Employers have been told the only way they can get legal workers to 
fill in labor shortages is the present bill. That clearly is not the 
case.
  I believe we can do better than this bill. I sincerely want to fix 
this problem in all of its manifestations. What I do not want to be a 
party to is trying to fool the American people. I value the trust my 
constituents have placed in me too highly to overpromise, which this 
bill does, when the American people have good cause and good reason to 
know we cannot deliver as advertised.
  The fallacious arguments I have referred to and the process by which 
this bill has been produced, which further inflame the skepticism of 
the American people, seem only to confirm for many Americans that the 
Senate is not serious about fixing our broken immigration system. If we 
are going to insult the intelligence of the American people with such 
specious justifications for this bill, how can they trust us? Moreover, 
how can they have any confidence that the various assurances on border 
security, worksite enforcement, security checks, and implementation of 
the provisions of this bill will actually work as advertised?
  We all know our broken immigration system is a serious threat to 
national security. Border security, after all, is about national 
security. So the question we have to ask ourselves is: Does this bill 
make us safer? The more we have debated the bill, the more I have 
become convinced this legislation is not only dysfunctional, but unless 
corrected, some provisions of this bill present an actual danger to our 
Nation. This bill puts such onerous burdens on our law enforcement 
officials and ties the Government's hands in so much redtape that it 
will make us less, not more, safe. Some of the individuals involved in 
the recently foiled terrorist plots at JFK Airport and Fort Dix were in 
our country illegally. Some of those involved had even been granted 
citizenship by our current flawed immigration system. Thankfully, these 
plots were uncovered before they could be carried out. But knowing that 
there are likely terrorist cells already present in the United States, 
how can we in good conscience grant same-day legal status to more than 
12 million foreign nationals?
  Naturally, this bill does purport to require a background check. But 
instead of providing a reasonable timeframe for these reviews, an 
impossible burden is placed on our already overworked citizenship and 
immigration services to provide these checks in 24 hours. It simply 
cannot be done. Under our current immigration system, this office 
already does more of these screenings than it can handle. The 
Government Accountability Office reported last year this agency was 
stretched to the breaking point already. This has resulted in an 
unofficial 6-minute rule, the most amount of time that can be spent 
adjudicating any one application. Adding an average

[[Page 17208]]

of 48,000 applications a day more will further backlog an already 
overtaxed system, meaning less in-depth reviews and more haphazardly 
granted visas. Again, more cases and less time for review of these 
applications can do nothing but increase the likelihood of mistakes.
  An article in the June 17 edition of the Washington Post explained 
that a large part of the backlog involved in our current system was due 
to FBI name checks. Delays in FBI name checks already force long 
waiting times for citizenship applications. The Post reports that of 
about 329,000 cases pending as of May, 64 percent were stalled for more 
than 90 days, 32 percent for more than 1 year, and 17 percent for more 
than 2 years. They added that the backlog appears to get worse because 
of a fee increase slated to take place in July which has prompted a 50-
percent rise in new naturalization applications so far this year. If a 
new immigration bill is enacted, millions of foreign nationals would 
also apply for legalization.
  This problem is even more apparent considering the difficulties the 
State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have had this 
summer in implementing the new western hemisphere travel initiative. Of 
course, this legislation requires American citizens to have a passport 
for travel to Canada or Mexico, where that requirement did not exist 
before. Although the Federal Government had 3 years to get ready for 
this new stricter visa requirement and passport requirement, the 
Federal Government failed to adequately prepare, causing disruptions in 
the lives of tens of thousands of American citizens. If the Federal 
Government can't get it right with 3 years' notice to process passport 
applications for American citizens, how will it deal with the increased 
complexities and burden of processing up to 12 million foreign 
nationals? I wonder what the Government's response will be to the even 
larger backlog this bill will create? Will we simply give up on 
background checks altogether, when the citizenship and immigration 
service realizes what an impossible burden has been placed upon it?
  As we overload our already fragile system and background checks are 
either too cursory to be safe or too delayed to meet unrealistic 
deadlines, we will be undoubtedly granting legal status to some 
individuals who should not get it. The potential danger is actually 
worse than it might appear at first blush. Not only do we need to be 
concerned about terrorist cells and other criminals in our country, we 
should also be concerned about the privileges these individuals will 
receive with same-day legal status.
  Most notably, the ability to travel in and out of the United States 
presents a great threat to us and to others. Those already in our 
country with the knowledge and ability to train others could travel to 
foreign nations, teaching terrorist cells everything from combat 
tactics to explosives construction. At the same time, terrorists in our 
Nation who do not possess the knowledge and training to participate in 
such attacks could use their new travel visas to visit training sites 
in other countries, bringing their newfound knowledge back home to 
America.
  For example, a May 28 article from the New York Times describes the 
problems created by free travel in and out of nations surrounding Iraq. 
That article says:

       The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from 
     around the world, is beginning to export fighters and tactics 
     they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries 
     and beyond.

  The Times has reported:

       Some of the fighters appear to be leaving as part of the 
     waves of Iraqi refugees crossing borders. . . . But others 
     are dispatched from Iraq for specific missions.

  Granting same-day legal status and the privileges that accompany it 
to poorly screened foreign nationals has the risk of making us less 
safe and, indeed, potentially helping spread this threat not just to 
America but to other places around the world.
  The impossible goals of this bill do not stop there. The bill calls 
for the Department of Homeland Security to define, procure, develop, 
and implement a worker verification system to check 200 million 
Americans in less than 2 years. How can the American people have any 
faith in the enforcement provisions of this bill when these provisions 
include unattainable goals and untenable standards?
  For this reason, it is important we not pass any immigration 
legislation that makes these mistakes and repeats so many from the 1986 
predecessor. I continue to hope we can pass meaningful, safe 
immigration reform. Everyone knows our current immigration system is 
broken, and I wish to see it fixed. But this bill will not do it.
  Finally, one of the biggest problems we have had with this 
legislation centers around the way it came to the floor of the Senate. 
Written behind closed doors, this bill did not even see the light of a 
committee room. Instead, it promptly proceeded to the floor of the 
Senate. The short-term result was predictable. Senators wanted to offer 
amendments, many of them including important improvements which might 
have been appropriately dealt with in the committee process.
  The majority leader's frustration with the number of amendments being 
offered led to that bill being pulled after almost 2 weeks on the 
Senate floor. Now a new bill is back. Instead of learning from our 
mistakes, the bill has once again been secretly negotiated, and will 
once again forgo the committee process.
  What is worse, we have been told it will be presented to us with 
bipartisan amendments already chosen by a select few Senators, 
unrepresentative of the wide variety of strongly held views in the 
Senate.
  There is a list of amendments which I believe ought to be included in 
this bill, amendments that I think might find support among my 
colleagues if given an opportunity to offer them--provisions such as 
one that would prevent criminal aliens from delaying and even avoiding 
their deportation by filing frivolous applications for a Z visa, and 
then appealing against those denied applications.
  Another amendment I would offer, if given an opportunity, would 
prohibit criminal aliens, including gang members and absconders, from 
tying up our courts with frivolous appeals from the denial of a request 
for a waiver of grounds for removal. The bottleneck sure to ensue 
without these two provisions will cause extensive delays that will only 
increase the costs involved with this bill and allow abuse of the 
system.
  A third amendment I would offer, if given an opportunity, would 
require judges to consider national security implications before 
issuing nationwide injunctions against immigration enforcement, an 
essential provision to protecting our border, something this bill 
claims to do.
  I wish to add an amendment preventing those who have committed 
terrorist acts or aided terrorists from asserting they are meeting the 
``good moral character'' requirement--something that seems so 
inherently obvious that I am shocked this bill, as currently written, 
would allow it.
  Last year, Mohammed El Shorbagi pleaded guilty to providing material 
support to the terrorist organization known as Hamas. His conviction, 
however, did not specifically bar him from seeking American citizenship 
because under the law aiding an organization that routinely fires 
rockets on innocent civilians, families, and neighborhoods, abducts and 
kidnaps individuals, and has most recently staged a violent coup of an 
established unity government does not in any way affect your ``good 
moral character,'' as currently written. It is a dangerous shortcoming 
of our laws which will not be addressed because of the closed and 
secretive manner in which this bill is being considered.
  I wish also to limit the timeframe for an appeal to 2 years so that 
court proceedings do not drag on endlessly, wasting tax dollars, and 
allowing those who are not entitled to the benefits of our immigration 
system to remain here indefinitely under the cover of an appeal.
  These are only five of the amendments which I wish to offer which I 
think would make this bill better, if I

