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FOIA Number: 2013-0306-F
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Political Affairs
Series/Staff Member:
Joan Baggett
Subseries:
OA/ID Number:
4048
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Folder Title:
[AFL-CIO Briefing Book] [loose] [3]
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Withdrawal/Redaction Sheet
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
AND TYPE
001. remarks
Political (Partial) (2 pages)
02/21/1994
b(6)
002. list
Political (Partial) (2 pages)
02/21/1994
b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Political Affairs
Joan Baggett
OA/Box Number: 4048
FOLDER TITLE:
[AFL-CIO Briefing Book] [loose] [3]
2013-0306-F
jm1239
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - 144 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act 15 U.S.C. 552(b)]
PI National Security Classified Information |(a)(1) of the PRAJ
h(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRAJ
h(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(a)(3) of the PRA]
an agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
h(3) Release would violate a Federal statute |(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information |(a)(4) of the PRA
h(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information |(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy |(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
FEBRUARY 18, 1994
MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT
FROM:
CHRIS ULRICH/MIKE BURTON/MICHELA ALIOTO
SUBJECT:
AFL-CIO BRIEFING BOOK
Enclosed is your final briefing book for the AFL-CIO events. This book contains
details not included in your preliminary briefing book. In addition to the general information
you have already received, you will find materials on the AFL- CIO executive council
leadership, labor issues arising from the National Performance Review, and international
issues of interest to organized labor. You will note that this book contains a broad range of
subject matters intended to give you a strong grasp of the various issues union leaders might
raise.
This book contains:
GENERAL INFORMATION
TALKING POINTS FOR AFL-CIO EXE.COUNCIL MTG.
Strategy Memo Highlighting Suggested Themes
Copy of the President's Speech from the AFL-CIO Convention in San
Francisco on October 4, 1993.
Economic Outlook Sheet from CEA
List of Clinton-Gore Accomplishments (Brag Sheet for Organized
Labor)
AFL-CIO Executive Board Members bio's and a preview of each
members political concerns.
Last Visits/Meetings with AFL-CIO Leaders
ORGANIZED LABOR/AFL-CIO
Fact sheet on Union Memberships and wages
List of Former Union Officers now serving in the Administration
NLRB Update
1993 Committee on Political Education (COPE) Report
AGJ AND LABOR
Overall Committee on Political Education on you
Report on Senate-Era work on Labor(Primarily on Plant Closings)
VP Labor Correspondence
NATIONAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW
- Davis Bacon Act of 1931
- Buy American
- Government Printing Office
- Ensuring Workplace Safety and Health
- One Stop Centers for Career Management
- National Partnership Council
- Commission To Review the U.S. Maritime Industry
- Railroad Retirement Board
INTERNATIONAL ISSUES AFFECTING LABOR
Japanese Trade Sanctions
Malaysia (GSP)
GATT-- Workers Rights Provision
NAFTA Implementation
Poland and AFL-CIO
Immigration
SPECIFIC LABOR ISSUES
Transportation Issues- ISTEA & Mass Transit Formula grants
Health Care and Labor
Welfare Reform and Public Sector Replacement.
Re-employment Act of 1994
Reinventing Unemployment Insurance
Sticker Replacement
Enforcement
Lead Exposure
OSHA Ensuring work place safety and Health
Testimony by Secretary Reich on OSHA Reform
The Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations
The Secretary's Task Force on Excellence in State and Local
Government
Office of Labor Management Standards: Labor Management forms
Revision and Special Briefings
Talking Points
for
Vice President Al Gore
at
AFL-CIO Executive Council
Bal Harbour, FL
Feb. 21, 1994
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FROM ADVANCE)
I. I'm here for two reasons.
*
First, to celebrate. This has been the best year for
working people and unions since I went to Congress -- with
the help of many people in this room.
*
Second, to make sure we work together so the years
ahead are even better.
II. Last October, when the President talked to the AFL-CIO
Convention, he said this:
"I became President in part because I wanted a new
partnership for the labor movement in America."
That theme of partnership has guided all our efforts to
help working families this year. And we've had some real
accomplishment.
II. Some people don't see how much happened in 1993. But
just think back to the mood at Bal Harbour two years ago.
*
Then we had an economy losing 9400 jobs a
month. Now we're creating 164,000 jobs a month
and that's a victory for working people.
* We created more private sector jobs in 12 months
-- 1.7 million -- than the Bush Administration did in
4 years, and that's a victory for working people.
*
Unemployment dropped to 6.4% in December -- a
three year low and that's a victory for working
people.
III. Remember George Bush trying to veto unemployment
benefits? This time President Clinton supported it in Congress
and couldn't wait to sign it into law, keeping 300,000
unemployed Americans each week from falling through the
safety net.
IV. Remember those 1% growth rates? We had a 2.9%
growth rate in 1993 -- and that was a victory for working
people.
V. This was not only a good year for working families. It
was a good year for the great extended family that is the
American labor movement -- and not just because so many of
the President's Cabinet are made up of friends of labor,
whether Robert Reich or Henry Cisneros or Donna Shalala
*
Organized labor is a partner in every important
policy discussion in this Administration, whether
from Joan Baggett (Bricklayers) or Joe Valasquez
(AFL-CIO) in the White House Jack
Otero
(Transportation-Communications Union) or Geri
Palast (SEIU) at Labor Jerry Kleppner (AFSCME)
at HHS
or dozens of others.
*
That's why we saw so many initiatives that had
been on our wish list for years become
law.
1. Family and Medical Leave
2. Tax cuts for 20 million working families
3. Hatch Act Reform
VI. And let me tell you about something that makes me
really proud: guided by John Sturdivant we've formed labor-
management partnerships.
*
For the first time in 30 years -- since President
Kennedy allowed unions to organize in the federal workplace -
- employees and their representatives are empowered to move
this government from red tape to results.
*
We'll create a flexible hiring system
reform the
general schedule classification system
let employees design
their own performance management systems.
*
Will these partnerships work? They will because
they are working.
a. They're working at the United States Mint
where it and the AFGE have an agreement on ways to resolve
a wide range of issues.
b. They're working at Department of Labor
where Agency Reinvention Teams have union members
working as full partners.
C. They're working at IRS, where it and the
National Treasury Employees Union signed a Total Quality
Organization Partnership Agreement.
*
In this administration we want to bring workers
into the process -- not lock them out.
Withdrawal/Redaction Marker
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
AND TYPE
001. remarks
Political (Partial) (2 pages)
02/21/1994
b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Political Affairs
Joan Baggett
OA/Box Number: 4048
FOLDER TITLE:
[AFL-CIO Briefing Book] [loose] [3]
2013-0306-F
jm1239
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - 144 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - 15 U.S.C. 552(b)]
P1 National Security Classified Information |(a)(1) of the PRA]
b(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA|
h(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(a)(3) of the PRA
an agency |(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA|
financial information |(a)(4) of the PRA
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors |a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy |(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy |(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes |(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
h(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells |(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
VI. We have a lot more to do.
*
OSHA Reform: We support the Kennedy-Ford bill
and we'll work hard to see it passed.
*
Striker Replacement: We support legislation to ban
scabs and the President will sign it the moment it reaches his
desk.
*
HEALTH CARE: There are those who say there's
no health care crisis. Tell that to the
-- 40 million without coverage
-- people locked into jobs because of
preexisting conditions
-- Working people who have seen insurance
premiums triple.
* We're going to work with you to make sure a bill
passes by November, 1994 that gives health care to
every American.
001
(b)(6)
(b)(6)
VIII. Let me finish by quoting the President once more:
"For most of the 20th Century the union movement in
America has represented the effort to make sure that people
who worked hard and played by the rules were treated fairly,
had a chance to become middle class citizens, raise middle
class kids and give their children a chance to have a better life
than they did."
That was your mission. And that is your achievement.
Now we'd like to work as partners with you, to make
sure we do that in the century that lies ahead.
We want to work with you for jobs.
For growth.
For working families.
For a better America.
Clinton Presidential Records
Digital Records Marker
This is not a presidential record. This is used as an administrative
marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
This marker identifies the place of a tabbed divider. Given our
digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
Strategy Memo
Divider Title:
STRATEGY MEMORANDUM
Your appearance at Bal Harbour offers a unique opportunity to emphasize the
natural bonds between this Administration and organized labor. Although the NAFTA
debate caused a great deal of friction, there are more lasting forces that will inevitably
re-establish this important alliance. More than anything else, union members want to
ensure that the United States has a growing market of good jobs--and they need to
know the Administration holds this goal as one of its most basic missions. The more
forcefully we present our common vision, the more rapidly we will heal any wounds
that might remain from last November.
As you know, this Administration created far more private sector jobs in the
first twelve months than the Bush Administration created in its entire four year term of
office. The reason is that, for the first time in many years, we have a team in the
White House that is willing to grapple with real economic issues. We are cutting
wasteful spending and reducing the deficit. Moreover, this Administration is willing to
take an active role in promoting economic growth--not by giving tax breaks to the
rich, but by promoting U.S. exports, training people for productive careers, transferring
publicly funded research to commercial production, and leading the nation into a new
world of high-tech manufacturing technology. The result, so far, is the creation of 1.7
million new jobs in the private sector, and emerging patterns of economic strength that
promise even greater job growth.
Because we stand behind organized labor in nearly all the bread-and-butter
issues its members care about, the AFL-CIO readily applauds the Administration in
those areas where we have stood together, despite past quarrels on NAFTA. We agree
on OSHA reform, labor law reform, and striker replacement. We have worked
together to gain significant achievements on family and medical leave, Hatch Act
reform, emergency unemployment benefits, Motor-Voter legislation, and deficit
reduction. Finally, the Administration and organized labor will clearly need each other
to make sure that Congress passes a comprehensive healthcare reform package--we
cannot do it without labor, and they cannot do it without us.
The native affinity between this Administration and organized labor resides in a
common effort to build a strong and growing economy that creates good jobs for
working families. Without economic progress, other gains become moot. This
Administration is tenaciously seeking ways to join with labor in a partnership to create
American jobs. The results so far show value of this alliance: The economy is
growing and people are going back to work. Our present task is to remind members
of the AFL-CIO that we are ready to join their struggle--not just as a matter of
convenience, but as a matter of deeply shared principle. They should know that this
Administration will stand behind U.S. workers at home or abroad to help all
Americans thrive in the global economy.
Clinton Presidential Records
Digital Records Marker
This is not a presidential record. This is used as an administrative
marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
This marker identifies the place of a tabbed divider. Given our
digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
The President's Speech
Divider Title:
February 18, 1994
MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT
FROM:
MICHAEL BURTON
SUBJECT: PRESIDENT CLINTON'S SPEECH TO 1993 AFL-CIO CONVENTION
Attached is a copy of the speech President Clinton delivered on October 4,
1993, at the AFL-CIO convention in San Francisco. He gave the speech shortly
before the NAFTA debate became heated. The thrust of these remarks has been
incorporated into your talking points for Bal Harbour.
SEVEN KEY POINTS
1.
In an ever-changing economy, America needs a re-employment system, not an
un-employment system.
2.
To have productive workers, we must allow people to be good parents and good
family members. The Family and Medical Leave Act helps them do that.
3.
We must empower workers through partnerships--between labor and
management, as well as between labor and the public sector.
4.
The government can play a positive role in encouraging work by making sure
working families are not punished for earning a paycheck (as the Earned
Income Tax Credit makes possible) and by making education available to
everyone (as student loan reform and Goals 2000 will allow).
5.
Defense conversion and accessible government labs encourage good jobs here at
home as we move forward toward innovative manufacturing and consumer
technologies (as with the Clean Car initiative).
6.
In order to ensure that U.S. goods have access to the widest possible world
marketplace, we need to negotiate strong trade agreements, and when that fails,
we must be willing to impose tough trade sanctions.
7.
We must provide our citizens with security from violent crime, from the
prospect of losing their health insurance, from injury in the workplace, and from
the possibility they will have their jobs taken from them just for participating in
a legal economic strike.
itc
415
141
7487
P.001.
JC:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(San Francisco, California)
For Immediate Release
October 4, 1993
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE AFL-CIO 20TH CONVENTION
San Francisco Hilton
San Francisco, California
11:30 A.M. PDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. President
Kirkland, distinguished platform guests, and to the men and women
of the American labor movement, let me tell you first I am glad
to be here. I feel like I'm home and I hope you feel like you
have a home in Washington. (Applause.)
For most of the 20th century the union movement in
America has represented the effort to make sure that people who
worked hard and played by the rules were treated fairly, had a
chance to become middle class citizens, raise middle class kids,
and give their children a chance to have a better life than they
did. You have worked for that. You have done that.
For too long, in the face of deep and profound
problems engulfing all the world's advanced nations, you have
been subjected to a political climate in which you were asked to
bear the blame for forces you did not create, many times when you
were trying to make the situation better. I became President in
part because I wanted a new partnership for the labor movement in
America. (Applause.)
Before I get into the remarks that I came here to
make about all of our challenges at home and the economic
challenges facing us, I have to make a few remarks this morning
about developments in the world in the last 48 hours.
The labor movement has been active, particularly in
the last few years with the end of the Cold War, in the effort to
promote democracy abroad, to guarantee the right of people freely
to join their own unions, and to work for freedom within their
own countries. In that context, most of you, I know, have
strongly supported and looked with great favor on the movement
towards democracy in Russia.
The United Stated continues to stand firm of it's
support of President Yeltsin, because he is Russia's
democratically-elected leader. (Applause.) We very much regret
the loss of life in MOSCOW, but it is clear that the opposition
forces started the conflict, and that President Yeltsin had no
other alternative than to try to restore order. It appears as of
this moment that that has been done. (Applause.) And I have no,
I have as of this moment absolutely no reason to doubt the
personal commitment that Boris Yeltsin to let the Russian people
decide their own future, to secure a new Constitution with
democratic values and democratic processes, to have a new
legislative branch elected with democratic elections, and to
subject himself, yet again, to a democratic vote of the people.
THat is all that we can ask.
I think also, most of you know that in a military
action yesterday, the United States sustained the loss of some
young American soldiers in somalia. I deeply regrat the loss of
their lives. THey are working to ensure that anarchy and
starvation do not return to a nation in which over 300,000 people
MORE
have lost their lives -- many of them children -- before the
United stated led the U.N. mission there, starting late last
year. I want to offer my profound condolences to the families of
the United States Army personnel who died there. They were
acting in the best spirit of America.