[[Page 17209]]

had a chance to offer them and if Senators had a chance to vote on 
them. Others would make it harder for gang members to qualify, force 
immigrants to file a change of address notification with the Department 
of Homeland Security when they move, and authorize the detention of 
dangerous aliens during their deportation trial.
  Unfortunately, under the process the majority leader will provide us, 
no opportunity for these measures to be considered will be allowed and, 
thus, they will not be in the final bill.
  Rather, the world's greatest deliberative body will be presented with 
a bill that has not been fully considered, will not be fully debated, 
and where there will not be an adequate opportunity to offer and vote 
on amendments. Since when did the Senate have so little to say when 
shaping legislation which we will vote on? Since when did the majority 
leader get the power to force legislation on the rest of the Senate?
  I cannot support this flawed bill or this broken secret process that 
has produced it. I hope my colleagues will join me in insisting upon 
free and open debates, which are the hallmark of the Senate, and which 
are the only possible path forward to providing a rational, commonsense 
answer to the challenge of immigration reform.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
30 minutes as in morning business, with the time taken from Senator 
Kennedy's time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Oregon is recognized.


                         Healthy Americans Act

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, there will be a great deal 
of activity in the Senate this week, and I want to take a few minutes 
to talk about the fact that this is going to be a big week in American 
health care as well.
  There will be considerable effort devoted to the State Children's 
Health Insurance program. I see our friend Senator Hatch on the floor 
of the Senate. I commend Senator Hatch for his work on this program. 
The effort on the State Children's Health Insurance Program, in 
particular, has been a bipartisan one, involving Senator Baucus, 
Senator Grassley, Senator Rockefeller, and Senator Hatch. I commend 
their efforts on this legislation. Senator Hatch and I have talked 
about this in the context of health care reform many times. It is a 
moral blot on our country that so many youngsters do not have quality, 
affordable health care, do not have good coverage like the children of 
Members of Congress.
  So I want it understood that I am in strong support of the bipartisan 
efforts on the State Children's Health Insurance program that are 
ongoing in the Senate Finance Committee on which Senator Hatch and I 
serve. I particularly commend Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, Senator 
Rockefeller, and Senator Hatch for the leadership they have shown.
  Also, this week there will be several other significant activities in 
health care. Tomorrow, the Senate Budget Committee will open hearings 
on comprehensive proposals to fix American health care. They will start 
by looking at the bipartisan legislation I have worked on with Senator 
Bennett of Utah. It is the first bipartisan proposal to overhaul 
American health care in almost 15 years. That and other approaches will 
be talked about in the Senate Budget Committee with the chair of our 
committee, Senator Conrad, and Senator Gregg, having a longstanding 
interest on the question of health care reform, realizing you cannot 
get on top of big budgetary challenges in the United States if you do 
not address health care.
  Then, finally, at the end of the week, my guess is there are going to 
be a lot of Americans flocking to the movie theaters to look at Mr. 
Michael Moore's movie. I will say, for purposes of the discussion this 
afternoon, since I am not in the movie business, I will spend my time 
this afternoon talking about health care legislation that is bipartisan 
in the Senate. Since I have mentioned the question of SCHIP, and how 
important it is, and how important it is that it be addressed quickly, 
let me turn now to the question of the Healthy Americans Act.
  After 60 years of debate, going back to the days of Harry Truman, I 
believe the cure for America's ailing health care system is now within 
reach. My view is we are seeing encouraging signs pop up everywhere.
  For example, the business community has done an about-face on the 
issue of health care reform. For example, in 1993--the last time 
Congress tackled this issue, during the Clinton administration--the 
business community said: We cannot afford health care reform. Now the 
business community is saying: We cannot afford the status quo. Previous 
adversaries, particularly business and labor, are now coming together 
to work for reform.
  As the distinguished Presiding Officer knows, from our discussions 
when I introduced my legislation, the bipartisan Healthy Americans Act, 
we had Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International 
Union, standing right next to Steve Burd, the president of Safeway 
Company, and mid-size employers and small employers. So we are seeing 
the business community that so often has been at odds with labor and 
others coming together with them saying: We cannot afford the status 
quo.
  Finally, it seems to me we have had a coming together of Democrats 
and Republicans on this issue. I am very pleased, under the leadership 
of my lead co-sponsor, Senator Bennett, many Republicans have said they 
will go to a place they have had questions about in the past; that is, 
covering everybody. You say those words, ``covering everybody,'' and, 
of course, to some people that implies you are going to have a 
government-run plan, it is somehow going to be a socialistic kind of 
plan. Well, many conservatives, many Republicans have come to agree 
with Senator Bennett and me that you cannot fix American health care 
unless you cover everybody because if you do not cover everybody, what 
you have is people who are uninsured shifting their bills over to those 
who are insured.
  Families USA has done an analysis indicating, in their view, that 
those who have insurance may pay in the vicinity of $1,000 worth of 
their premium to cover people who do not have insurance. So my view is, 
with Republicans and Democrats coming together in an area saying, 
``Let's make sure everybody is covered,'' we do have positive signs for 
reform.
  Now, of course, bumping up against these positive signs is the 
popular wisdom. The popular wisdom, of course, is: Oh, Government 
cannot possibly put something together. People say: Oh, Government 
cannot organize a two-car parade, let alone fix something that will be 
a seventh of the American economy: American health care. People say 
there are too many lobbyists--too many lobbyists--many more than 
legislators. They are going to block it. They say, of course, touching 
on the point I made earlier, that people who have coverage, they are 
going to say: Gosh, I would rather stay with the devil I know rather 
than that other guy, that other devil. But I will tell my colleagues, I 
think the public understands the system is broken, and if now the 
Congress comes forward with a step-by-step strategy to fix American 
health care, I think the public will be receptive.
  So let me outline, for purposes of a brief discussion, what goes into 
the diagnosis with respect to what is ailing American health care. I 
think, for the most part, people understand what is ailing our health 
care system, so I am going to make this diagnosis brief. First, for the 
amount of money we are spending in this country annually--$2.3 
trillion--you could go out and hire a doctor for every seven families 
in the United States. So let's talk about what that means for folks in 
Arkansas and what it means for folks in Utah. If you divide the number 
of people in this country--300 million--into $2.3 trillion, which is 
what we will be spending on health care this year, you could go out and 
hire a doctor for every seven families in the State of Arkansas, pay 
the