As you know, the United States has long had plans to
withdraw from Somalia and leave it to others in the United
Nations to pursue the common objectives. I urged the United
Nations and the Secretary General in my speech at the United
Nations a few days ago to start a political process so that the
country could be turned back over to Somalis who would not permit
the kind of horrible bloodshed and devastation to reoccur. And I
hope and pray that that will happen.
In the meanwhile, you may be sure that we will do
whatever is necessary to protect our own forces in Somalia and to
complete our mission there.
From the struggle against communism in Eastern
Europe to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the
union movement in America has always answered the challenges of
our time. It must be a source of great pride to you to see these
elections unfold, to see the remarkable movement toward a genuine
multiracial society within a democratic framework in south
Africa. (Applause.) It must, likewise, be a source of
continuing frustration to you to see that even as the ideas and
the values that you have espoused now for decades are being
embraced around the world, here in our country and virtually
every other wealthy country in the world, middle class workers
are under assault from global economic forces that seem beyond
the reach of virtually any government policy.
We now know that every wealthy country in the world
is having trouble creating jobs. We now know that in the last
several years, inequality of income got worse in every major
country. We know that we had more growing inequality in America
than anyplace else because we actually embraced it. I mean, the
whole idea of trickle-down economics was to cut taxes on the
wealthiest Americans, raise taxes on the middle class, let the
deficit balloon, and hope that the investment from the wealthy
would somehow expand opportunity to everybody else.
We know that didn't work, and it made, the situation
worse. It left us with a $4 trillion debt. It left us with a
deficit of over $300 billion a year. It left us with a legacy of
weakened opportunities for workers in the workplace, too little
investment, a paralyzed budget, and no strategy to compete and
win in the global economy, and more inequality in America than
any of the other wealthy countries. But we also know that the
same problems we have are now being found in Germany, in Japan,
in all of Europe, in the other advanced nations.
so we have to face the honest fact that we are
facing unprecedented challenges in our own midst to the very way
of life that the labor movement has fought 50 hard to guarantee
for others around the world for decades. And therefore, it is
important that we think through these issues, that we take
positions on them, that we agree and that we disagree in the
spirit of honest searching for what the real nature of this world
is we re living in and where we are going.
The most important thing to me today is that you
know that this administration shares your values and your hopes
and your dreams and the interest of your children, and that
together -- (applause.) And that I believe together we can work
our way through this very difficult and challenging time,
recognizing that no one fully understands the dimensions of the
age in which we live and exactly how we are going to recreate
opport unity for all Americans who are willing to do what it taken
to be worthy of it.
MORE
- 3 -
The labor movement. historically, has always been on
the cutting edge of change, and the drive to empower workers and
give them more dignity on the job and in their lives. Almost a
half a century ago, at the end of World War II, labor helped to
change America and the world. At home and abroad, labor helped
to create a generation of prosperity and to create the broad
middle class that we all cherish so much today.
Now we have to do it again. We're at a time of
change that I am convinced is as dramatic as the dawning of the
Industrial Age. We can no longer tell our sons and daughters --
we know this now -- that they will enter a job at the age of 18
or -21, enjoy secure paychecks and health benefits and retirement
benefits for the rest of their working lives, and retire from the
same job with the same company at the age of 65 or 62.
Our changing economy tells us now that the average
18-year-old will change work seven times in a lifetime even if
they stay with the same company and certainly if they change;
that when people loss their jobs now, they really aren't on
unemployment, they're looking for reemployment; that most
unemployment today is not like it used to be -- when people got
unemployed for decades, it was because there was a temporary
downturn in the economy. And when the economy turned up again,
most people who were unemployed were hired back by their old
employer. Today, most people who are unemployed eventually get
hired back usually by a different employer for a different job.
And unless we are very good at what we do for them, often at
lower wages and less benefits.
So it is clear that what we need is not an
unemployment system, but a reemployment system in recognition of
the way the world works today. (Applause.)
We know, too, that most American working people are
working harder than they ever have in their lives; that the
average work week is longer today than is was 20 years ago; that
real hourly wages adjusted for inflation peaked in 1973, and so
most people are working harder for the same or lower real wages
than they were making 20 years ago.
We know that in the ' 805 there was a dramatic
restructuring of manufacturing; that being followed in the '90s
with a dramatic restructuring of the service industries. We know
that for the last 12 years, in every single year, the Fortune 500
companies lowered employment in the United States in six figures;
and that in the years where we have gained jobs, they've come
primarily from starting new businesses and from companies with
between, say, 500 and 1,000 workers expanding -- as the whole
nature of this economy changes.
We know that the cost of health care has increased
so much that millions of American workers who kept their jobs
never got a pay raise because all the increased money went to pay
more for the same health care. We know that some of our most
powerful industrial engines, especially in industries like autos
and steel have shown breathtaking increases in productivity with
deep changes in the work force supported by the labor movement,
and still are having trouble competing in the world, in part,
because their health costs may be a much as a dime on the dollar
more than all of their competitors.
We know, as I said at the beginning, that all the
wealthy countries in the world are now having trouble creating
jobs. If you look at France, for example, in the late 1980s,
they actually had an economy that grew more rapidly than
Germany's, and yet their unemployment rate never went below 9.5
percent.
So what are we to do? It seems to me that we
clearly have to make some changes in the way we look at the world
and the way we approach the world. And in order to make those
MORE
4
changes, we have to ask ourselves, what do we have to do to make
the American people secure enough to make the changes? One of
the things that has really bothered me in the late, latter stages
era that we're moving out of is that 50 few people have been so
little concerned about rampant insecurity among ordinary American
middle-class citizens. It is impossible for people in their
personal lives to make necessary changes 1f they are wildly
insecure.
You think about that in your own life. You think
about a personal challenge you faced, a challenge your family has
faced -- the same thing 1s true in the work place. The same
thing 1s true of a community. The same thing is true of a team.
The same things is true of our country. We have to struggle to
redefine a new balance between security and change in this
country because if we're not secure, we won't change, and if we
don't change, we'll get more insecure, because the circumstances
of the world will continue to grind us down.
And that's what makes this such a difficult time,
because we have to rethink so many things at once. I ran for
President because I was tired of 20 years of declining living
standards, of 12 years of trickle-down economics and antiworker
policies, and rhetoric that blamed people who are working harder
for the problems that others did not respond to. And because I
believe that we needed a new partnership in America -- a new
sense of community. Not just business and labor and government,
but also people without regard to their color or their region or
anything else. I thought we didn't have anybody to waste, and 1+
looks to me like we were wasting a lot of people and that we
needed to pull together. I thought the country was going in the
wrong direction and we should turn it around. But I was then and
am now under no illusions that we could do it overnight, or that
I could do it, unless we did it together.
The beginning of the security necessary to change, I
think, is in having a government that is plainly on the side of
working Americans. (Applause.) I believe that any of your
leaders who work with this administration will tell you that we
are replacing a government that for years worked labor over with
a government that works with labor. (Applause.) We have a
secretary of Labor in Bob Reich who understands that, at a time
when money and management can travel across the globe in a
microsecond, our prosperity depends more than anything else on
the skills and the strengths of our working people. No one can
take that away from us. And our people are still our most
important asset, even more than they were 20 years ago.
(Applause.)
We have nominated a chair of the National Labor
Relations Board in Bill Gould, and a new member, Peggy Browning,
who believe in collective bargaining. (Applause.) We have a
Director of the Occupational safety and Health Administration in
Joseph Dear who comes from the labor movement and believes that
workers should be protected in the workplace. (Applause.) we
have two people in executive positions in the Labor Department in
Joyce Miller and Jack otero who were on your Executive Council.
(Applause.) We have two people in the SEIU in executive
positions in Karen Nussbaum and Jerry Polas who are leading us to
make progress. (Applause.)
This administration rescinded President Reagan's
order banning all reemployment of PATCO workers forever.
(Applause.) And we rescinded President Bush's orders with regard
to government-funded contracting and one-sided information given
to workers in the workplace. (Applause.) And this week I will
sign the Hatch Act Reform Act to give government employees
political rights they have denied for too long. (Applause.)
One week ago yesterday, on a Sunday morning, I came
in from my early morning run, and I turned to my right as I
walked into the White House, and I saw a family standing there
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a father, a mother, and three daughters, one of whom was in a
wheel chair. And the person who was with them who worked for me
said, "Mr. President, this little girl has got terminal cancer
and she was asked by the Make A Wish Foundation what she wanted
to do and she said she wanted to come to the White House and
visit you. so we're giving her a special tour." (Applause.)
so I went over and I shook hands with thee and
apologized for my condition, end told them I'd get cleaned up and
come back and we'd take a picture. And a few minutes later I
showed up, looking more like my job. (Laughter.) And I visited
with this wonderful child, desperately 111, for a while. And
then I talked to her sisters and then I talked to her mother.
And I talked to her father. And as I turned around to go off,
the father grabbed me by the arm and he said -- he said, "Let me
tell you something. If you ever get to wondering whether it
maDes a difference who's the President," he said, "look at my
child. she's probably not going to make it and the weeks I've
spent with her have been the most precious time of my life. And
if you hadn't been elected, we wouldn't have had a Family and
Medical Leave law that made it possible to be with my child in
this time." (Applause.)
NOW, I believe, in short, that it ought to be
possible to be a good parent and a good worker. I believe that
it ought to be possible for people to make their own judgments
about whether they want to be organized at work, or not, and how
they're going to be -- (applause.) And I believe if we're really
going to preserve the America workplace as a model of global
productivity, we have to let people who know how to do their jobs
better than other people do have more empowerment to do those
jobs and to make those changes in the workplace.
That's why, as we work on the Vice President's
reinventing government initiative, we work 50 closely with
federal employees and their unions. When the Vice President
spoke with business leaders and workers who had changed their
companies, they all said the same thing -- you've got to have the
workers; you have to have them do it, tell you how to do it, tell
you how to make the companies more productive.
Now, that's why yesterday I signed an executive
order -- on Friday -- creating a national partnership council.
For the next several months the leaders of federal employee
unions, including John Sturdivant, the President of the American
Federation of Government Employees, who is here today, will work
with the leaders of our administration to make our government
more effective, cost less, and more importantly, to make the jobs
of the rank and file federal employees more interesting, more
stimulating, more customer-oriented, by doing things that they
have been telling us they should be able to do, but the system
has not permitted them to do in the past. I applaud John and the
other people in the unions representing federal employees for
what they have done. This is an unprecedented partnership that I
think will benefit every American. (Applause.)
We want to make worker empowerment and labor
management cooperation a way of life in this country, from the
factory floor to the board room. We've created a commission on
the future of labor and management relations, with leaders from
labor, business and the academy, chaired by former Labor
Secretary John Dunlap. And I've asked secretary Reich to create
a commission to study and improve relationships in government
workplaces at every level -- at the state and county and local
level, as well as at the federal level.
I believe this is something that a person like Bob
Reich is uniquely situated to do. And it's the kind of thing
that we ought to be promoting because we have to use this
opportunity we have to try to take what has worked [or workers
and their businesses and spread it around the country.
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For the last 12 years we've had a iot of
pointing and blame-placing, and we've got these stirring examples
of success that we could be trying to replicate. That's what we
ought to be doing taking what works. And it always is a
workplace in which workers have more say. And we're going to do
what we can to get that done. (Applause.)
Now, on the security issue, let me just mention some
other things. In addition to the Family Leave Act, the budget
bill which passed by such a landslide in the Congress --
(laughter) -- contained what may well be the most important piece
of economic reform for working people in 20 years, by expanding
the earned income tax credit so that you can say to people, 1f
you. work 40 hours a week and you have children in your home, you
will not be poor. We are bringing new hope and new dignity into
the lives of 15 million working families that make $27,000 a year
or less. They'll no longer be taxed into poverty. There won't
be a government program to try to lift them out of poverty.
Their own efforts will lift them out of poverty because the tax
system will be changed to reward them. And there will never
again be an incentive for people to be on welfare instead of work
because the tax system will say, if you're willing to go to work
and work 40 hours a week, no matter how tough it is, we will lift
you out of poverty.
That is the kind of pro-work, pro-family policy this
country ought to have. (Applause.)
something else that was in that bill that most
Americans don't even know about yet that will benefit many, many
of you in this room and the people you represent is a dramatic
reform of the student loan system that will eliminate waste,
lower the interest rates on student loans, make the repayment
terms easier so that young people can repay their loans no matter
how much they borrow as a percentage of their incomes, limited so
they can repay it. Even though we'll have tougher repayment
terms, they'll be able to do it. We'll collect they money, but
people will be able to borrow money and pay it back at lower
interest rates, at better repayment terms, and therefore, no one
will ever be denied access to a college education because of the
cost. (Applause.)
When you put that with our Goals 2000 program, the
education reform program for the public schools, and the work
that the Education Secretary Dick Riley is doing with Secretary
Reich to redo the worker training programs in the country, you
have a commitment to raise standard in education and open
opportunities to our young people.
We need higher standards in our public schools. Al
Shanker has long been a voice for that. He now has allies in the
NEA and other places in the country who are saying let's have
national standards and evaluate what our kids are learning and
how our schools are doing.
I believe we need to give our young people more
choices within the public school system and I have advocated
letting states try a lot of things within districts. Let kids
choose which schools they attend. Let school districts decide
how they want to set up and organize schools. I think that a lot
of changes need to be made in a lot of school districts. But let
me say, that we don't want to throw out the baby with the bath
water. There are also a lot of school districts that are doing a
great job under difficult circumstances. There are a lot of
schools within school districts that are performing well under
difficult circumstances.
And if we've learned anything, we've learned that
the best way to increase the quality of education 16 to find
better principals, get better leaders among the teachers, let
them have more say over how school is run, and evaluate them
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based on their results rather than telling them how to do every
last jot and tiddle of their job every day.
We have learned these things. And if I might, since
we're in California, say a special word -- therefore, I believe
that having worked for 12 years for higher standards, more
choices and greater changes in public education, I'm in a little
bit of a position to say that if I were a citizen of the state of
California, I would not vote for Proposition 174, The Private
Voucher Initiative. (Applause.)
NOW, and let me tell you why. Let me tell you why.
First of all, keep in mind a lot of the schools out here are
doing a good job. I can say -- you know, I never was part of the
California education system. I have studied this system out here
for more than a decade. They have undertaken a lot of very
impressive reforms and many of their schools are doing a good
job. I was interviewed last night by two people from a newspaper
in Sacramento, and one of them just volunteered that he had two
children in the public schools there and they were getting a
terrific education.