[[Page 17210]]

doctor $200,000 for the year and say, Doc, that is your job. You are 
going to take care of seven families. Whenever I am out and about 
speaking to physician groups, they always come up to me and say: Ron, 
where do I go to get my seven families? Because I like that idea of 
being able to be a physician again, to actually be an advocate for 
patients. So we are spending enough money.
  Now, despite these enormous sums and the fact that we have thousands 
of dedicated, caring, and talented health care professionals, the 
collective value we get for our health care dollar in America is 
shockingly small. For example, we are 31st in the world in life 
expectancy, having recently surged ahead of Albania but still lagging 
behind Jordan. On infant mortality, we are beating out Belarus, but we 
are still lagging behind Cuba.
  Part of our challenge is we don't have a lot of health care; we have 
mostly sick care. Medicare Part A and Part B show this better than 
anything else. In the State of Arkansas, under Part A of Medicare--or 
Utah or Oregon or anywhere else--Medicare will pay thousands of dollars 
for senior citizens' bills. It goes right from Medicare to a hospital 
in Arkansas and Oregon. Medicare Part B, however, the outpatient part 
of Medicare in our States, pays hardly anything for prevention, hardly 
anything to keep people well, and keep them from landing in the 
hospital and racking up those huge expenses in terms of health care. We 
ought to change that. We ought to change it, and I am going to talk a 
bit about how the Healthy Americans Act does it and does it with 
incentives.
  In addition to this bias against wellness and against preventive 
health care, we have a system where the biggest expenditure, which is 
the tax breaks for employer-based coverage, goes disproportionately to 
the wealthiest of us and encourages inefficiency to boot. Under the Tax 
Code today, if you are a high-flying CEO, you write off on your taxes 
the costs of getting a designer smile. But if you are a poor woman 
working at the corner furniture store, you get virtually nothing. The 
biggest reductions now in employer-based coverage--the biggest 
reductions, according to a new study by the Robert Wood Johnson 
Foundation--comes in the area of low-income workers.
  So that is a bit about the diagnosis, and I already mentioned the 
fact that people who have insurance pay about $1,000 from their premium 
for folks who are uninsured.
  Now I wish to talk about what we are going to do about it. What is it 
we are actually going to do about the big challenges with respect to 
health care? When I have gone home and had town meetings, we have 
always had kind of a back and forth early on between folks who say they 
want a government-run health care system of some sort and folks who 
want a private sector-oriented system. The discussion goes back and 
forth, and I am sure my colleagues have had similar experiences when 
they are home talking about health care. But finally, after a little 
bit of back and forth, somebody in the audience stands up and says: 
Ron, we want health care like you people in Congress have. We want 
coverage like you people and your families have. Then everybody starts 
cheering. Everybody is cheering for that. Nobody knows exactly what it 
involves or what it constitutes, but they figure if Members of Congress 
have it, that is what they want as well. So I very often, at that 
point, reach into my back pocket and take out my wallet, take out my 
Blue Cross card and ask people if that is what they want. It is private 
insurance. It covers me. It covers the Wyden family. People say, yes, 
that is what they want.
  So I wrote a piece of legislation, the Healthy Americans Act, that 
gives folks across the country--in Oregon and Arkansas and Utah, across 
the country--guaranteed coverage such as Members of Congress get, 
delivered in a manner such as Members of Congress have, with choices 
and benefits such as Member of Congress have. Folks can get all the 
details about how this works at my Web site: Wyden.senate.gov.
  Now, the Lewin Group--they are an independent, nonpartisan health 
care consulting group; kind of the gold standard for health policy 
analysis--says you can make that pledge, the pledge that I made for 
coverage at least as good as Members of Congress get, for all Americans 
for the $2.3 trillion that is spent annually, and, according to the 
Lewin Group, you would reduce health care spending by almost $1.5 
trillion over the next decade.
  Here is a bit of how the Healthy Americans Act works. Our country has 
about 300 million people, as I have mentioned. I don't alter the basic 
structure of care for Medicare, the military, and the small Government 
programs. The reforms I make to the Medicare program keep the basic 
structure of Medicare as is, but we do tackle the two biggest 
challenges facing the program.
  The first is we are seeing a huge increase--a huge increase--in 
chronic illness. These are folks with heart and stroke and diabetes, a 
variety of problems that are chronic in nature. In fact, the estimate 
is about 5 percent of those on Medicare use up about 60 percent of the 
Medicare expenses. So we create efficiencies for how to better manage 
the chronic care that this large group of people incur. I think it will 
help generate savings for the long term. As we do that, we attack the 
underlying reason so many Americans need chronic care; that is, 
prevention has been given short shrift. So under our legislation, we 
create incentives for parents to enroll children and their family in 
preventive programs. They get lower premiums if they do. With respect 
to Medicare specifically, for the first time we authorize the 
Government to lower Medicare Part B premiums, the outpatient premiums, 
so that if seniors lower their blood pressure, lower their cholesterol, 
and engage in sensible, preventive medicine, they would experience 
lower premiums.
  So we make improvements to Medicare, and Government programs clearly 
can be refined. But I am of the view that in the area of Medicare and 
the VA and some of the smaller Government health care programs, we 
basically ought to focus on keeping the basic structure as it is and 
making improvements as I have outlined in the chronic care and 
prevention care within that basic structure. So if you do that, if you 
set aside Medicare and the VA, you are left with about 250 million 
people. About 170 million of those folks get their coverage through 
employer-based health care. About 48 million are uninsured. They are 
often without any coverage at all. They may have some very modest 
coverage--charity care--and then we have folks in the individual market 
and Medicaid.
  So let me describe what we do for folks in that area where there are 
250 million people, folks who aren't covered by Medicare or the VA. If 
a citizen does have employer coverage, the employer is required by law 
to cash out the worker. We do it in a way so that with the very first 
paychecks, the first paychecks issued under the Healthy Americans Act, 
the worker will win and the employer will win.
  Let's say, hypothetically, in Arkansas or Oregon, you have a worker 
who has a salary of $50,000, and the employer is purchasing $12,000 
worth of health care benefits for them as well. Under the legislation, 
the employer is required by law to give the worker $62,000 in 
compensation--salary plus the value of their health care benefits. 
Then, we adjust the workers' tax bracket so they don't pay any 
additional tax on the additional compensation. That is important 
because, for all practical purposes, Senator Bennett and I have 
legislated the biggest pay raise in the country's history by putting 
that extra cash in the workers' pockets. So when the worker sees it--we 
spent a lot of time talking about it--the worker says: That is pretty 
cool getting all this extra money. What is the catch? There has to be a 
catch if I am getting all this extra compensation. There is a catch. 
The worker, under the Healthy Americans Act, has to buy a basic health 
insurance policy, including prevention, outpatient, inpatient, and 
catastrophic--a basic policy. The first thing the worker is going to 
say is: How in the world do I do that?

[[Page 17211]]

How am I going to be able to buy my own coverage? So we set up 
something called Health Help to make it easy for people, and people 
could do it online, to purchase their own coverage. We fixed the 
private marketplace to make it easier. Private insurance companies 
can't cherry-pick. They can't take just the healthy people and send 
sick folks over to Government programs more fragile than they are. 
There is community rating. People go into big pools so you can spread 
the cost of the risk. There is guaranteed issue so you can't be turned 
down. We also prevent people from being hammered because they have a 
preexisting illness.
  So that is the way it works for folks who now have coverage, about 
170 million of them. In the case of the worker I described in Oregon 
and Arkansas, $50,000 in salary, $12,000 in health care, $62,000 in 
compensation, if they can use that to go out, say, and buy a basic 
health insurance policy for $11,500 rather than the $12,000 they are 
now getting for health care, they can be on their way to Oregon for a 
great fishing trip in Central Oregon, because that is exactly what we 
are trying to do, is to create marketplace incentives for folks to try 
to hold their costs down. If the employer doesn't offer the coverage, 
employers make a contribution on the basis of their revenue per 
employee.
  We had three groups of employers we worked on with this: large 
employers, medium-sized employers, and small employers, and when we 
launched the whole effort, there were representatives from each of 
those three employer groups. So it is a bipartisan bill: Senator 
Bennett, a Republican, and myself, a Democrat. It is bipartisan, and it 
has the support of business and labor organizations.
  Where does the money come from to pay for the Healthy Americans Act? 
We can make substantial savings by redirecting the Tax Code away from 
the system today which disproportionately favors the most affluent and 
rewards inefficiency. We steer it more to the middle class and the 
working poor. There are substantial administrative savings. According 
to the Lewin Group, this consulting group for private insurance, we 
have the administrative costs down to under 5 percent. That means we 
are going to systematically drive out a lot of what is being spent on 
marketing and underwriting and various kinds of inefficiency, which is 
clearly unneeded. We make substantial savings in what is called the 
disproportionate share of funding that now goes to the hospitals when 
they have to pick up the bills for those who are uninsured. It makes so 
much more sense. Instead of a poor person who has no coverage going to 
a hospital emergency room in Arkansas or Oregon or Utah, it makes so 
much more sense to use the scarce dollars so that person can afford a 
private insurance policy. It would be targeted at outpatient care and 
inpatient care and prevention rather than frittering away so much of 
our scarce resources for hospital emergency room services.
  This legislation does that. The insurance companies compete not on 
the basis of cherry-picking but on the basis of price, benefit, and 
quality. Finally, we make care for the poor much more efficient and 
humane. Right now, if you are poor in America, you have to go out and 
try to squeeze yourself into one of perhaps 30 boxes in order to be 
able to get care as someone who is low income. I think that is 
degrading and inefficient. We can do better.
  Under the Healthy Americans Act, we say care for those individuals is 
automatic. They would get covered automatically. Once they are signed 
up, they are in forever. I know there are many who are saying that 
fixing health care is not possible in this Congress. I already 
mentioned the good work of Senator Rockefeller, Senator Hatch, Senator 
Baucus, and Senator Grassley on the children's health program. I will 
be with them all the way. They have done very good work. The fact that 
so many kids don't have decent health care is morally wrong and 
Congress ought to address it. I am going to do everything I can to help 
them.
  I think this Congress ought to go farther. I don't think we got an 
election certificate to sit around and wait for another Presidential 
campaign to get going. Fortunately, under the leadership of Senators 
Conrad and Gregg, the Senate Budget Committee will get going tomorrow, 
looking at a variety of options to fix health care. We are going to 
start with the Healthy Americans Act, but certainly a lot of colleagues 
have good ideas, and many are bipartisan. Certainly, Senators Feingold 
and Graham have good ideas. The American people don't want us to wait 
for 2 more years. They are not going to be tricked into comprehensive 
reform. The subject is too personal. They want to know what the 
benefits are going to be, what their costs are going to be; but they 
are ready. They know the current system cannot be sustained given our 
rapidly aging population, the huge increase in chronic illness, the 
disadvantages the employers face, and the tough global markets.
  The American people know the current system cannot be sustained. They 
understand it is broken and we are going to show them there is a better 
way, a bipartisan way. The hearing that will begin tomorrow, and the 
bill Senator Bennett and I have, will be the first bipartisan proposal 
to overhaul American health care in 15 years. I don't think we ought to 
wait 2 more years. That is not what we got an election certificate to 
do. Let's pass the SCHIP legislation. One of the key sponsors is on the 
floor this afternoon. Let us move on to address a new direction in 
American health care to finally make it possible for all of our 
citizens to get under the tent for basic, affordable, quality health 
coverage.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Durbin). The Senator from Minnesota is 
recognized.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Employee Free 
Choice Act. Before that, I compliment the Senator from Oregon for the 
outstanding leadership he provided on this issue. Every American 
deserves access to affordable health insurance. This is the 21st 
century. He has worked in a bipartisan way to get important 
perspectives on the table, and I will add my voice to that discussion. 
I applaud his leadership on this issue. It is something we have to get 
done. Time is passing us by and we have it in our capacity to do it. 
The Senator from Oregon has provided important leadership.
  Again, I rise to voice my opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. 
It is kind of a misnomer. There is not a lot of free choice in what has 
been labeled the Employee Free Choice Act.
  It is an awesome privilege for those of us who serve in the Senate to 
have this magnificent Capitol as a workplace. Its massive dome and 
perfect symmetry have been an inspiration to generations. Its most 
vital feature is something none of us have seen: its sturdy foundation, 
which lies beneath this building. Our democracy has a foundation as 
well: It is the ability of our citizens to cast their votes freely, 
fairly, and secretly, without anyone looking over their shoulder.
  Certainly, that is the expectation when we walk into the booth to 
vote on election day. All of us have our place in this Senate based on 
the right of individuals to step forward and cast a secret ballot, 
which is one of the fundamental underpinnings of democracy. We pull the 
curtain, mark our ballot in private, and rely on our own personal 
conscience and convictions, free from any outside pressures.
  For more than 200 years, the secret ballot has been one of the most 
fundamental principles of American democracy. As the great 
revolutionary figure Thomas Paine wrote:

       The right to vote is the right upon which all other rights 
     depend.

  That same principle has held true for American workers who have had 
the right to a secret ballot when it comes to unionization for the last 
60 years.
  I believe in a worker's right to union representation. I served for 8 
years as mayor of St. Paul and I worked closely with unions to ensure 
that their right to organize was protected. But I also strongly believe 
in a worker's right to a secret ballot election. I will fight to 
protect that right--a right that the vast majority of Americans and 
union members support.

[[Page 17212]]