This bill would start by taking $1.3 billion right
of the top to send a check to people who already have their kids
in private schools, and who didn't need any government money to
do it, and taking it right of the top away from a school system
that doesn't have enough money to educate the kids it's got in it
in the first place. (Applause.)
Second thing it would do is to impose no real
standards on the quality of the programs which could be funded:
Who could set up a school, what standards they'd have to meet,
what tests the kids would have to pass. Just take your voucher
and who cares whether a private school is a legitimate school or
not. That is a significant issue. And all you have to do is to
work in this field for a few years to understand that that is a
significant issue.
Wouldn't it be ironic that at the very moment we're
finally trying to find a way to measure the performance and raise
the standards of the public schools, we turn around and start
sending tax money to private schools that didn't have to meet any
standards at all. (Applause.) When we're trying.to get one part
of our business, we're going to make the other part worse.
And finally, let me just say, I have always
supported the notion that American schools ought to have
competition, and the fact that we have a vibrant tradition of
pluralistic education and private schools and religious private
schools was a good thing, not a bad thing for America. But all
the years when I grew up, and all the times I saw that, and for a
couple years of my life when I was a little boy, when I went to a
Catholic school, when my folks moved from one place to another
and we lived way out in the country and didn't know much about
the schools in the new area where we were -- no one ever thought
that the church would want any money from the taxpayers to run
their schools. In fact, they said just the opposite, we don't
want to be involved in that: That's what the First Amendment is
all about.
80 I think we have to really thing through -- I have
spent 12 years before I became President overwhelmingly obsessed
with reform of the public school system, wanting more choices in
the system, wanting more accountability, wanting more flexibility
about how schools were organized and established and operated.
But I can tell you that this 18 not the way to get it done and
the people will regret this 1f they pass it. I hope the people
of California don't do that. (Applause.)
Now, you can educate people all you want -- and I
wanted to say a little more about that. The Labor secretary and
I are working on trying to take all these 150 different
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government training programs and give local communities and
states the power to consolidate them, working with you, and just
fund the things that work on a state-by-state basis, and to set
up a system of lifetime education and training.
I don't know how many of you saw the television
program I did last night in California, but one man, looked to be
in his early 50s, saying, we need a training program that gives
my company some incentives to retrain me; not Just people who are
25, but people who are 55. And we are trying to do that. We're
trying to set up a lifetime education and training program that
starts when young people are in high school, so if they want to
work and learn in high school they can work and learn in high
school. So that we can have the kind of school-to-work
transition that many of our competitors have for all those kids
that won't go to college and won't get four-year educations.
We've got to do that.
But if you do all that, you still have to have
someplace for people to work. we can educate and train people
all we want, but we have to be able to create more jobs. How are
we going to do that at a time when the government is not directly
funding the defense jobs that have kept America's job base up for
60 long?
Well, the first thing we've got to do is make up our
mind we're going to be serious about defense conversion. Last
year when I was a candidate for President -- (applause) -- last
year when I was a candidate for President, I went all over the
country -- and I wasn't in the Congress and didn't have a vote --
pleading with the Congress to pass the defense conversion bill.
They did 1t, and the previous administration absolutely refused
to spend $500 million to help convert from a defense to a high-
tech domestic economy. so we have released the money. And we're
going to try to get up to $20 billion spent on defense conversion
and reinvestment in the jobs of tomorrow over the next five
years. It is very important. (Applause.)
We have got over 2,800 proposals in this country for
technology reinvestment initiatives, to match with what will soon
be about a billion dollars in government money that can create
hundreds of thousands of jobs in America. People are brimming
with ideas out there to create new jobs.
I was at McClellan Air Force Base yesterday, and the
airbase is working with people in the local community and the
local universities and with the federal defense labs -- they have
made new electric cars; they have made new manufacturing
component parts to try to come up with economical ways to do it
and allow those parts to be made in America. And they are
targeting things that are now made overseas and imported here.
That's the sort of thing that we can use our high-tech defense
base to do, and we should be doing it. It's going to make for
more jobs for America.
They have developed a prototype car that gets 80
miles per gallon at 55 miles per hour on the highway, goes to 60
miles per hour in 12 seconds, has a maximum speed of 100 miles an
hour. That's not bad. If we can just figure out how people can
afford it we can put people to work making them. (Laughter.)
But it's a good beginning.
We announced last week that ground-breaking project
with the UAW and Ford, Chrysler and General Motors are working
with the defense labs and all the government labs on a project to
triple the average mileage of American autos within the next 10
years. If they do that, that will create untold numbers of new
jobs here, and we'll be selling cars to people overseas who want
that instead of the reverse.
And by the way, I want to compliment the UAW. You
know, this year we have regained a lot of our market sharc in
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America. People are buying more American cars in America and we
should compliment them for it. (Applause.)
so we have to find ways to create these new jobs.
NOW, I want to talk a little about health care, but before I do.
I want to mention something we disagree on in the context of the
trade issue. And listen to this. since 1986, a significant
portion of America's net new jobs have come from trade growth.
That's something we can all find from the figures. In
California, where wa now are, a lot of that has come from Asia,
which is the fastest growing part of the world. Asia growing
faster than any other part of the world; Latin America the second
fastest growing part of the world. Everybody knows that 1S true.
That's why, when I went to Tokyo and met with the
leaders of the G-7 -- the seven big industrial countries -- we
made an agreement that we should dramatically reduce tariffs on
manufactured products around the world in ways that all analysts
agree would generate a lot of new manufacturing jobs here in
America. There was virtually no dispute about that. Because we
were largely in competition with other countries that were paying
the same or higher wages with the same or better benefits, with
high-tech and other manufacturing products that we wanted to sell
everywhere. And we're working like crazy to get that done
between now and the end of the year.
What is the difference between that and the trade
agreement with Mexico? And let's talk about that just a minute,
because it's very important, not so you'll agree with me, but so
you will know what I want you to know, which is that I would
never knowingly do anything to cost an American a job. That's
not the business I'm in. (Applause.)
I was a governor during the last 12 years, when the
Maquilladora system was in place. What did it do? It created a
border zone on the other side of the border in Mexico in which
people were free to set up plants, operate them by the standards
that were enforced there -- or not enforced, as the case may be
-- on labor and environmental issues, and then send their
products back into this country, produced at much lower labor
costs with no tariffs. That was the system set up to try to
foster growth there.
But in the 19808, because of all the economic
problems we had, and because of the climate that was promoted in
this country that the most important thing you could do was slash
your labor costs and who cared about your working people anyway,
you had the movement of hundreds of plants down there. And you
didn't like it worth a flip. (Laughter.) And you were right to
be upset about what happened.
Now, I was a governor of a state that lost plants to
Mexico. And my state was so small that when people lost their
jobs I was likely to know who they were. (Laughter.) This was a
big deal to me. I'm also proud of the fact we got one of them to
come back before I left office. I'm proud of that, too. But I
understand this.
NOW, that is the system we have. You also saw this
system, ironically, accelerating illegal immigration. why? For
the same reason that a lot of the Chinese boat people were coming
over here after they moved to the coastal towns in China, got a
job where they made a little more money than they did before, but
didn't much like their life 80 they got enough money to try to
come here. That's what was happening along the Maquilladora
area. A lot of people would come up there, work for a while,
then come on up here.
so I understand what the American working people
don't like about the present system. The real issue will the
trade agreement make it worse or better. You think it will meko
it worse. I think it will make it better. And I'll tell you --
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I think you're entitled to know why I think that. Because there
are no question that, no matter what you think of the adequacy of
the side agreements, they will raise the cost of labor and
environmental investments above the point where they are now.
There is no question that the agreement lowers domestic content
requirements in Mexico, so that we'll go from selling say 1,000
to 50,000 or 60,000 American cars down there next year. There's
no question that their tariffs are two and a half times higher
than ours. And there's no question that we have a trade surplus
there, as compared with a $49 billion trade deficit with Japan,
an $18 billion trade deficit with China, a 59 billion trade
deficit with Taiwan.
We've got a trade problem, all right. It is that
the Asian economies are not as open to us as we are to them.
That's our huge trade problem. And we're going to have to do
better there, because that's where a lot of the money is. so my
reasoning 18 that if their tariffs are higher than ours and their
costs go up faster than they're otherwise going to go up, and
they're already buying $350 a person worth of American goods,
second only to Canada -- replaced Japan as the number two
purchaser of manufacturing products this year -- and we got a
$5.8 billion trade surplus, it will get better, not worse.
Is it a perfect agreement? No. But I don't want to
make the perfect the enemy of the better. I think it is better
than the present.
There are two other points I want to make. If the
deal is not made with the United States, and instead it's made
with Germany or Japan, we could lose access to an 80-million
person market and cost ourselves more jobs. And if the deal is
made, it could lead to further similar agreements with the
emerging market economies of Latin America. And no one believes
that anybody's going to invest in Argentina, for example, to
export back to the American market. so all barrier dropping the
further you get away from here because of transportation costs
will lead to more jobs in America through greater trade.
so that's why I think it makes it better, not worse.
You're entitled to know that. I don't ask you to agree, but I
ask you to make the same arguments inside your own mind, because
I would never knowingly do anything to cost America jobs. I'm
trying to create jobs in this country. (Applause.)
Now, I'll tell you what I really think. What I
really believe is that this is become the symbol of the
legitimate grievances of the American working people about the
way they've been worked over the last 12 years. That's what I
think. And I think those grievances are legitimate. And I think
that people are so insecure in their jobs, they're so uncertain
that the people they work for really care about them, they' re so
uncertain about what their kids are looking at in the future,
that people are reluctant to take any risks for change.
And so let me close with what I started with. I
have got to lay a foundation of personal security for the working
people of this country and their families in order to succeed as
your President, and you have to help me do it. We have got to
reform the job training system of this country, to make it a
reemployment system, not an unemployment system, and to give it
to kids starting when they're in high school.
We have got to have an investment strategy that will
create jobs here. And that's why we removed all those export
controls that were Cold War relics on computers and
supercomputers and telecommunications equipment. opening just
this month $37 billion worth of American products to exports.
That is important.
That's why I want to pass a crime bill to put 50.000
more police officers on the street, pass the Brady bill and take
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these automatic weapons out of the hands of the thenagers that
are vandalizing and brutalizing our children in this country.
(Applause.)
And, my fellow Americans, that is why we have got to
pass a comprehensive health care bill to provide security to ail
Americans. And we've got to do it now. (Applause.)
How many Americans do you know who lost their health
insurance because they lost their Jobs? Who never got a pay
increase because of the rising cost of their health care? who
can never change jobs because they have a sick job? Millions of
them. How many companies are represented in this room who could
be selling more everywhere across the board, more abroad and more
at home, if their health care costs were no greater than their
competitors around the world?
Let's face it folks, we're spending over 14 percent
on health care. Canada's at 10. Germany and Japan are under
nine. The Germans went up toward nine percent of their income on
health care, they had a national outbreak of hysteria about how
they were losing control of their health care system. And yet
they all cover everybody and no one loses their health insurance.
And when I say we can do that and we can do it without a broad-
based tax increase, people look at me like I have slipped a gear.
(Laughter.)
But I have spent over three years studying this
system. And the First Lady and her task force have mobilized
thousands of experts in the most intense effort to examine social
reform in my lifetime. (Applause.) And they have recommended
that we adopt a system which, first of all, builds on the system
that you enjoy -- an employer-based system where the employer
contributes and, in some cases, the employee does, and some not.
A system that is focused on keeping what is good about American
health care -- doctors, and nurses, and medical research and
technology -- and fixing what is wrong -- not covering everybody,
kicking them off after they have a serious illness, not letting
people move their jobs, having some people in such tiny groups of
insurance that 40 percent of their premium goes to profit and
administrative costs, and spending a dime on the dollar -- a dime
on every dollar in a $90 billion system goes to paperwork that
wouldn't go in any other system in the world -- $90 billion a
year on that alone. Never mind the fraud and the abuse, and the
incentives in this system to churn it, to perform unnecessary
procedures just because the more you do the more you earn.
We can do better than that. so I want to just say,
this system will be a good one, Everybody will get a health care
security card like this. I feel like that guy in the ad -- I'm
supposed to say, "Don't leave home without it," when I pull it
out. (Laughter.) But I want everybody to have a health care
security card like this. Just like a social Security card. And
I want people to have their health care access whether they're
working or unemployed, whether they work for a little business or
a big one.
Under the system we have proposed, if you've got a
better deal now, you can keep it. If your employer pays 100
percent of benefits now, you can keep it. And we don't propose
to tax any benefits that are above the minimum package.
(Applause.) We told those who wanted that to give us 10 years
before we put that provision in because within 10 years we'll
have the minimum benefit package we start with, plus full dental
benefits and full mental health benefits and full preventive care
benefits, so it will be as good or better than any package now
offered by any employer in America. Then, if somebody wants to
buy something over and above that, we can talk about it. But we
are not going to take anything away from you, you have.
What we are going to do is two things for you, if
you have a good policy. We're going to make it easier for your
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employer to keep these benefits you have now by slowing the rate
of health care cost inflation -- not by cutting health care
spending, by slowing the rate of inflation in health care cost --
and by removing the enormous burden of retiree benefits from our
most productive companies. That will stabilize the health care
benefits of working people and good plans.
The other thing we're going to do for you is to
limit what can be taken away from you, which is worth something.
so by saying that for people who don't have any insurance now,
their employer will pay 80 percent and the employees will pay 20,
we are saying that no matter what happens to you, there's a limit
to what can be taken away from you. so it will be easy for you
to keep -- easier for your employer to keep what you've got, and
for you, and there will be limit to what can be taken away.
Is it fair to ask all those employers and employees
who don't have any coverage now to contribute something? You bet
it 1s. Why? Because your premium's higher than it otherwise
would be because you're paying for them now. (Applause.)
Can we do that without bankrupting small business?
of course, we can. We have a plan that gives a significant
discount to smaller new businesses, and to smaller established
businesses with lower wage employees that are operating on narrow
margins.
How are we going to pay for this? Two-thirds of it
will be paid for by employers and employees contributing into the
system that they get a free ride in now. one-sixth of it will be
paid for with a cigarette tax and with a fee on very large
companies who opt out of the system 80 they can pay for the cost
of insuring the poor and the discounts to small business, and
most important, for the health education and research that makes
us all richer because we are going to pay for that and for
expanded public health clinics.
And one-sixth of it will come from slowing the rate
of growth. when you hear people say, oh, Clinton wants to cut
Medicare and Medicaid -- let me tell you something folks, we're
cutting defense. We've held all domestic investment that's
discretionary flat, which means if I want to spend more money on
job training, on defense conversion, or on Head start, I have to
go cut something else -- dollar for dollar for the next five
years. That's what we've done. We've cut defense as much as we
possibly can right at the edge, held everything else flat.