  This fundamental belief in a worker's right to a secret ballot 
election has long been upheld by the courts. Throughout the years, the 
courts have spoken of the importance of secret ballot elections. The DC 
Circuit Court of Appeals said it best in a 1991 case that the ``freedom 
of choice is a matter at the very center of our national labor 
relations policy, and a secret election is the preferred method of 
gauging choice.''
  Although the secret ballot process has served workers and unions 
well, the right to a secret ballot election is now under serious 
threat.
  Already passed by the House, the Employee Free Choice Act would take 
away a worker's right to a private vote for union representation. 
Simply put, the passage of this legislation would deny American workers 
the choice to freely and privately choose whether to join a union by 
replacing the secret ballot process with a card-check process. So we 
would be telling our workers that instead of having the right to a 
federally supervised election by secret ballot, that gets tossed aside 
and we now use a card-check process--somebody coming up and saying, 
``do you want to sign this?''
  What is fascinating--and I have been involved in this business for 5 
years as a Senator, 8 years as a mayor, and in the attorney general 
office for 19 years. I worked on a lot of issues--I hear a lot of 
discussion by my colleagues about some of the concerns impacting 
American workers today, the challenges we face in dealing with 
globalization and the pressures of working people. We should deal with 
those, but this is not the answer. This is not the answer to the issues 
and concerns being raised. Taking away the right to a secret ballot is 
not the answer.
  Under the card-check process, there is no ballot, no voting booth, no 
ballot box, and no privacy for the worker's choice. Rather than a 
ballot, there is a union authorization card. Rather than the safe 
confines of the voting booth, the worker is surrounded by union 
members, and employers, as he or she considers the union authorization 
card. Rather than the privacy afforded by the secret ballot process, a 
worker's decision is publicly known.
  The reality is that unions also fully appreciate the importance of 
secret ballot elections. For instance, when it comes to union 
decertification--in other words, when workers want to terminate union 
representation--the unions believe in secret ballot elections, which 
the AFL-CIO has characterized as ``the surest means for avoiding 
decisions which are the result of group pressures and not individual 
decision.''
  I want to protect individual decisions. In the Senate, we should 
protect the sanctity of individuals' decisions, and we should protect 
the sanctity of federally supervised secret ballot elections. 
Certainly, if they are good enough for decertification, they should be 
good enough for union organizing.
  I come to this debate with a strong and successful record of working 
with unions and fighting for American workers, including increasing the 
minimum wage and supporting collective bargaining rights for public 
safety workers. Again, I was mayor of St. Paul for 8 years, and during 
that time we settled every contract at the bargaining table. I am also 
proud of the support I have received over the years from the police 
unions, fire unions, building trade unions. That support is very 
important to me and I remain fully committed to the collective 
bargaining process.
  The legislation pending before this body hurts workers, and it is on 
that basis that I cannot support it.
  As we soon celebrate the July 4 holiday, we should honor our Nation's 
freedoms and liberties by ensuring that a worker's fundamental rights 
to a secret ballot election is protected. We should do so out of 
respect for our Nation's founding principles, so workers can make 
important choices about their workplaces and livelihoods without fear 
of repercussions for expressing their honest opinions. That is the 
simple fairness on which our whole system has rested.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the proponents of this measure have tried 
to make the case that unions are good and that they deliver higher 
wages, benefits and overall prosperity for their members. Whether that 
is true or not is not the issue we are debating here today.
  In fact, I am struck by the irony of the proponents' argument. If 
unions are so valuable to working Americans, unions should not have any 
difficulty winning an NLRB-supervised representation election. What do 
good unions have to fear from secret ballot elections?
  Whether unions are good for workers is beside the point. This debate 
is about the method by which workers are allowed to choose a union.
  If workers want to have a union in their workplace, they should be 
able to freely vote for one. But, workers cannot make this decision 
freely with either the employer or the union looking over their 
shoulders.
  Card check is a recipe for legalized harassment and intimidation. The 
Senate should not allow this measure to pass.
  Mr. President, I want to speak against cloture on the so-called 
Employee Free Choice Act, because it promotes neither freedom nor 
choice for employees when it comes to union representation. Rather, the 
card-check certification, the binding interest arbitration, and the 
penalty sanctions of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act would 
deprive employees of their freedom and choice in union representation 
that the National Labor Relations Act guarantees them and that the 
National Labor Relations Board secures for them.
  The supporters of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act claim that 
the current system is broken and that the so-called Employee Free 
Choice Act will correct the deficiencies of the current system. 
However, they are misguided, because there is no free choice when an 
employee is bound by signatures on union authorization cards instead of 
votes in a secret ballot election made after an employee can learn 
about the advantages and disadvantages of union representation.
  There is no free choice when a Government-appointed arbitrator 
decides the terms of a union contract that is binding for at least two 
years and employees are denied the right to vote on whether to accept 
the union contract. In other words, it's mandatory arbitration on both 
the employees and the company.
  Contrary to the claims of the supporters of H.R. 800, the National 
Labor Relations Act is effective in providing for and protecting the 
free choice of employees in union representation. In fact, current 
statistics from the National Labor Relations Board demonstrate that the 
system does work.
  In a recently released study of statistics for 2006, the win rate of 
unions in secret ballot elections supervised by the National Labor 
Relations Board has increased for the tenth consecutive year. That is 
correct--unions have a rising in secret ballot elections over the span 
of the last 10 years.
  For example, in 2006, the union win rate was 61.5 percent of all 
representation elections, which was up from 61.4 percent in 2005. Since 
1996, unions have won more than 50 percent of all NLRB-supervised 
elections in each year. Thus, secret ballot elections supervised by the 
National Labor Relations Board are effective and time-honored avenues 
for employees to express their free choice on union representation.
  More significantly, unions are winning well over 50 percent of these 
secret ballot elections. Yet the supporters of this bill, H.R. 800, now 
want to cast aside this effective system and give unions the ability to 
increase membership and dues by a forced card check system and a 
guarantee of a Government-imposed initial union contract.
  Additional proof that the National Labor Relations Board is 
conducting union representation elections in an efficient and timely 
manner is found in reports from the Board itself. For 2006, the median 
time between the filing of a union's election petition and the election 
was just 39 days. In addition, 94.2

[[Page 17213]]

percent of all initial union representation elections were held within 
56 days from the time the union filed its election petition.
  In short, the system is not broken. Rather, the system works, and it 
works in favor of unions in over 50 percent of these secret ballot 
elections. If there is a breakdown as unions claim, then it may be that 
it is with unions and their appeal and message to the working men and 
women of this country. The reason unions are fighting for passage of 
the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is that they are fighting to 
maintain their political relevance. According to the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, unions' membership of the 
private sector workforce in this country is only 7.4 percent today. 
This is down from 7.8 percent in 2005. It is a continuation of the 
decline in union membership from 20.1 percent in 1983.
  Thus, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is not as important and 
imperative as organized labor has claimed because it does not protect 
the free choice of employees in union representation. It has nothing to 
do with leveling the playing field in a globally competitive market. 
Rather, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is a quintessential 
political power play. It is about changing the law by turning your back 
on one of the hallmarks of a democratic society--a secret ballot 
election--and by supplanting the collective bargaining process with a 
federally mandated union contract. With these changes in the law, it 
will be easier for unions to increase membership by forced card check 
and to increase their financial dues to sprinkle around so that unions 
can maintain their political influence which is disproportionate to 
their shrinking membership.
  I encourage my colleagues to stand up for working men and women by 
opposing this ill-advised legislation.
  Mr. President, I think it is time that somebody stood up to defend 
the hard-working career employees of the National Labor Relations 
Board, NLRB, who are under attack from organized labor and who are 
being demeaned by this legislation, this so-called Employee Free Choice 
Act.
  As I said, in 1978, during the labor law reform debate, the NLRB is 
one of the finest and most efficient organizations in the Federal 
Government, and its lawyers serve the public interest by representing 
the Nation's employees--not unions or employers but employees. They are 
among the best lawyers in Government or, for that matter, anywhere in 
the private sector, anywhere in private practice law firms, and their 
representation of employees is free of charge. Although I certainly do 
not always agree with the NLRB or its decisions, I have consistently 
defended the agency over the 31 years I have been in the Senate.
  NLRB lawyers in Washington and throughout the country in regional and 
subregional offices are among the most dedicated protectors of employee 
rights--apparently even more so than unions if one considers the 
unions' position on H.R. 800 denying secret ballot rights of employees 
and depriving employees of a vote on wages and terms and employment 
conditions resulting from a federally imposed union contract.
  If H.R. 800 were to pass, NLRB lawyers would have to become, in 
effect, handwriting analysts, making sure employee signatures on union-
solicited authorization cards are not forged or fraudulent. The proud 
record of the agency and its lawyers in conducting secret ballot 
elections for union representation and in protecting the rights of 
employees in the election process would be history. The voting booth, 
the ballot box, the American flag, the NLRB agent standing guard to 
make sure the election is conducted without intimidation or coercion by 
unions or employers--all that would be thrown out and replaced with one 
role: simply counting union authorization cards submitted by union 
organizers. With that, of course, would potentially come the loss of 
career NLRB jobs, since how many handwriting experts does the NLRB have 
or need? They deserve better treatment from organized labor, as do the 
employees the NLRB seeks to protect.
  Lost also under H.R. 800 would be the significance for employees of 
walking into the voting booth to cast a private vote for or against a 
union. After all, under the card check system in H.R. 800, employees do 
not get to vote against union representation even though they will be 
bound by principles of majority rule and exclusive representation.
  Let's get that clear. If 50 percent of the employees plus one sign 
cards, the other 49.9 percent are disenfranchised. If they don't want a 
union, that is tough; they are automatically unionized. That is not 
right. Under the card check system in H.R. 800, employees do not get to 
vote against union representation even though they will be bound by 
principles of majority rule and exclusive representation. Their vote, 
if one can call it that, is not signing a card, assuming they are even 
asked to sign a card, which is far different from having the 
opportunity of saying no.
  Under the current NLRB secret ballot election process, all employees 
designated as an appropriate unit get to vote, even though some may not 
exercise that right. Under the card check system in H.R. 800, 
apparently all a union organizer has to do is define a unit of 
employees appropriate for collective bargaining--for example, a group 
of employees who share a community of interest--and then solicit 
authorization cards from a majority of employees in that unit. Once the 
organizers reach signatures from 50 percent plus one, all they do is 
then take the signed cards to the NLRB for certification, regardless of 
what the other 50 percent of the employees really feel about the 
process.
  As under current law, of course, the NLRB may make a determination 
that the unit is an appropriate unit for bargaining, although not 
necessarily the appropriate unit. However, under the card check process 
of H.R. 800, the other 49 percent of the employees may not even know 
until after the fact that they were part of a petitioned-for-bargaining 
unit since they would never have been given an opportunity to vote or 
even asked to sign union authorization cards. At least under the 
current system, they are notified that they are part of a petitioned-
for-bargaining unit and given the opportunity to vote for or against 
the union in a secret ballot election.
  There are many victims of H.R. 800--employees, employers, the NLRB 
and its career employees and, most importantly, sound national labor 
public policy. The only winners under H.R. 800 would be the union 
leaders and those who slavishly do their bidding in exchange for 
political support.
  Of course, I believe those who vote against cloture on the motion to 
proceed to H.R. 800 will be the true political winners since we will 
have joined the majority of Americans for protecting the rights of 
employees through a secret ballot election and against fear, coercion, 
and intimidation by union organizers to have employees sign union 
authorization cards. We will have stood by employees and not the union 
bosses. By defeating cloture on this radical legislation, we will have 
prevented the economic catastrophe of having federally appointed 
arbitrators impose wages, benefits, and terms of employment.
  Ultimately, the employees will be the winners by stopping this 
antiemployee legislation.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the debate we are having in the Senate on 
the Employee Free Choice Act is about workers' rights. It is about the 
plight of the American worker. It is about workers being able to 
organize. And my guess is that the Senator from Illinois, the Presiding 
Officer, perhaps even the Senator from Utah, was in the Chamber of the 
House some years ago when a man from Poland came to speak to

[[Page 17214]]

us. I want to recount that today because I want to recount how strongly 
our country felt then and how much we admired the man from Poland who 
spoke to a joint session of Congress and what it means symbolically for 
workers to be able to organize.
  It was interesting to watch from afar an organization called 
Solidarity in Poland, a group of workers organized under the banner of 
Solidarity. Well, one day, in a joint session of Congress, we heard 
from a foreign leader.
  The joint session is full of pageantry. The House and the Senate are 
gathered together in the Chamber of the House, and the Doorkeeper 
announces the Supreme Court, then announces the Cabinet Secretaries, 
then the Senate Members, and then everyone is in the Chamber. And 
usually they announce the President of the United States as he comes to 
give a State of the Union Address, or perhaps, on rare occasions, a 
special message. On even rarer occasions, they will announce a foreign 
leader.
  On this day, the Doorkeeper of the House of Representatives announced 
Lech Walesa from Poland, and this rather short, chubby man came 
forward, with a handlebar mustache. He came to the dais in the House of 
Representatives. The applause began and continued and continued and 
continued. This man, Lech Walesa from Poland, began speaking, and he 
gave an enormously powerful speech. Here is what he said.
  He reminded us that it had been 10 years prior to that time, on a 
Saturday morning in a shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, that this man had 
been fired as an electrician in that shipyard. He was leading a strike 
of Polish workers in that shipyard against the Communist government.
  He recounted that on that Saturday he was seized by the Communist 
secret police and beaten, and he was beaten badly. He was taken over to 
the side of the shipyard and was hoisted on top of and thrown over the 
barbed-wire fence, and he lay on the ground face down, bleeding, 
outside of that shipyard wondering what to do next.
  What should this man, this unemployed electrician who had now just 
been beaten by the Communist secret police and thrown over the barbed-
wire fence at the shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, what should he do next? 
He lay face down on the ground wondering.
  The history books tell us what he did next. He pulled himself up off 
the dirt, brushed himself off, and climbed back over the fence into the 
same shipyard to continue leading the strike. And 10 years later, he 
was announced at the back door of the House of Representatives as the 
President of the country of Poland. This man, Lech Walesa, was not an 
intellectual, not a soldier, not a businessman, and not a diplomat. He 
was an unemployed electrician leading an organization called 
Solidarity, which is an organization about working people.
  These workers risked everything in pursuit of one central idea--that 
people ought to be free to choose their own destiny. And because of 
Solidarity and because of the work they did, they threw off the yoke of 
communism, the heavy boot of communism that existed in Poland, and 
Poland became free. Then it happened in Czechoslovakia, and then 
Romania, and East Germany. They lit the fuse that caused the explosion 
that got rid of communism in Eastern Europe.
  Here is what Lech Walesa said about what happened inside that 
shipyard and the years following. He said: You know, we didn't have any 
guns--the Communist government in Poland had all the guns. We didn't 
have any bullets--the Communist government had all the bullets. We were 
a bunch of workers armed with an idea that people ought to be free to 
choose their own destiny.
  And he said: My friends, ideas are more powerful than guns.
  This country loved Solidarity. Ronald Reagan, the American people, 
the Congress--we embraced these workers of Poland--Lech Walesa and the 
courageous workers who followed him, workers organizing under a banner 
called Solidarity. The ability to form labor organizations, the 
development of what those organizations mean to people, was key to 
defeating communism and to the cause of freedom. Think of what labor 
meant to Eastern Europe. It was the spark. Yes, workers organizing 
represented the spark that defeated communism in Eastern Europe. These 
were ordinary people with extraordinary courage, uncommon valor.
  When Lech Walesa spoke from the dais in the House of Representatives 
10 years after he was beaten in that shipyard, 10 years after laying 
face down in the dirt wondering what to do next, he showed up at the 
door of our legislative Chamber as the President of this country 
saying: Ideas are more powerful than guns.
  Now, fast-forward to today, a time when workers in this country all 
too often are left behind, especially workers who are working hourly 
jobs. Workers who are going to work wondering whether they will have a 
job tomorrow because their employers are becoming bigger and stronger 
and more powerful. Employers that have decided that the bottom line is 
what is important and that they can actually increase their profits by 
moving jobs overseas. So, they think, we will just tell our workers: 
You know what. You are just like wrenches. We can use you and throw you 
away, and we will move the job to Sri Lanka, to Bangladesh, to India, 
or to China. So American workers are told: You don't matter much.
  I have been on the Senate floor 100 times talking about all of these 
companies that have decided they want all the benefits America has to 
offer, but they don't want to hire Americans. They want to produce 
their products elsewhere, where they can pay pennies an hour. What has 
happened in recent years to the American workers is downward pressure 
on their income, fewer retirement benefits, fewer health care benefits, 
the threat of seeing their jobs moved overseas. One might ask, if labor 
organizing is so effective, why is this occurring in this country? Why 
can't workers get together to represent the countervailing power 
against big companies so workers get their fair share of the income?
  The answer is the deck is stacked against them at this point. That is 
why there is legislation on the floor of the Senate today being 
considered to try to see if we can't give people the opportunities to 
organize effectively once again.
  Do you know that in nearly one-half of the cases in this country, 2 
years after workers have already voted to form a union they still don't 
have a contract because the employer refuses to bargain with the 
union--2 years after the employees voted to form a union and they have 
not yet been able to form a union. Let me say that again. In almost 
one-half the cases where they have already decided to vote to form a 
union, 2 years later workers do not have a contract. Why would that be 
the case? Because there are a dozen ways for employers to fight it and 
prevent it. This legislation is legislation that says let's try to even 
up the score a little bit, provide some balance, provide some 
opportunity for workers to get together to organize.
  The evidence is pretty overwhelming. The income of workers who have 
the capability of organizing is significantly different. Cashiers at 
grocery stores and other stores earn 46 percent more if they are union 
than if they are nonunion. Union food preparation workers earn nearly 
50 percent more than nonunion workers. Union maids and housekeepers 
earn 31 percent more than their nonunion counterparts. Union workers 
are twice as likely to have employer-sponsored health benefits and 
pensions at work. They are four times more likely to have a secure 
defined benefit pension plan than nonunion workers. Those facts are 
pretty clear--they are the benefits of workers being able to organize.
  The legislation we have before us is legislation that says we think 
the right of people to organize is very important.
  I have talked at length on the floor about these issues as well. I 
spoke about James Filer many times. James Filer died, I said, of lead 
poisoning. He was shot 54 times, I guess that is lead poisoning. In 
Ludlow, CO, shot 54 times. Do you know why James Filer was shot 54 
times? Because he believed people who were sent down underground to dig 
for coal, to mine for coal,