You know what Medicare and Medicaid are doing?
They're going up at three times the rate of inflation. what have
I proposed to do? Let them go up at twice the rate of inflation.
They say in Washington I can't do it. I don't talk to a single
doctor who understands what we're going to do who doesn't think
we can achieve those savings without hurting the quality of
health care. If we can't get down to twice the rate of inflation
from three times the rate of inflation, there's something wrong
somewhere.
Now, that's how we propose to finance this. And I
am pleading with you to help me pass this bill. No matter how
good your health care plan is now, don't you believe for a minute
you could never lose it, or at least get locked into your present
job. And I am pleading with you to do it so we can give to the
rest of America, as well as to you and your families, the kind of
personal security we have got to have to face the bewildering
array of challenges that are out there before us. (Applause.)
You know as well as I do -- (applause.) You know as
well as I do that we are hurtling toward the 21st century into a
world that none of us can fully perceive. But we have to imagine
what we want it to be like. we want it to be a world in which
the old rules which you grew up believing in apply in a new and
more exciting age; in which, if you don't have job security, you
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at least have employment security; in which the government pets
the people first; and in which peopic have security 10 their
homes, on their streets, in their education benefits. 10 their
health care benefits so that they are capable of seizing these
changed and making life richer and more different and more
exciting than it has ever been.
That 1s the great challenge before us. Pai if we
don't adopt. the health care reform, WO won't get there. If we
do, it will open the way to the most incredible unleashing of
American energy that we have seen in more than a generation.
Together we can do it and I need your help.
Thank you very much and Cod bless you. (Applause.)
END
12:24 P.M. PDT
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Economic Sheet
Divider Title:
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20500
THE CHAIRMAN
February 18, 1994
MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT
FROM:
BILL DICKENS, SENIOR ECONOMIST
and
ROBERT WESCOTT, SENIOR ECONOMIST
THROUGH:
LAURA TYSON
SUBJECT:
Talking points on Labor Market and Economy
The Economy
A broad set of economic data confirm that the economy is on
an expansionary path with increasing incomes, rising
employment, and a strengthening manufacturing sector.
Meanwhile inflation remains modest.
Several ingredients for sustainable economic growth that had
been missing in 1991 and 1992, such as a rebound of consumer
confidence and a broad-based increase in factory orders,
have now emerged and support the view that the expansion
should continue for some time to come.
Real GDP growth accelerated steadily over the course of
1993, and posted the best average annual growth rate--2.9
percent--since 1988.
Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 1,843,000 over the
January 1993 to January 1994 period, or an average of
154,000 jobs per month. Factory workweeks and overtime hours
are at postwar highs. This suggests that pressures are
building on employers to add new workers. The economy
generated less than 1 million jobs over the entire four
years of the Bush Presidency.
Inflation remains subdued, even as the economy expands.
Consumer prices (CPI) in 1993 posted their smallest increase
since 1986. The core CPI (which excludes food and energy)
showed the smallest increase since 1972 (3.2%).
The Economic Outlook for 1994 We expect roughly 3 percent
real GDP growth for 1994, although extremely harsh winter
weather may temporarily depress activity in the first
quarter of the year. Consumer spending should remain
healthy because of gains in employment and real disposable
2
income, and investment spending should continue to increase
because of low interest rates and increasing levels of
demand. Low interest rates will also continue to support
housing and business structures investment. Another
positive factor is that inventories are extremely lean--the
inventory to shipments ratio is at an all-time record low.
This means that manufacturers will be under pressure to add
to production.
The biggest factor behind the low level of long-term
interest rates continues to be the sharply lower profile for
the Federal budget deficit, which has been due to the
Administration's 5-year deficit reduction package.
Business investment is now surging. Over 1993, spending for
producers' durable equipment has expanded at the fastest
pace since 1972. Lower interest rates have probably had a
positive impact.
Housing has now clearly begun to accelerate. After housing
starts averaged about 1.20 million (annual rate) over the
second half of 1992 and the first half of 1993, they began
to jump upward in August. By December they had reached a
1.54 million annual rate--up 25 percent from their July
rate. Starts of single-family homes in December were at
their highest level since December 1978.
Automobiles and light trucks in 1993 have been selling at
the highest rate since 1990. Sales of domestic light
vehicles were 8 percent higher in 1993 than they had been in
1992.
The Labor Market
The unemployment rate fell 0.9 percentage point from
December 1992 to December 1993.
When the election was held in November of 1992 the
unemployment rate in Florida stood at 7.2%. According to
down. our most recent figures that rate is now 6% and heading
High rates of job displacement combined with rising
inequality mean greater uncertainty and less income security
for U.S. workers. This Administration has moved to address
the problem of security by:
Proposing the Health Security Act which will mean that
workers no longer will have to fear losing their health
coverage if they lose their job.
3
.
Pioneering a system of screening and special job search
assistance for those likely to be unemployed for long
periods of time. The system has been proved effective
in a series of controlled experiments (the system was
put in place when we extended EUI last Fall).
Moving away from an unemployment system and moving
towards a reemployment system which provides income
support and training for dislocated workers.
Recent accounts have suggested that unemployment can not be
reduced below 6.8% (new CPS 6.2% old CPS) without rekindling
inflation. After an extensive review of all available
information the CEA has concluded that there is no evidence
of any recent increase in the rate of unemployment
consistent with low inflation (the so called "natural rate"
or NAIRU). The CEA estimates the NAIRU to be at or below
6.1% (new CPS 5.5% old CPS). This is consistent with the
estimates used by major commercial forecasters.
We are not becoming a nation of hamburger flippers.
Although most new jobs are in services (broadly defined),
growth in low paying service provider jobs has been more
than offset by growth in high paying managerial and
professional jobs so that the average net job created over
the last year (and the last ten years) pays more than the
average job in the economy. We are not becoming a nation of
hamburger flippers -- we are becoming a nation of computer
programmers, health technicians, designers, marketers,
planners, and consultants. As machines do more of the
actual work of production, people are needed to figure out
what machines should be doing and what to do with what the
machines make.
Productivity growth is not costing us jobs. Employment
growth was slow up until this last year, but that is mainly
because GDP growth was slow. Given output growth,
employment growth is low, but not inconsistent with past
experience. When increases in productivity make possible
employment reductions in one industry, the increased incomes
that result from the rise in productivity create demand for
products (and therefore jobs) in other industries.
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Clinton / Gore
Accomplishments AFL-CIO
Divider Title:
CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATION
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND ORGANIZED LABOR:
JOBS AND THE ECONOMY
The Clinton Administration has created more private sector jobs in its first
twelve months (1.7 million) than the Bush Administration did in its entire four
years (only I million over four years). The economy has generated 164,000
new payroll jobs per month -- four times the average pace over the previous
four years
Unemployment dropped to 6.4 percent in December, 1993 -- a three year low.
The Administration has developed a National Export Strategy, eliminating
export controls on $37 billion worth of American high-tech products that
support high-wage American jobs.
President Clinton signed the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of
1993. extending unemployment benefits for up to 26 weeks for victims of the
recession and providing $4 billion in emergency unemployment compensation
to approximately 1.9 million unemployed American workers. Quick action on
the unemployment benefits bill kept 250,000 to 300,000 unemployed
Americans each week from falling through the safety net.
Secretary Reich and the Department of Labor have taken the first step toward
redirecting the unemployment insurance system into a re-employment insurance
system by implementing the new Unemployment Insurance (UI) Profiling
program signed into law by the President on March 4, 1993. Profiling
authority allows the states to identify dislocated workers early, and move them
quickly into re-employment programs.
MAJOR INITIATIVES
Health Care Reform
The President in November introduced the Health Security Act of 1993, a
comprehensive plan to reform the nation's health care system to guarantee
every American comprehensive health benefits that can never be taken away.
The solution IS a system of guaranteed private insurance. It will guarantee
every American health security, simplify our system by reducing paperwork
and cracking down on fraud, achieve savings, protect and expand our choices
of doctors and health plans, improve the quality of care and ask everyone to
take responsibility.
OSHA Reform
The Administration supports the Kennedy-Ford OSHA reform bill and is
working closely with Chairman Kennedy on strategy for its passage through
Congress.
Labor Law Reform
The Administration has appointed a bipartisan panel of labor, business and
academic leaders (chaired by former Secretary of Labor John Dunlop) to look
at the nation's labor laws and labor management relations. This commission
has been at work for several months.
Family and Medical Leave
This bill requires employers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected
leave for employees to care for family members. No longer will Americans
face the impossible choice of caring for their families or keeping their jobs.
Administration agencies have been moving quickly to implement the new law.
Tax Cuts for Working Families (EITC)
The Clinton Administration and the Congress expanded the Earned Income Tax
Credit by $21 billion over five years to reward work over welfare. This year,
14 million families will receive $13 billion in benefits from the EITC. When
fully implemented, more than 20 million households with incomes of $27,000
or less will benefit.
Hatch Act Reform
Hatch Act Reform legislation was signed into law October 4th. The bill
corrects antiquated rules governing political behavior of public employees, and
gives them back the right to express their opinion through work on campaigns
and active support of partisan candidates, just like every other American.
Striker Replacement
The Administration supports legislation to ban employers from permanently
replacing striking workers, and the President will sign such legislation if it
reaches his desk.
2
Motor Voter
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 mandates that states make
available voter registration forms where ever people may apply for a driver's
license and at all social service agencies.
National Performance Review
The National Performance Review calls for the establishment of a National
Partnership Council that would give public employee labor unions more input
in their negotiations with government management.
G-7 Jobs Conference
The President will soon meet with the leaders of the G-7 nations to discuss
international economic cooperation and job creation.
Executive Orders
President Clinton has issued a number of orders signaling an end to the
previous administration's anti-labor policies. He recinded punative orders
prohibiting federal contractors from entering into project agreements with labor
organizations and requiring federal contractors to post one-sided notices about
the use of union dues. He also rescinded President Reagan's order banning the
re-employment of PATCO workers.
LABOR DISPUTE RESOLUTION
The White House, the Departments of Labor and Transportation, the National
Mediation Board, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service have all worked
with labor and management to resolve several important strikes:
1.
American Airlines (President Clinton personally intervened, helping Bob
Crandall and the striking attendants union to agree to accept binding
arbitration)
2.
United Airlines (DOT and DOL assisted).
3.
Coal Miners Strike (Secretary Reich hired former Secretary Bill Usury, who
negotiated a settlement).
3
4.
Teamsters strikes: The Administration has been working with the Teamsters to
help resolve a strike at the Diamond Walnut plant in California and one against
the United Parcel Service.
NLRB APPOINTMENTS
President Clinton has nominated Bill Gould as chair of the National Labor Relations
Board, Margaret (Peggy) Browning and Chuck Cohen as members of the Board, and
Fred Feinstein as General Counsel. These appointments signal this administration's
support for an NLRB which will be fair for a change.
LABOR DEPARTMENT INITIATIVES
The New American Workplace
The Department of Labor has established an Office of the New American
Workplace to encourage more productive worker-management relationships and
to highlight how new workplace strategies can help workers, employers and the
economy.
Enforcement of Existing Labor Law
Making good on our commitment to better jobs means enforcing laws that
block the "low road" of competition through inferior wages and working
conditions. After years of non-enforcement, the Clinton Administration has
begun to hold companies accountable to the law. Millions of dollars in fines
and criminal penalties have been assessed, and more than $100 million has
been recovered directly for employee benefit plans.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION INITIATIVES
Secretary Pena worked with Congress to enact a FY94 budget that provided
increased funding for transportation infrastructure. The funding levels create,
directly and indirectly, approximately 600,000 quality jobs.
Funding for transportation infrastructure reaches unprecedented levels in the
FY95 budget proposal, and will create over 650,000 quality jobs.
Secretary Pena has worked with the President, the National Economic Council
and others in the Administration to advance the Maritime Security Plan, which
will allow the US to maintain a modern merchant fleet, provide sealift
capacity for national emergencies, ensure a continuing American presence in
the transport of international commerce, and preserve American jobs in the
maritime industry.
4
ANNOUNCEMENT OF SALE OF U.S. AIRCRAFT TO SAUDI ARABIA
A you well know, the government of Saudi Arabia decided to find replacement
aircraft for the Saudi Airlines civilian fleet of approximately 50 planes. King
Fahd has decided to purchase the entire replacement fleet from American
companies -- specifically, from Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.
This purchase, which will be financed by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, will
total almost $6 billion and will support tens of thoudands of American jobs in
California, Washington State, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Utah and elsewhere.
This purchase is a vote of confidence in American quality, American workers,
and the competitiveness of American exports. The President's message is
simple: this Administration will work hard, at home and abroad, to help all
American workers thrive in the global economy.
5
Clinton Presidential Records
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Executive Board Members
Divider Title:
EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBERS
February 21. 1994
AL SHANKER -- PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
800,000 members. Broad interests. Focused on elevation of standards for
teachers. The Union has grown dramatically and steadily. He is the longest
serving council member. Interests include labor law reform, training and
international affairs. Early Clinton supporter.
LENORE MILLER -- PRESIDENT, RETAIL, WHOLESALE, AND DEPART. STORE
UNION
Merging with United Food and Commercial Workers. Union has 80,000
members. Concerned about nitty gritty union issues. Early Clinton supporter.
LINDA CHA VEZ-THOMPSON -- VICE PRESIDENT, AFSCME
Elected to the council last year. Gregarious and bright.
GENE UPSHAW -- PRESIDENT, FEDERATION OF PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES
He has not been to too many of the council's meetings. Represents
professional football players.
JAY MAZUR -- PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS
UNION
140,000 members. Steep decline in membership largely due to imports.
Preoccupied with trade issues. But also concerned about industrial homework
which is syphoning off his membership. He will give a thorough presentation
on these issues, particularly the need to build our job base. Membership is
almost exclusively garment related. In merger talks with Amalgamated
Clothing and Textile Workers.
OWEN BIEBER -- PRESIDENT, UNITED AUTO WORKERS
750,00 members. Union membership has declined dramatically from 1.2million
in 1981. His main concern is the loss of auto jobs. Very active against
NAFTA and for voluntary import restraints. Has been skillful at balancing
union's role in improving auto productivity while fending off militants with the
union who want to take the hard line against auto companies. Loss of auto
parts to Mexico a big issue. Very detailed and descriptive in his questions and
comments. Very concerned about permanent replacements of striking workers.