[[Page 17215]]

ought to be able to have two things: No. 1, work in a safe workplace 
and, No. 2, be paid a fair wage. Because James Filer spent his life 
working for that, believing that workers who go underground ought to 
get a fair day's pay and ought to work in a safe mine, he was killed.
  I could give you other names of those who have fought for workers' 
rights, risked their lives fighting for workers' rights. This country 
has been better and moved forward as a result of workers being able to 
organize.
  Yes, we need entrepreneurs, we need capitalists, we need investors, 
we need incentives--we need all the things that come together in this 
society to succeed. But we need workers. Workers are not disposable. 
The American worker is not disposable. Workers represent one of the 
significant building blocks of progress in this country.
  In recent years, what has happened to us is we have decided American 
workers should compete against a different standard. The standard is 
someone in China working for 30 cents an hour. If you can't compete 
against that, tough luck, you lose your job.
  I will not go through all the stories. I could stand here for hours 
telling stories, company after company, about that. But the fact is, 
American workers have struggled. The struggle in this country has taken 
place for a century, to lift our standards up: Safe workplace, child 
labor laws, wage-and-hour laws, minimum wages, the right to organize. 
For a century, we went through that process and we lifted America up 
and expanded the middle class dramatically. That has been the success 
of this great country.
  Now we are seeing, brick by brick, that foundation being taken apart. 
This legislation is one piece of the remedy. It says, if we care about 
and stand for and believe in the right of workers to organize, then 
that right has to be a right we expect to be available to workers, 
rather than a right that is abrogated by employers who do not want to 
have anything to do with workers who organize.
  The stories are endless about the bad things that happen to workers 
who try to organize. One in five active union supporters is illegally 
fired during union-organizing campaigns--20 percent are fired. In 78 
percent of the elections, employers require supervisors to deliver 
anti-union messages to the workers whose jobs they pay and control. In 
51 percent of the elections, employers force workers to attend closed-
door, anti-union meetings, and they threaten to close the workplace if 
employees vote for union representation.
  These are a few of the one-sided election rules that tilt the playing 
field in favor of the management of the company. The worker hardly 
stands a chance. That is what is happening.
  For all of the hyperbole that is trying to scare people about it, 
this legislation is very simple, and it is very democratic. If the 
majority of employees in a workplace sign up to decide they want to 
organize as a workplace, then this country ought to respect that. That 
is why we need legislation.
  I started by talking about Lech Walesa and Solidarity. It is not only 
foreign workers who organize whom we should respect. We should respect 
the right of workers in this country who organize as well.
  I would like to hear someone on the floor of the Senate stand up--I 
have not heard that yet--but stand up and say Circuit City is a 
wonderful example of where we ought to head in this country. Circuit 
City announced one day, in a newspaper account, that they decided to 
get rid of some 3,400 of their workers. Their CEO apparently authorized 
that announcement to be made. The CEO was making $10 million a year and 
3,400 workers were to get fired because they were making $11 an hour, 
and that was too much money to be paying American workers. So Circuit 
City said--again with a CEO and other executives making millions of 
dollars a year--we will fire 3,400 people and rehire people at $8 an 
hour and save money.
  I suppose you can save money that way. I am not sure that is a 
particularly good message to American workers: Come work here, get some 
experience here and by the time you get some experience, we think we 
can find somebody who will work for less money than you. That's the 
message: we prefer to have inexperienced workers rather than 
experienced workers, we think $11 an hour is too much for you and your 
family. What kind of a message is that? I didn't hear anybody talk 
about that much. It was one big yawn around here with that sort of 
thing.
  That kind of approach, that I think devalues the workforce in this 
country, is something I think we ought to care about. The underlying 
legislation we are talking about is something we ought to care about as 
well because it stands up for American workers. It says, in this 
country, we live free. If you want to organize, you have a right to 
organize and the rules ought to be fair. The deck ought not be stacked 
against you. That is why we have legislation being considered today and 
I am pleased to support it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Bond 
be given the floor immediately after my remarks and I be granted up to 
5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I listened very carefully to my friend from 
North Dakota. He is a friend and very fine man and good Senator, but I 
have been a little bit amazed at some of the things he said. First, I 
have only been here 31 years, but I was one of those who did a lot to 
help Lech Walesa. My dearest friend in the labor movement happened to 
be the international vice president of the AFL-CIO, Irving Brown. 
Irving Brown headed our tripartite representation at the International 
Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He was probably the most 
respected labor leader in the world. He took on the Soviets and their 
phony trade union organization that was trying to take over the French 
docks and he beat them. He risked his life every day of his life for 
free trade unionism, internationally.
  When he died I was, as far as I could see, the only Republican 
invited to his memorial service. He went into Paris at the end of the 
Second World War--before the end of the Second World War--through the 
underground, and stayed there and helped topple the Nazis and then 
stayed there and defeated the Communists who tried to take over the 
French docks. If they had been able to do that, they would have had a 
worldwide trade union that would have been anything but in the best 
interests of the workers. He was the one who came up with the idea for 
the National Endowment for Democracy, and I worked very hard to get 
that enacted here and also was one of the first members of the board of 
directors of the National Endowment for Democracy.
  I think he would have been horrified with what this bill does, taking 
away the right of workers to have a secret ballot election and 
replacing it with the ability of 50 percent of the workers plus one, 
who sign cards, mandating a union for every other employee. The fact of 
the matter is, doing away with secret ballot elections is anything but 
Democratic.
  I have to say I am amazed they are trying to sell this to the 
American public. I don't think they can. They can't sell it to the 
union members out there, roughly 70 percent of whom are against doing 
away with secret ballot elections--and for good reason. Once they start 
down that road, then you can have Government interference and a whole 
bunch of other interferences that will take away people's freedoms and 
rights.
  This bill is a disgrace. Even worse is the mandatory arbitration this 
bill imposes on employers and employees for up to 2 years if they do 
not agree within 90 days of collective bargaining, which usually always 
takes longer, and 30 days of mediation. Then the Federal Government can 
step in and determine the wages, terms, and conditions of employment.
  That is a ridiculous approach. That is even more dangerous than the 
card-check part of this. I can tell you this, as one who helped Lech 
Walesa, who

[[Page 17216]]

met with him in Gdansk, who had dinner with him over in Gdansk, and 
also with Father Jankowski, who was the Catholic priest who held mass 
on the docks with guns trained upon his back, all I can say is I do not 
think their belief in free trade unionism consisted of having a card 
check system. A system that would bind 100 percent of employees to a 
union when only 50 percent plus 1 decided to unionize through a coerced 
and nontransparent signing of a card.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I rise today to express my strong 
opposition to H.R. 800, the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act 
or card-check bill. As Americans, we cast secret ballots when we vote 
for the President, Congress, Governors, mayors, and city council 
members. Yet this bill would take away that essential right within the 
workplace.
  It reminds me of the story from my home country, Audrain County, 
Missouri, often called the ``heart of little Dixie'' in Missouri, 
because it was settled by Democrats. The folklore has it that in the 
1864 election, when President Lincoln was running for reelection and 
everybody had to stand up on the courthouse steps and announce for whom 
they were voting, one brave or foolhardy soul got up and said he wanted 
to cast a vote for Abraham Lincoln. To show you how kind and generous 
and hospitable the people of Audrain County were, they gave him a full 
24 hours to get out of town. While I cannot document that story with 
the names of the specific individuals involved, that is an example of 
why a secret ballot is important.
  A secret ballot allows people to exercise a free choice without fear 
of coercion from either side, either management or fellow workers who 
support management or fellow workers who support a union and union 
organizers.
  Rather than enhancing and enabling secret ballots within the 
workplace, this bill would eliminate that choice. Under the so-called 
card-check bill, an employer would no longer carry the right to demand 
a secret ballot election in order to certify a union as the employee's 
bargaining unit. The reauthorization of the National Labor Relations 
Act of 1947, the original benchmark for secret ballot union elections, 
was enacted to safeguard the rights of workers and the companies they 
worked for, to promote collective bargaining, and to restrain certain 
private sector labor and management practices, which could pose a 
threat to the general welfare of workers, to business, and to our 
Nation's economy.
  Now, as we all know, NLRA allows for an exception to the rule of a 
secret ballot election. If an employer is willing to accept union 
authorization cards that have been signed from a majority of the 
employees represented, the organized union becomes the bargaining unit 
for that specific group of workers.
  Therefore, as you see under existing law, there are exceptions which 
allow for authorization cards to be accepted. But to remove completely 
the ability of workers to have a confidential and private vote on 
whether they choose to become a part of a union is utterly 
objectionable and goes against all of the principles we hold so dear in 
this democracy.
  I feel that this ill-advised legislation will replace a federally 
supervised secret ballot election process with a system that would open 
the door for harassment, intimidation, coercion, forgery, and fraud. If 
enacted, this bill would permit union organizers to gain signatures 
from workers wherever they feel free to do so. Therefore, as a result, 
a worker could see an organizer choose to show up at the place where he 
or she eats, at their residence, or at a family outing just to obtain a 
signature for representation.
  Might I say also my constituents, who are small businesses, who know 
their employees on a first-name basis, are violently opposed to this 
kind of working operation. The small businesses are the dynamic engine 
that keeps this economy growing. They are creating the jobs, they are 
the ones that grow. If they thought they could have a union imposed 
upon them by card check, without going through a secret ballot, it 
would kill the ability of those small businesses to grow and hire more 
workers.
  In fiscal year 2005, the National Labor Relations Board conducted 
2,745 elections. It is interesting to note that 1,504 secret ballot 
elections were won by organized labor. Therefore, the total percentage 
of elections won by labor unions was 55 percent.
  In 2004, organized unions won 51 percent out of 2,826 total elections 
conducted that year. During the Clinton administration in 1994, 
organized labor won only 44 percent of the total secret ballot 
elections.
  According to a polling report conducted in January of this year, out 
of the many individuals who were asked whether they would prefer an 
authorization card over secret ballot, 89 percent of those polled 
overwhelmingly chose the secret ballot.
  As you see from the numbers, employees who have a real free choice of 
confidentially deciding whether to become part of the union have freely 
been able to employ their given right for union representation if they 
choose. In the last few years, under the secret ballot election, a 
majority of workers have decided to join a union. If a majority of 
prospective union employees does not wish to join, then they have a 
right, by secret ballot, to decline.
  If labor unions are continuously increasing their election win margin 
each fiscal year, why prefer to use a system that threatens the 
protective rights of the confidential vote for each employee? Why not 
leave the ultimate decision to the employees where support for the 
secret ballot continues to remain strong?
  The answer to that question may be in the fact that while secret 
ballot elections recently produced a victory of 55 percent in 2005, it 
does not match the success of a 90-percent win rate that the card-check 
system produces.
  Many small businesses back home in Missouri have come to me and 
expressed concern with this bill, from machinists to mechanics to food 
distributors, and many other small companies. They have all voiced 
their resistance, distrust, and strong opposition to this bill.
  We must understand that over 93 percent of our Nation's businesses 
have fewer than 100 employees. This bill would place a heavy burden on 
the livelihood of these small businesses, since they are the least 
likely to have experience in labor negotiations or have experienced 
legal counsel to represent them. They have to work on a first-name 
basis with their employees. They know what their challenges are. They 
know who they are, and they are in the best position to be able to help 
their workers. But they don't want to have the threat of a nonsecret 
ballot imposing a union on them.
  Passage of the bill will mean that unions could unfairly target 
considerably smaller businesses, more than before, given that the 
amount of resources necessary to organize a business would be 
significantly less. Prohibiting a secret ballot for the purposes of 
assisting organized labor with efforts to bolster membership is not the 
remedy needed to ensure every worker's right to a safe, confidential, 
union election, where their God-given rights to a secret ballot, which 
we hold dear in the United States, would be denied.
  I urge my colleagues not to permit this bill to go forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

                          ____________________