JACK SHEINKMAN -- PRESIDENT, AMALGAMATED CLOTHING AND TEXTILE
WORKERS UNION
180,000 inembers. Major decline in the 1980s but has leveled off primarily
due to aggressive and effective organization strategies. Major player on trade
issues. Former attorney. Union represents workers at Xerox in Rochester, NY
which is recognized by some as a model in healthy labor-management
relations. Likely to talk about labor reform law and trade assistance, perhaps
industrial policy and health care.
LYNN WILLIAMS -- RETIRING PRESIDENT, UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
He will be replaced in March by George Becker, a Williams ally but more of a
traditional trade unionist. Williams retirement is a major loss for the AFL-CIO
as he is most articulate, visionary, and non-parochial in his concerns.
Membership down to 500,000 from about one million. He has been instilling
an organizing culture into his union but it is tough sledding. Most members no
longer in basic steel. Very innovative in bargaining strategy. Concerned about
striker replacement but even more about labor law reform. Receptive to new
ideas about employee representation.
GEORGE KOURPIAS -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
MACHINISTS
600,000 members, down from one million. Airline mechanics, Boeing, other
manufacturing, some retail and truck mechanics. Striker replacement is key for
him, as was NAFTA. Pleased with the Administration's handling of United
Airlines buyout and the Saudi Arabian airplane deal.
FRANK HANLEY -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING
ENGINEERS
600,000 members. Mostly construction employees. Membership down.
Construction safety bill, improving laws to thwart union shop and double
breasting employers, are likely subjects for him to raise.
BOB GEORGINE PRESIDENT, BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES
DEPARTMENT OF THE AFL-CIO
Interested in construction safety and strengthening laws to deal with open shop
and double breasting. Davis-Bacon enforcement is critical for him and for all
building trades.
SIG LUCASSEN -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS
450,000 members. While still heavily construction, more than 1/3 in
manufacturing. May broach labor law reform. His election is under Labor
Department review.
BILL WYNN -- RECENTLY RESIGNED AS PRESIDENT, UNITED FOOD AND
COMMERCIAL WORKERS
Will be replaced on the Executive Council by the new President of UFCW,
Doug Donity. Dority was the union's organizing director. This is a good
organizing union, very sophisticated and practical in dealings with employers
both when they are cooperative and when they are ruthless (in the union's
view.) Hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts have hurt the UFCW over the past
decade Very interested in labor law reform. Represented major food chains,
meat packers.
MORTY BAHR -- PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS WORKERS OF AMERICA
550,000 members. Lost 100,000 members at AT&T alone post divestiture and
thousands more at regional Bell companies but the union has been able to
maintain its numbers. Innovative bargainer, pragmatic, accepts technological
change and adapts to it. Labor law reform, training, trade and health care big
issues. Will raise jobs issue in telecommunications reform and information
superhighway. You will be meeting with him individually after your session
with the AFL-CIO executives and drop by of the COPE meeting
JACK BARRY -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL
WORKERS
800,000 members. Very professional organization, 1/3 construction and 2/3
manufacturing. Slow membership decline. Construction safety and
construction organizing issues are key. Apprenticeship and training issues
might be raised along with Davis-Bacon. You will most likely be meeting with
him individually after your session with the AFL-CIO executives and drop by
of the COPE meeting
MARVIN BOEDE -- PRESIDENT, UNITED ASSOCIATION OF PLUMBERS AND
PIPEFITTERS
300,000 members. Nearly all in construction. Apprenticeship and training are
key interests (he chairs the council's subcommittee on apprenticeship and
training) but he rarely speaks out at these meetings.
ARTHUR COIA -- LABORERS' INTERNATIONAL UNION
450,000 members. Succeeded Angelo Fosco a little more than a year ago.
Construction and big public sector membership. Trying hard to change the
union's image and reputation.
RICH TRUMKA -- PRESIDENT, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA
80,000 members. Retiree health insurance is a big issue as well as mine safety
and health and labor law reform. Likely to speak on any of these issues.
Young (45 or so), articulate, a lawyer. Secretary Reich helped settle a nasty
strike between the UMWA and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association
(BCOA) by bringing in former Secretary of Labor Usery as special mediator.
This was very important to the UMWA.
RON CAREY -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
1.4 million members -- the AFL-CIO's largest affiliate. In the second year of a
five year term. Was elected in union's first-ever direct election of its officers
by its members. Previously officers were elected by the convention delegates.
The election by members was ordered by the federal courts as part of the
government's takeover of the Teamsters. Carey has spent his life fighting
corruption in the union and is trying to clean out the bad players. Interested in
labor law reform, organizing and striker replacement. NAFTA was a huge
issue with Teamster members.
JIM HATTFIELD -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF GLASS MOLDERS,
POTTERY, PLASTICS AND ALLIED WORKERS
100,000 members. Striker replacement is number one with him. Major
membership decline.
WAYNE GLENN -- PRESIDENT, PAPERWORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION
200,000 members. Striker replacement is the big issue as well. International
Paper strike is one of the big causes that led to pressure to abolish permanent
replacements.. Declining at much the same rate as all manufacturing unions.
JACK JOYCE -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF BRICKLAYERS AND
ALLIED CRAFTSMEN
85,000 members. Down from approximately 145,000 in the mid-70s. Smart,
articulate and respected leader. Davis-Bacon, training and other building trade
issues would top his list.
JOHN STURDIVANT PRESIDENT, SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION
50,000 members. He has taken a leadership role on the National Partnership
Council and in promoting the work of the Vice President's National
Performance Review. As you know, he has been working closely with the
Administration. Well liked by his colleagues on the Council. Interested in all
issues affecting federal government workers.
JOHN SWEENEY -- PRESIDENT, SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION
950,000 members. Major growth in public sector (about 1/2 of his members)
but also very successful in private sector organizing. Smart, aggressive union
with a lot of young and innovative staff. Sweeney chairs the AFL-CIO's
Organizing and Health Care Reform committees. Labor law reform and health
care are number one issues with him.
GERRY MCENTEE -- PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE COUNTY
AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES
1.2 million members. After rapid growth, membership declined in '92 for the
first time in many years. Extremely close to the Administration and an early
Clinton supporter. Health care reform, labor law (something to help state and
local employees), OSHA coverage for public workers (Administration supports
in Kennedy and Ford OSHA reform bills) and welfare reform all important
issues. Smart, aggressive, innovative, politically active union. McEntee will
speak his mind.
JIM NORTON -- PRESIDENT, GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS INTERNATIONAL
UNION
125,000 members. Newspaper industry -- typesetters, mailroom. Membership
has held fairly stable. Recent Council member. Striker replacement is a big
issue
FRANK HURT PRESIDENT, BAKERY, CONFECTIONERY AND TOBACCO
WORKERS UNION
100,000 members. Food processing, tobacco. Membership fairly stable. Hurt
was formerly in charge of the union's organizing. Health care is a big issue.
BILL BYWATER -- PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF ELECTRONIC,
ELECTRICAL, SALARIED, MACHINE AND FURNITURE WORKERS
175,00 members. Vocal and unequivocal. Striker replaCement and trade are
his issues. Was the most vocal labor opponent on NAFTA. GE and
Westinghouse are major employers.
MOE BILLER -- PRESIDENT, AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION
250,000 members. Federal employee issues are important. Doesn't typically
participate.
VINCENT SOMBROTTO -- PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER
CARRIERS
210,000 members. Interested in federal employee issues and a broad range of
general labor issues. Outspoken.
MIKE SACCO -- PRESIDENT, SEAFARERS INTERNATIONAL UNION
80,000 members. Main interest is maritime industry preservation.
GLORIA JOHNSON VICE PRESIDENT OF THE IUE (BYWATER'S UNION) AND
PRESIDENT OF THE COALITION OF LABOR UNION WOMEN
Elected to the Council last year. Outspoken advocate on issues affecting
women in the workplace.
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Last Visits w/ AFL-CIO
Members
Divider Title:
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COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Political Affairs
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LAST VISITS WITH MEMBERS OF THE AFL-CIO
February 21. 1994
Following is a list with the dates and names of members of the AFL-CIO you have either met
with or seen since you have taken office.
JANUARY, 7 1994
Morton Bahr -- Mr. Bahr is vice president of the AFL-CIO and
a member of the Labor Advisory Committee on Trade
Negotiations for USTR. Mr. Bahr is on the Executive Council.
DECEMBER 6, 1993
Frank Montanaro -- Mr. Montanaro is the President of the
Rhode Island AFL-CIO.
(b)(6)
[ 002]
(b)(6)
OCTOBER 18, 1993
Thomas Donahue -- Mr. Donahue is the Secretary Treasurer of
the AFL-CIO. You participated in a discussion regarding the
PCSD's task force report on sustainable communities. Mr.
Donahue was one of the speakers on this panel.
JUNE 1, 1993
Eldon Cooper, Bob Greene, Jack Watkins -- Eldon Cooper, the
Current Colorado AFL-CIO President, Bob Greene, Colorado
AFL-CIO President-Elect, and Jack Watkins, Colorado State
COPE President all greeted you upon your arrival at the Denver
Airport.
MAY 4, 1993
AFL-CIO, Executive Council -- You, the President, and
Secretary Reich, met with the 35 union presidents who make up
the AFL-CIO Executive Council to thank them for their support
of the economic plan and to continue to lay the groundwork for
them to support the health care package. The AFL-CIO was one
of the first supporters of the economic plan and actively lobbied
Congress for its passage. particularly the jobs package.
MAY 20, 1993
AI Shanker and the President's of the Local Union -- You and
the President met with the American Federation of Teachers'
Executive Council. Al Shanker was present and is the President
of the AFT. He participated in the Presidents Labor/CEO press
conference in March in support of the stimulus package and
attended the AFL-CIO Executive Council Meeting on May 4.
Also present at this event are the Presidents of the Local Union.
Mr. Shanker is presently on the Executive Council.
38
APRIL 6, 1993
Jerry McEntee and Donald Wasserman -- You met with Jerry
McEntee, International President of the American Federation of
State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and
Donald Wasserman, Director of Organizing, AFSCME, to
discuss REGO. More precisely, the discussion was on how the
AFSCME could help your NPR project. As the International
President of the AFSCME, Jerry McEntee oversees about 1.3
million members of the AFSCME. Mr. McEntee is on the
Executive Council.
MARCH 1, 1993
Jack Reihl -- Mr. Reil is the President of the Wisconsin AFL-
CIO. You has a very short meeting with approximately 15 local
officials at the University of Wisconsin at Madison
MARCH 11, 1993
Jim McCasland -- You had a short airport greeting with several
Texas state representatives
(b)(6)
in Dallas
before departing for Austin. Mr. McCasland was a representative
of the AFL-CIO in Texas.
FEBRUARY 2, 1993
Lane Kirkland -- You and the President met with Lane
Kirkland to bring him on board with the economic package.
The AFL-CIO had its Executive Council meeting in Bal
Harbour, FL last year right after this meeting on February 17.
FEBRUARY 5, 1993
Lane Kirkland -- Mr. Kirkland was invited to the signing of the
Family Medical Leave Act.
39
Clinton Presidential Records
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indicated below.
Memberships & Wages
Divider Title:
UNION MEMBERSHIP AND WAGES
February 21. 1994
MEMBERSHIP
After 14 years of decline, the number of union members in the United States increased during
1993.
There are presently about 16.6 million workers who are members of labor
unions.
A recent BLS report showed that virtually all of the modest growth in union
membership was in the public sector, as private industries continued for the
most part, to show a decline in union membership.
Those belonging to a union remained at about 15.8% in 1993.
Total employment rose at about the same rate as union membership.
WAGES
The wages of union members in the United States remains higher than those of their non-
union counterparts.
In 1993. the median wage of union members was $575 a week, compared to
$426 a week for non-union members
MINIMUM WAGE
The Administration's position
In Putting People First, and during the campaign, this Administration pledged
to index the value of the minimum wage without specifying what level it would
be indexed. In October, Secretary Reich announced that the minimum wage
could be increased by a moderate amount without negative consequences on
employment, but that the Administration would wait to make any decisions on
the minimum wage until the implications of health care reform were more
clearly known. The Secretary also recently announced that the Administration
would revisit the minimum wage decision this summer.
Value
The value of the minimum wage is well below its traditional level. The
minimum wage stayed at $3.35 an hour from 1981 to 1989. President Bush
vetoed one minimum wage bill and then signed a bill raising the minimum
wage in two steps, to $4.25 an hour as of April 1991. If the value of the
minimum wage were to have the same purchasing power in 1994 as it averaged
in the 1970s, it would need to equal about $5.55 an hour. Its inflation-adjusted
value is now 24 percent lower than it was that decade.
Employment effects
The employment effects of the minimum wage are typically overstated. A
series of studies of recent minimum wage increased found that these increases
did not have a negative impact on employment. In summarizing these studies,
Richard Freeman of Harvard University stated: "At the level of the minimum
wage in the late 1980s, moderate legislated increases did not reduce
employment and were, if anything, associated with higher employment in some
locales."
MINIMUM WAGE
Q & A
Question:
Low-wage workers have been hit hard by economic trends during the past two
decades. How are we taking steps to improve their economic prospects?
Answer:
DOL pushed through a path-breaking expansion of the EITC, the popular tax
credit for low-income workers. And this year they will pass legislation to
extend health insurance to all workers, regardless of income. They are also
improving the upward mobility paths of low-wage workers through our School-
to-Work initiative and expansions in programs such as the Job Corps.
Answer
The low level of the minimum wage, recent research on its employment effects,
and the importance of maintaining adequate working standards all underscore
the importance of the minimum wage. However, it makes sense to assess the
nature and impacts of health care reform before making any decisions on the
minimum wage. Accordingly, we expect to revisit the minimum wage issue
this summer.
Clinton Presidential Records
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marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
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digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
Former Union Officers now in
the Administration
Divider Title:
FORMER UNION OFFICERS SERVING IN THE ADMINISTRATION
February 21. 1994
Joan Baggett
Former political director for the Bricklayers.
Joe Valesquez
Former director of Community Services for the AFL-CIO.
Geri Palast
Former legislative/political director for SEIU. She is presently
Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental
Affairs at DOL
Jack Otero
Former Vice President of Transportation-Communications Union
and AFL-CIO Vice President. He is currently Deputy Under
Secretary at DOL.
Joyce Miller
Former president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and
AFL-CIO Vice President She is Executive Director of the Glass
Ceiling Commission.
Jerry Klepner
Former legislative director at AFSCME. He is currently
Assistant Secretary for Congressional Affairs at HHS.
Steve Rosenthal
Former administrative assistant to the president of CWA. He is
currently Associate Deputy Secretary at DOL.
Chuck Richards
Former field director for the AFL-CIO Public Employee
Department. He is currently Deputy Assistant Secretary for the
American Workplace at DOL.
Karen Nussbaum
Former director of SEIU's 9 to 5. She is presently Director of
the Women's Bureau at DOL.
Michael Kerr
Former Assistant Director for Legislative Affairs at AFSCME.
He is presently Executive Secretary to Secretary Reich.
Meredith Miller
Former Deputy Director of Benefits for the AFL-CIO. She is
currently Deputy Assistant Secretary for Pension and Welfare
Benefits at DOL.
Clinton Presidential Records
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indicated below.
NLRB Up-date
Divider Title:
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
February 21. 1994
The main issue for the National Labor Relations Board is the Administration's nominations
and the idea that the Administration supports the right of workers to organize and bargain
collectively. President "Glinton has nominated the following individuals as members of the
board: Bill Gould, Chairman; Margaret Browning, member; Chuck Cohen, member; and Fred
Feinstein, General Council.
APPOINTMENT UP-DATES
The President appointed Dan Silverman as Acting General Counsel and recess
appointed John Truesdale as a member of the Board, both of whom served
during the interim while the economic package was being completed.
Bill Gould (D), the President's nominee for Chairman of the Board, was
previously voted out of committee and awaits Senate floor action.
Meetings have been arranged with the Senate Labor Committee minority staff
for Peggy Browning (D), Charles Cohen (R) (the two remaining Board
nominees) and Fred Feinstein (the President's nominee for General Counsel),
for Wednesday, February 16th. These sessions are part of the joint
Kennedy/Kassebaum effort, initiated by the White House, to avoid having to
hold formal hearings on these nominees, thereby speeding-up confirmation of
the entire package.
So far, no member of the Labor Committee has requested a hearing on the
remaining nominees, and Senator Kassebaum's staff has said that they are fairly
confident they will be able to persuade the other Republican members to go
along
If a hearing can be avoided, the goal is to present the Browning, Cohen, and
Feinstein nominations to the Senate Labor Committee for mark-up on
Wednesday, February 23rd (one week after their meetings with minority staff).
This is the operative plan currently in effect and agreed to by both Kennedy's
and Kassebaum's staffs.
It IS unclear when, after mark-up, the package of nominees will go to the
Senate for floor action. There have been discussions about scheduling a vote
by the full Senate on Friday, February 25 or for the week of Monday,
February 28th. However, at this stage, people are more focussed on the mark-
up (the timing of which is not absolutely certain) than they are on the final
vote.
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indicated below.
1993 COPE Report
Divider Title:
February 16, 1994
MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT
FROM:
MICHAEL BURTON
SUBJECT: AFL-CIO COPE REPORT FOR 1993
Attached is a copy of the 1993 COPE "Report on Congress."
As you know, this annual AFL-CIO summary reviews the major issues on
labor's legislative agenda and presents their view of congressional voting records. This
year's "Report" begins with Lane Kirkland's analysis of 1993 legislative action.
Kirkland writes, "Despite some of the best success in more than a decade for labor's
overall legislative agenda, the first session of the 103d Congress will be remembered
primarily for what we did not achieve--and that is the defeat of the North American
Free Trade Agreement."
It should be noted, however, that the large majority of the report discusses other
"Majors Issues," and the AFL-CIO agrees with the Administration on nearly all these
issues. Indeed, Kirkland applauded the Administration's many achievements during the
103d Congress, including--
o
Family and Medical Leave;
Hatch Act Reform;
Emergency Unemployment Benefits;
Motor-Voter;
The Deficit Reduction bill; and
o
The Administration's joint effort with organized labor to build
low-income housing.
For the future, the AFL-CIO wants to end the filibuster preventing action on Striker
Replacement legislation. And it wants to pass health care: "President Clinton has
introduced legislation that was enthusiastically endorsed by the AFL-CIO Convention
October, and we will be his most reliable troops in the upcoming effort to win
congressional passage."
MAJOR ISSUES IN CONGRESS--1993
Extended Unemployment Benefits. Legislation to provide up to 26 weeks of
additional federal benefits beyond basic state benefits and it extended the program
through October 1993. AFL-CIO supported this legislation. After passing the House,
Senator Hank Brown offered a means-testing amendment, which the AFL-CIO
opposed on principle (even though it would have affected only those who made more
than $120,000 the previous year). The Brown amendment was approved, but dropped
in conference. Also during Senate consideration, Senator Gramm offered an
amendment to mandate by statute the Administration's proposed reduction of 252,000
federal employees, which the AFL-CIO opposed. The amendment failed on a motion
to recommit. President Clinton signed the bill into law.
Hatch Act Reform. This legislation will changes Hatch Act restrictions to allow
federal and postal workers to participate in a wide range of currently prohibited
political activities. The AFL-CIO supported this legislation. It passed Congress and
was signed into law.
Stimulus Package. Lane Kirkland said of the stimulus package, "[T]his country
desperately needs the jobs this package would provide." The AFL-CIO supported this
legislation. It passed the House, but cloture could not be reached in the Senate.
Striker Replacement. The Workplace Fairness bill will prohibit the hiring of
permanent replacement workers during a legal economic strike. The AFL-CIO
supports this legislation. It has passed the House, but the Senate has not yet acted.
National Service. The AFL-CIO was concerned about the inclusion of a "union
concurrence" provision to the National Service bill; they wanted to ensure that existing
workers would not be replaced by National Service volunteers. An amendment to this
effect was offered in the House by Rep. Cass Ballenger. The AFL-CIO supported this
amendment, but it failed to pass.
ERISA Preemption. Reform of ERISA would prevent the use of federal statute
to preempt stricter state labor laws (in wage laws, apprenticeship regulations, and
mechanic's lien laws). The House has passed this legislation, but the Senate has yet to
act.
2
NAFTA. COPE writes, "President Clinton backed NAFTA, but said he would
try to alleviate labor's concerns through a set of side agreements on worker rights and
the environment. He also offered a dislocated worker program. When completed,
those provision provided little, if any, help for workers and citizens on either side of
the border, and the dislocated worker program was grossly inadequate." The AFL-CIO
opposed NAFTA; the Administration supported it. NAFTA passed the Congress and
was signed into law.
Family and Medical Leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act allows workers
of firms of 50 or more employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave without risk of job
loss. The AFL-CIO supported the legislation. It passed the Congress and was signed
into law.
Motor Voter. This legislation requires states to establish procedures permitting
voter registration at state and federal offices as well as to establish mail-based
registration. The AFL-CIO supported this legislation. It passed Congress and was
signed into law.
Budget Reconciliation. COPE calls the Budget Bill "the centerpiece of
President Clinton's five-year plan to slash almost $500 million from the federal
deficit." The AFL-CIO supported this legislation. It passed the Congress and was
signed into law.
Davis-Bacon/Helpers. The FY 1994 Labor-HHS appropriations bill included a
provision to prevent enforcement of Bush-era regulations allowing for low-wage
"helpers" on Davis-Bacon projects, and in the Senate, an amendment was proposed to
eliminate this provision. The AFL-CIO opposed this amendment. The amendment
failed.
Cargo Preference. An amendment was offered in the Senate to the FY 1994
Transportation appropriations bill that would have had the effect of allowing federal
cargo to be transported on non-U.S. flag vessels if shipment on those vessels would be
less than half the cost of U.S. flag vessels. The AFL-CIO opposed this amendment.
The National Performance Review has proposed review of cargo preference. The
amendment was tabled.
Goals 2000. Goals 2000 would establish educational performance standards,
and as COPE writes, the program would "include labor participation in developing
some of those standards." The AFL-CIO supports this legislation. It passed the
House, but the Senate has not yet acted.
3
Penny-Kasich. COPE calls the proposed Penny-Kasich amendment to
November recisions/ReGo bill "a draconian $90 billion budget slashing scheme." The
AFL-CIO opposed this amendment. It failed in the House in November of last year.
Campaign Finance Reform. The AFL-CIO believes that "small contributor
PACs afford the only the only opportunity for working people to effectively participate
in the funding of campaigns in the absence of public financing." In the Senate, an
amendment was introduced to ban PAC donations, which the AFL-CIO opposed. The
amendment was approved and the bill was passed; it now awaits conference.
4
1
Report on
9
Congress
9
3
STRIKER
REPLACEMEN
$ 55
Don't Send
T
Don't Send
My Job
My/Job
To Mexico
To Mexico
From the Lincoln Memorial (above) to the streets
of San Francisco (below) union members
marched and rallied for pro-labor legislation,
from Workplace Fairness to health care to jobs.
While the fight against NAFTA took the spotlight
at the end of 1993, the first session of the 103rd
Congress was marked by some of labor's biggest
legislative victories in more than a decade. Above,
these two union workers summed up what millions
of others told Congress in phone calls, telegrams
and letters. Below, union workers at the annual
b
labor day parade in Cincinnati play the same tune.
in
/
NAFTA
AFL-CIO Department of Legislation 815 16th Street, N.W., Rm 309, Washington, D.C. 20006
Best Session in Years Ends on Sour Note with NAFTA
By Lane Kirkland
Despite some of the best success in more than a decade
a measure of equity to the tax system by asking those who
for labor's overall legislative agenda, the first session of the
benefited substantially from the tax cuts of the 1980s to bear
103rd Congress will be remembered primarily for what we
their fair share of the burden of government.
did not achieve-and that is the defeat of the North American
Also enacted into law was a labor-supported housing in-
Free Trade Agreement.
6
itiative that authorizes the federal government to provide up
Responding to the overwhelming sentiment of union
to $100 million over five years in assistance for low-income
members across the country, the AFL-CIO and its affiliates
housing programs that use pension funds as a source of finan-
coordinated an immense grassroots effort to convince
cing. The authorization is a key component of the AFL-CIO
members of Congress that NAFTA is a bad deal for work-
Housing and Building Trusts' National Partnership for Com-
ing people throughout North America.
munity Investment, a program that will build affordable hous-
Though Congress' approval of NAFTA was a bitter disap-
ing in 33 cities while creating 20,000 union jobs.
pointment, it certainly was not a defeat for organized labor.
Another success in 1993 was congressional passage of one-
The trade union movement was opposed by the entire power
7
year bans on Davis-Bacon regulations that would expand the
structure of the country, which had huge amounts of private
use of low-wage, untrained helpers in construction trades and
and public funds available to air the pro-NAFTA message
on regulations governing apprenticeship programs.
and to win votes in Congress. We have every right to be
Among the other positive changes accomplished by the new
proud of our effort.
president in his first months in office was his swift reversal
of his predecessor's insulting and oppressive executive orders
1993 was a year when the logjam broke for
which were designed to undermine collective bargaining and
to harass and intimidate trade unions and their members.
a number of labor-backed bills that for years
President Clinton also rescinded Ronald Reagan's lifetime
had been stalled in Congress by presidential
ban on federal employment for striking members of the Pro-
vetoes and threats of vetoes
fessional Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO).
But major economic stimulus programs, designed to create
500,000 jobs to put Americans back to work and help speed
Despite the outcome, labor accomplished something quite
the recovery, fell victim in the Spring to a filibuster launched
remarkable during the NAFTA debate. For the first time,
by Senators who sanctimoniously donned the mantle of
trade policy moved out of the backrooms of the elite and in-
"fiscal responsibility." As a result, the unemployment rate
to the living rooms of average Americans. Never before have
remained stubbornly high for most of the remainder of the
so many Americans written, called and petitioned their
year.
representatives to oppose a trade agreement. Such progress
will surely enhance our future efforts on behalf of working
people, their families and their communities.
The fight for health care reform will not be
Furthermore, 1993 was a year when the logjam broke for
an easy one. Those who profit handsomely
a number of labor-backed bills that for years had been stalled
under the current, inequitable health care
in Congress by presidential vetoes and threats of vetoes.
With the support of a new, Democratic administration,
system are already spending millions to spread
Congress got off to a fast start early in the year by passing
distortion and create public confusion about
the Family and Medical Leave Act, which President Clin-
health care reform
ton quickly signed into law. The new law allows workers
to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave of absence for the
Highpirates
birth or adoption of a child or the serious illness of a family
member, and it requires the continuation of the worker's
Unfortunately, the filibuster-the last bastion of minority
health benefits during the leave. Though the new benefits
rule-is also standing in the way of labor's goal of enacting
legislation to ban the permanent replacement of workers who
are not as generous as those provided in other industrial coun-
exercise their legal right to strike. The Workplace Fairness
tries, passage of this law is a giant step toward protecting
working Americans from being forced to choose between
Act will continue to be one of the AFL-CIO's top priority
a job and the health and well-being of their families.
issues. Having already passed the House by a large margin
in the first session, our challenge will be to find the 60 Senate
Another major victory for labor came later in the year
votes necessary to overcome the Republican-led effort to kill
when President Clinton signed into law a Hatch Act reform
the bill.
bill that had been first proposed nearly two decades ago. The
Another high-priority issue in the second session will be
legislation, which restores some measure of political rights
the comprehensive reform of our health care system. Presi-
to more than three million federal and postal employees, had
dent Clinton has introduced legislation that was enthu-
twice been vetoed by Republican presidents-most recently
siastically endorsed by the AFL-CIO Convention last
by George Bush in 1990.
President Clinton also signed two emergency unemploy-
October, and we will be his most reliable troops in the up-
ment benefits extension bills and a "motor-voter" bill to ex-
coming effort to win congressional passage.
The fight will not be an easy one, to be sure. Those who
pand the electorate, each of which has been the target of veto
threats by his predecessor. In addition, Congress enacted the
profit handsomely under the current, inequitable health care
President's five-year, $500 billion deficit reduction plan,
system are already spending millions to spread distortions
and create public confusion about health care reform. Mean-
backed by the AFL-CIO, that begins the task of restoring
while, congressional opponents of real reform are pushing
2
so-called "alternatives," which can be more appropriately
Congress and the Clinton administration will face a wide
described as what to do instead of a health care plan. Op-
variety of policy challenges as they attempt to set America
ponents, including the insurance industry, some doctors'
on the right course for the remainder of the decade and into
groups, conservative Democrats and most Republicans, will
the 21st Century. Among them will be sustaining the eco-
surely mount a rear-guard action against genuine health care
nomic recovery and providing jobs for all who want to work,
reform-cloaked, of course, with a cloud of jargon about
helping Americans make their streets safer and the com-
the ultimate wonders of the free market, sweet charity and
munities stronger and more vibrant, restoring the vitality of
the healing powers of "tax-free medical accounts."
the middle class and reversing the growing disparity between
We know, of course, that nothing short of full-scale re-
rich and poor, and bringing the light of democracy to areas
structuring will cure what ails our health care system, and
of the world where oppression and intolerance still prevail.
the labor movement will be calling on its most vital
Through political and legislative action, union members
resource-our millions of members, retirees, family
across the country will work to inspire their elected leaders
members and friends-to help the universal, comprehensive
to do the right thing on each of these issues as they come
health care plan carry the day in Congress.
to the fore. Hardly a sparrow falls, here or abroad, that we
Among the other items on labor's legislative agenda for
do not take within the jurisdiction of the trade union move-
1994 is the goal of overhauling the Occupational Safety and
ment. And no group of Americans has longer and more
Health Act for the first time in two decades. We've learned
vigorously relied on their basic democratic rights than those
the hard way that it's one thing to have OSHA laws on the
who have come together, down through the generations,
books, but ensuring their effectiveness in reducing job-related
under the banner of trade unionism.
deaths is another story. With minimal fines and inspections,
This 1993 AFL-CIO Report on Congress will help you
it's no wonder that more than 10,000 people die each year
determine which elected representatives stand with us in the
at the workplace-one worker for every hour of every day.
pursuit of our vision for the future.
The Senate will also take up two major education bills,
We have tremendous challenges before us.
one establishing skill and performance standards for students
But if we mobilize our people-if we get the word out to
and a "School-to-Work" bill to help non-college-bound
our members and encourage them to become active in their
students. Both are supported by the AFL-CIO and have been
communities-we can win these battles and get the job done
passed by the House.
for America's working families.
Major Issues
In the House of Representatives
1. Extended Unemployment Benefits
As the Bush recession continued to take its toll on the U.S.
economy and its workers. In fact, the number of unemployed
Early in 1993, some 300,000 out-of-work Americans were
was higher in early 1993 than in July 1990 when the reces-
exhausting their normal 26 weeks of unemployment benefits
sion began.
every month and the problem of long-term unemployment
The AFL-CIO supported legislation (H.R. 920) to con-
was expected to continue through the year. In fact, the jobless
tinue an emergency extended federal unemployment bene-
rate remained above 6.5 percent through November.
fits program for workers who had run out of their 26 weeks
of state benefits without finding new work. The program
began at the height of the Bush recession in 1991 and was
Jobless rate hits 8-year high
extended several times when the employment picture did not
All civilian workers - yearly average
brighten. It was set to expire March 4.
H.R. 920 provided up to 26 weeks of additional federal
8%
benefits beyond basic state benefits and extended the pro-
7.5%
7.4%
7.2%
gram through October 1993. The House passed the bill
7.0%
February 24 by a 254-161 vote. It was later signed into law.
7
6.7%
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
6.2%
6
5.5%
5.5%
5.3%
5
2. Hatch Act Reform
Since 1939 the Hatch Act has denied federal and postal
4
employees the same political and Constitutional rights other
'84
'85
'86
'87
'88
'89
'90
'91
'92
Americans enjoy and exercise in the political process. Hatch
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Act reform legislation (H.R. 20), backed by the AFL-CIO,
ood paying jobs continued to disappear throughout 1992 even as the nation's
would, for the first time in 50 years, allow these workers
economic turndown bottomed out. Employers slashed nearly 360,000 jobs in
AFL-CIO NEWSGRAFIC
to participate in a wide range of political activities-on their
manufacturing. mining, transportation. utilities, and wholesale and retail trade.
Although there was a payroll pickup of 694,000 in the lower-paying service sector,
own time and away from the job.
many of the jobs were part-time.
Under Hatch Act regulations, postal and federal employees
are prohibited from participating in a variety of political ac-
3
tivities not just on the job, but during the workers' free time
needs the jobs this package would provide," AFL-CIO Presi-
as well. For example, such workers could not hand out cam-
dent Lane Kirkland said.
paign literature, solicit votes or hold office in a political party.
As proposed, the stimulus bill could have created new
But H.R. 20 lifts many of the Hatch Act's political restric-
jobs-mostly in public works-including a summer jobs pro-
tions. Federal and postal workers will have the freedom to
gram aimed at inner city youth, a program to hire and train
endorse political candidates, organize phone banks to urge
10,000 new police officers, and a new child immunization
their election, distribute campaign literature, solicit political
program.
contributions and engage in most other political activity.
The House passed the bill March 18 by a 235-190 vote.
The legislation continues the ban against engaging in these
Later that spring a Senate filibuster killed the stimulus bill.
activities while at work, prohibits government and postal
workers from using official influence or information for par-
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
tisan political purposes and bans them from wearing political
campaign buttons while on duty and in government buildings.
The House approved H.R. 20 March 3 by a 333-86 vote.
Hatch Act reform was later signed into law.
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
4. Workplace Fairness
Since 1935, workers have been assured by federal law that
they have a right to take collective action and a right to strike.
After 22 Months of Recovery,
American labor law tells workers that they cannot be fired
The Number of Jobs Is Also Still
for striking.
111
Below the Pre-Recession Peak
But a 1938 Supreme Court ruling, rarely used until the
(In millions)
110.3
past decade, permits employers to "permanently replace"
those same strikers that they are forbidden from discharging.
110
For all practical purposes, the distinction between being
fired and being "permanently replaced" is meaningless.
Fired or "permanently replaced" workers still lost their jobs
109
108.8
and that is a harsh injustice against those who are exercising
a right protected by law.
In the past decade, too many employers have come to view
108
collective bargaining not as a means of negotiating wages
and working conditions, but as a way to bust unions by for-
cing a strike and recruiting a new workforce of permanent
107
replacements. A federal government report showed that be-
tween 1985 and 1989, businesses hired permanent replace-
ments in almost one in five strikes and threatened to do so
in almost one third of all contract negotiations.
106
H.R. 5, the Workplace Fairness bill, would ban the use
of permanent replacements during a legal economic strike.
The House passed the bill 239-190 on June 15. The Senate
105
June
has yet to act.
January
1990
1993
Secure Bureau of Labor Statence
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
3. Stimulus/Jobs
5. National Service/Union
When he first took office, one of President Clinton's ma-
Concurrence
jor goals was to stimulate a stalled economy and create new
jobs. He submitted AFL-CIO-backed legislation (H.R. 1335)
aimed at quickly creating jobs through infrastructure invest-
The labor movement has a long history of community ser-
vice. So when President Clinton proposed his national ser-
ment and other projects.
The economic stimulus plan was designed to create some
vice legislation, H.R. 2010, the AFL-CIO backed the presi-
500,000 new jobs. Although some economic indicators were
dent's goal of assisting and improving community services.
showing slight improvement in early 1993, the job recovery
Described as an effort to create a domestic Peace Corps,
the legislation provides educational grants and stipends to
coming out of the recession was far weaker than that of any
other recovery period.
volunteers in a variety of needed service areas such as public
"At a time when unemployment remains high, when
safety, environmental and human needs. Those grants and
American industries continue to shed jobs, and when the
stipends for higher education and job training would be avail-
able to all volunteers, which will assist working families and
recession continues to batter millions of working families,
increase their access to educational resources.
the plan provides the necessary short-term economic stimulus
that will put people back to work
The bill also contains a union concurrence provision which
this country desparately
provided that in filling these safety needs, existing workers
4
OH, WOE IS ME!
IF THAT AWFUL
RIGHT-TO-STRIKE
BILL PASSES
I'LL JUST DIE!
BUSTED
UNION
BOSSES
BUSTEDY
UNION
BUSTED
BUSTED
UNION
BUSTER
UNION
UNION
BUSTED
5
©1993
UNION
HUCK
KONOPACKI LABOR CARTOONS
would not be displaced by the volunteers. The provision pro-
have a devastating impact on tens of thousands of construc-
vides for union involvement in program planning to ensure
tion and other jobs now contracted for by states.
that worker displacement does not occur.
The House passed H.R. 1036 November 9 by a 276-150
An amendment to strike that provision was offered by Rep.
vote. The Senate has yet to act.
Cass Ballenger (R-NC). It failed July 21 153-276. The bill
was passed and signed into law.
FOR-RIGHT AGAINST-WRONG
FOR-WRONG AGAINST-RIGHT
6. ERISA Preemption
Several rulings by Reagan-era federal judges interpreted
NA-TA
the federal Employment Retirement Income Security Act of
1974 (ERISA) as preempting certain state laws, in effect
allowing employers to avoid state prevailing wage laws, ap-
prenticeship regulations and mechanics' lien laws.
The AFL-CIO strongly backed H.R. 1036, which would
remedy this problem known as ERISA preemption. It would
clarify that those three types of state laws could not be
7. NAFTA
preempted, something which was never intended when
ERISA was passed.
In the 1980s, a growing number of American manufac-
ERISA was intended to make sure employee benefit plans
turing firms began slamming their U.S. factory doors shut
such as pension and health and welfare plans met certain stan-
and setting up new plants in Mexico. They took advantage
dards, were not governed by multiple government regula-
of that nation's inexpensive labor pool and lax enforcement
tions and that benefit plan regulations were the exclusive con-
of workers' rights laws and workplace safety and en-
cern of the federal government. It was not intended to
vironmental regulations. Several hundred thousand American
preempt states from setting their own terms under which they
jobs were lost to the maquiladora program.
contract for public works, goods and services.
However, that was just a preview of what is in store for
H.R. 1036 would, in effect, overturn those decisions and
American workers. In 1991, the Bush administration decided
clarify that Congress' intent was never to preempt those types
to pursue a North American Free Trade Agreement
of state laws. If those rulings are allowed to stand, they could
(NAFTA) to give greater protection to the investments
5
Make "Free Trade
FairTrade!
CARPENTERS
131
Irank
1am -
Yest
Machinists Say
ir Trade:
THIS
NAF
As the vote on NAFTA neared, union members around the country organized rallies and demonstrations, such as this
one in Seattle, WA, to try to convince their lawmakers to say "no" to NAFTA.
American firms had already made in Mexico; NAFTA of-
from the business community stalled the legislation for eight
fers no such protection for the American workers whose jobs
years.
are at stake. Nor does it protect the rights of Mexican
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was the first
workers. It eliminated or reduced tariffs and duties on pro-
bill introduced in the House in 1993-H.R. 1. Backed by
ducts made in Mexico (and Canada), giving U.S. firms an
the AFL-CIO, it allows workers at firms of 50 or more
even larger inducement to ship their jobs to Mexico. As many
employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid but job protected
as 500,000 U.S. jobs were at stake.
leave-for the birth or adoption of a child, the serious ill-
President Clinton backed NAFTA, but said he would try
ness of a child, spouse or parent, or the worker's own il-
to alleviate labor's concerns through a set of side agreements
Iness. In addition, the workers retain their health benefits
on worker rights and the environment. He also offered a
during the leave.
dislocated worker program. When completed, those provi-
The House passed the bill February 3 by a 265-163 vote.
sions provide little, if any, help for workers and citizens on
It was signed into law.
either side of the border, and the dislocated worker program
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
was grossly inadequate.
A massive and heartfelt grassroots campaign against
NAFTA led by union members nearly overcame the power
of a White House aligned with corporate America. But the
9. "Motor Voter"
House approved the treaty November 17, 234-200. It was
later signed into law.
Voter turnout has been steadily decreasing for years. In
1990 only 36 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.
FOR-WRONG
AGAINST-RIGHT
While the 1992 three-way presidential race generated a slight-
ly higher than usual turnout, most experts considered that
an aberration. Most other nations have about an 80 percent
8. Family and Medical Leave
voter turnout, but they also have some form of automatic
voter registration, which has been shown to increase voter
The AFL-CIO has supported family and medical leave
participation.
legislation since the first bill was introduced in 1985. Many
The AFL-CIO has long backed improvement in federal
workers have risked their jobs when forced to take time off
election laws aimed at improving voter turnout. Almost 40
for the birth or adoption of a child or care for a sick child
percent of eligible voters are not registered. The main reason
or spouse or parent. Unlike all other industrialized nations,
so many are not is the myriad of state regulations.
the United States had no national policy on family leave. If
H.R. 2, the "motor voter" bill, requires states to establish
a worker was not covered by a union contract, he or she had
procedures permitting citizens to register to vote when ap-
to depend on the whims of the employer for time off for
plying for drivers' licenses and various other licenses and
serious family problems.
permits at state and federal offices, and it also requires states
The Federation, and others, took the view that the family
to establish mail-in voter registration.
leave standard should be considered a minimum labor stan-
The House approved the bill February 4 (259-160) and
dard, similar to wage and hour laws and workplace safety
it was signed into law.
standards. But two successful vetoes and massive resistance
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
6
10. Budget Reconciliation
order to demonstrate proficiency in the skills and knowledge
that the content standards require.
The budget reconciliation bill was a complex and vast piece
The legislation also establishes a skill standards board
of legislation that was the centerpiece of President Clinton's
which will be charged with studying the national labor market
five-year plan to slash almost $500 million from the federal
and identifying broad clusters of major occupations that in-
deficit. It centered on cuts in federal programs and an in-
volve one or more industries in the United States. After iden-
crease on taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
tifying an occupational cluster, the board would then facilitate
The AFL-CIO supported the bill, H.R. 2264, as a step in
the establishment of voluntary labor/business/education part-
moving the nation toward tax fairness. The legislation was
nerships to develop skill standards systems.
aimed at invigorating the U.S. economy through careful
The House passed H.R. 1804 October 13 by a 307-118
deficit reduction, combining selective investments in the
vote. The Senate has not acted.
public infrastructure with revenue increases from those who
FOR-RIGHT AGAINST-WRONG
are most able to pay.
The legislation raises tax rates on corporations and on in-
dividuals with taxable incomes of more than $140,000. At
12. Budget Cuts/Penny-Kasich
the same time it expands the Earned Income Tax Credit for
low-income taxpayers. It also extends the employee tax ex-
In late November, the House considered a Clinton ad-
emption for employer-provided education benefits and
ministration deficit reduction bill (H.R. 3400) which included
tightens the tax breaks for "runaway" companies which
appropriations recissions and portions of Vice President
relocate in Puerto Rico.
Gore's National Performance Review or "Reinventing
The House approved the conference report on the bill
Government" proposals. But Representatives Tim Penny (D-
August 5 by a 218-216 vote. It was signed into law.
MN) and John Kasich (R-OH) offered an amendment which
FOR-RIGHT AGAINST-WRONG
would have added a draconian $90 billion budget slashing
scheme.
The amendment contained specified and unspecified cuts
that were irresponsible and counterproductive. This plan
11. Education/Goals 2000
would have severely undercut the president's proposed health
care reform plan, it would have threatened the still-weak
This major education reform bill, Goals 2000-Educate
economic recovery and it would have narrowed even fur-
America Act (H.R. 1804), would for the first time establish
ther the president's opportunities to fulfill his plans for vital
national skill and performance standards and include labor
investment initiatives.
participation in developing some of those standards.
The Penny-Kasich plan would have pushed domestic dis-
The legislation, backed by the AFL-CIO, would establish
cretionary spending to historically low levels and defense
voluntary national education standards-broad descriptions
spending even below the administration's deep defense cuts.
of the knowledge and skills students should acquire in a par-
Backed by conservative Democrats and most Republicans,
ticular subject area. The bill also sets student performance
the amendment failed 213-219 November 22.
standards-what a student must know and be able to do in
FOR-WRONG AGAINST-RIGHT
Throughout the year leaders on Capitol Hill met with union members and officials. Here House Majority Leader Richard
A. Gephardt (D-MO) speaks with the AFL-CIO Executive Council including (R-L) President Lane Kirkland, Gephardt,
Secretary/Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue and ACTWU President Jack Sheinkman.
e
7
Major Issues
In the United States Senate
1. Stimulus/Jobs
2. Hatch Act Reform
The nation's economy was still suffering the effects of the
Before Hatch Act reform legislation was signed into law
Bush recession in early 1993. Millions of Americans were
in 1993, federal and postal employees had been denied the
out of work and many, many more were jobless for a longer
same political and Constitutional rights other Americans en-
time than in past recessions. While there were some signs
joy and exercise in the political process for more than 50
of a possible recovery, few new jobs were being created.
years. Under those Hatch Act regulations, three million
The toll of trickle-down economics was being paid by
postal and federal employees were prohibited from par-
American working men and women.
ticipating in a variety of political activities not just on the
When President Clinton took office, one of his major goals
job, but during their free time as well. For example such
was to stimulate a stalled economy and create new jobs. He
workers could not hand out campaign literature, solicit votes
submitted, and the AFL-CIO backed, legislation (H.R. 1335)
or hold office in a political party.
aimed at quickly creating jobs through infrastructure invest-
Hatch Act reform legislation, (S. 185) backed by the AFL-
ment and other projects.
CIO, lifts many of the Hatch Act's political restrictions.
Federal and postal workers will now have the freedom to
endorse political candidates, organize phone banks to urge
their election, distribute campaign literature, solicit political
contributions and engage in most other political activity.
The legislation continues the ban against engaging in these
activities while at work, prohibits workers from using offi-
cial influence or information for partisan political purposes
and bans government and postal workers from wearing
political campaign buttons while on duty and in government
buildings.
The Senate passed S. 185 July 20 by a 68-31 vote. It was
later signed into law.
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
3. Davis-Bacon/Helpers and
CLINTON'S
Apprentice Programs
When introduced, the FY 1994 Labor and Health and
Human Services appropriations bill (H.R. 2518) contained
language which prohibited the Department of Labor from
spending any money to implement two regulations which
were promulgated and approved under the Bush administra-
tion. The regulations concerned helpers on Davis-Bacon proj-
ects and the administration of apprenticeship programs.
The Davis-Bacon Act requires prevailing wages for
As proposed, the stimulus bill would have created up to
"laborers and mechanics" (also known as journeymen) on
500,000 new, mostly public works jobs while establishing
federal and federally-funded construction projects. The first
a summer jobs program aimed at inner city youth, a pro-
proposed regulation called for a new category of "helpers"
gram to hire and train 10,000 new police officers, and a new
thereby creating a new class of workers who, unlike laborers,
child immunization program.
would have no formal training and toil at low wages with
When the bill reached the Senate after House approval,
no hope of advancement within the construction industry.
the Republican minority quickly began a filibuster in an at-
The regulations would also result in severely reducing the
level of employment for laborers.
tempt to derail a package that they knew they couldn't defeat
on a simple majority vote. Four attempts to achieve cloture
The second regulation, if implemented, would weaken and
and end the filibuster (which requires a three-fifths major-
disrupt the long-standing rules governing the operation of
ity) failed. The fourth and last attempt failed by a 56-43 vote
state apprenticeship programs. The worst aspect of the ap-
on April 21.
prenticeship regulation would effectively undercut the
FOR CLOTURE-RIGHT
authority of the state apprenticeship agencies and force them
to accept lower federal standards for training programs.
AGAINST CLOTURE-WRONG
In an attempt to block an expected effort to strip the
8
YES
WE
TO
JOBS
WHAT
WAN
PUBLIC
JOBS
NOW!
JOBS
RECOVERY?
WOR,
PUP
PUP
Union members at this April rally on the Capitol steps were calling for an extension of the emergency extended unemploy-
ment benefits program and for passage of President Clinton's economic stimulus program.
language from the bill, the Sentate voted September 28
jobless Americn workers were exhausting their normal 26
(60-39) to maintain those provisions. The bill was later signed
weeks of unemployment benefits every month in the sum-
into law.
mer and fall of 1993. Long term unemployment was expected
FOR-RIGHT AGAINST-WRONG
to continue to be a major problem.
Job creation was lagging far behind what it had been
following the previous two recession low points. Millions
4. Cargo Preference
of workers were not finding new jobs before their 26 weeks
of state unemployment benefits ran out. An extended benefits
The U.S. merchant marine has suffered through years of
neglect. Always expected to be available in times of a military
program granting extra weeks of benefits had been operating
since the height of the Bush recession. Extended several
emergency, such as the Persian Gulf War, the U.S.-flag fleet
times, it expired October 1.
has seen its support from the government dwindle to almost
The AFL-CIO supported legislation (H.R. 3167) which
nothing. The number of ships flying the U.S. flag and the
would continue the program through March 1994. But ac-
Americans crewing those ships has dropped to an all-time
tion on the bill slowed as the Senate debated controversial
low.
amendments.
Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost to "flag of con-
venience" carriers who pay abysmally low wages to third
An amendment offered by Sen. Hank Brown (R-CO)
and fourth world crews-usually a small fraction of the U.S.
would have established for the first time means testing for
minimum wage, let alone anywhere near what a skilled
a social insurance program by denying benefits to anyone
who had earned $120,000 in the previous year. The AFL-
seafarer earns. Many U.S. government shipments are car-
ried by these flag of convenience ships.
CIO was opposed to the amendment because of the prece-
But cargo preference laws require that a certain percen-
dent it would set; allowing means testing for a social in-
tage of foreign aid and military cargos be shipped on U.S.
surance program. But it was approved October 27 by a 52-43
vote. It was later dropped in conference and the bill was
vessels. During consideration of the FY 1994 Transporta-
signed into law.
tion appropriations bill (H.R. 2750), an amendment was of-
fered which would have banned the government from using
FOR-WRONG
AGAINST-RIGHT
U.S.-flag ships if the costs were more than twice as high
as the low-wage flag of convenience ships. The amendment
was tabled October 5 by a 50-49 vote.
6. Extended Unemployment
FOR TABLING-RIGHT
Benefits/Federal Workforce
AGAINST TABLING-WRONG
Reduction
5. Extended Unemployment
During consideration of the conference report on H.R.
3167 (see above) Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) made a motion
Benefits/Means Testing
to recommit the bill to conference with instructions to add
an amendment which had been dropped in conference. The
While the economy began to show stronger signs of
amendment mandated a 252,000 federal workforce reduction.
recovery as 1993 came to an end, about a quarter of a million
The AFL-CIO opposed the amendment because it could
9
seriously damage the federal workforce and the delivery of
sions provided little, if any, help for workers and citizens
services. The Clinton administration had called for a similar
on either side of the border. The dislocated worker program
reduction earlier in the year, but that reduction is expected
was grossly inadequate.
to be achieved after careful consideration of its impact on
A massive and heartfelt grassroots campaign against
the workers involved and the services they provide. The
NAFTA led by union members captured the headlines of the
reduction will also follow consultation with the unions in-
nation's newspapers and almost overcame the power of the
volved to develop a program of early retirement and buy outs.
White House and corporate America. But the Senate approv-
The Gramm amendment did not provide the opportunity for
ed the treaty November 20 61-38. It was later signed into law.
any such careful action and could have resulted in wholesale
FOR-WRONG
AGAINST-RIGHT
firings.
The motion to recommit failed November 20 by a 36-63
vote.
FOR RECOMMITMENT-WRONG
8. Family and Medical Leave
AGAINST RECOMMITMENT-RIGHT
Many workers have risked their jobs when forced to take
DEFEA
The heart and soul of the grassroots campaign against NAFTA were the tens of thousands of union members who wrote
or phoned their senators and representatives and who marched and rallied to try to defeat the jobs-killing trade deal.
This rally took place in Dayton, Ohio.
7. NAFTA
time off for the birth or adoption of a child or to care for
a sick child, spouse or parent. Unlike all other industrial-
In the past decade, hundreds of thousands of American
ized nations, the United States had no national policy on fam-
workers have seen their factory doors slammed shut and their
ily leave. If a worker was not covered by a union contract,
jobs shipped to Mexico, where U.S. firms set up new plants
he or she had to depend on the whims of the employer for
to take advantage of that nation's inexpensive labor pool and
time off for serious family problems.
lax enforcement of workers' rights laws and workplace safety
When the first family and medical leave legislation was
and environmental regulations. In some cases, U.S. workers
introduced in 1985, the AFL-CIO stood firmly behind it. Like
have been told to crate up their manufacturing machinery
wage and hour laws and workplace safety mandates, the fam-
and load it onto trucks headed for the border.
ily leave standard should be considered a minimum labor
Before being voted out of office, President Bush completed
standard. But two successful vetoes and massive resistance
negotiations for a North American Free Trade Agreement
from the business community stalled the legislation for eight
(NAFTA) which gave great protection to the investments
years.
American firms had already made in Mexico, while it of-
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (S. 5) was
fered no such protection for the U.S. workers or the political
one of the first bills set for action in 1993. It allows workers
rights of workers in Mexico. It also reduced many tariffs
at firms of 50 or more employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid,
and duties for trade between the three North American na-
but job protected leave-for the birth or adoption of a child,
tions. That gives American firms an even larger inducement
the serious illness of a child, spouse, parent or the worker's
to ship their jobs to Mexico. As many as 500,000 American
own illness. In addition, the worker's health benefits con-
jobs are at stake.
tinue during the leave.
President Clinton backed NAFTA, but said he would try
The Senate passed the bill February 4 by a 71-27 vote.
to alleviate labor's concerns through a set of side agreements
It was signed into law.
on worker rights and the environment and offered a new
dislocated worker program. When completed, those provi-
FOR-RIGHT
AGAINST-WRONG
10
9. "Motor Voter"
failed March 16 by a 59-41 vote. Cloture was achieved later
in the spring and the bill was passed and signed into law.
The AFL-CIO has long backed improvement in federal
FOR CLOTURE-RIGHT
election laws aimed at increasing voter turnout. One proven
AGAINST CLOTURE-WRONG
way to do that is to ease voter registration restrictions. Almost
40 percent of eligible voters are not registered. The main
reason so many are not is the myriad of state regulations.
Voter turnout has been steadily decreasing for years. While
10. Campaign Finance Reform
the 1992 three-way presidential race generated a higher than
usual turnout, most experts considered that an aberration.
For years the AFL-CIO has supported efforts to change
Most other nations have about an 80 percent voter turnout,
federal election laws in an effort to clean up the way political
but they also have some form of automatic voter registration.
campaigns are financed. Some of the reform ideas backed
S. 460 the "motor voter" bill requires states to establish
by the AFL-CIO include candidate expenditure and personal
procedures permitting citizens to register to vote when ap-
contribution limits, developing a public financing formula,
plying for drivers' licenses and various licenses and permits
closing current loopholes that are used to evade present con-
at state and federal offices. It also requires states to establish
tribution limits and an overall limit on the amount a candidate
mail-in voter registration.
is permitted to accept in political action committee (PAC)
Republicans led a filibuster against the bill. A cloture mo-
contributions.
tion, which requires a three-fifths majority to end a filibuster,
But the Senate version of proposed campaign finance
THE 1993 FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT
TOGETHER
WE MADE IT HAPPEN
A NINE-YEAR CAMPAIGN PAYS OFF
11
HOW YOUR SENATORS VOTED
IN 1993
- Stimulus Jobs
2 Hotch Act Reform
3 Dovis-Bocon/Helpers-Apprentice Programs
Cargo Preference
UI-Means Testing
UI-Federal Workforce Reduction
NAFTA 7
Lobor Votes
00 Family and Medical Leove
Motor Voter
10 Campaign Finance Reform
= Budget Reconciliation
Total All Votes 1993
# 1993 Percentage
Lifetime Voting Record
* Lifetime Right Percentage
Stimulus Jobs
Hatch Act Reform
Dovis-Bocon/Helpers-Apprentice Programs
Cargo Preference
UI-Means Testing
UI-Federal Workforce Reduction
NAFTA
Lobor Votes
00 Family and Medical Legye
Motor Voter
10 Compaign Finance Reform
= Budget Reconciliation
Total All Votes 1993
8 1993 Percentage
Lifetime Voting Record
% Lifetime Right Percentage
4
5
6
R
W
9
R
W
R
W
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
R
W
9
R
W
R
W
Alabama
Nevada
Heflin H (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
A
R
90
65
Bryan R (D)
R
R
R
R
W
Shelby R (D)
W
R
R
R
R
R
W
W
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
73
R
W
80
73
74
Reid H (D)
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R R W R
82
86
Alaska
New Hampshire
Murkowski F (R)
W
A
W
R
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
20
26
Gregg J (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
Stevens T (R)
0
0
W
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
W
W
W
55
43
Smith R (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
9
17
Arizona
New Jersey
DeConcial D (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
82
65
Bradley B (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
82
84
McCain J (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
18
18
Lautenberg F (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
W
82
90
Arkansas
New Mexico
Bumpers D (D)
R R R W R R W
R
R
W
R
73
67
Bingaman J (D)
R
R
R
R
W
R
W
R
R
W
R
73
81
Pryor D (D)
R
R
A
W
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
70
63
Domenici P (R)
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
9
23
California
New York
Boxer B (D)
R
R
R
R
D'Amato A (R)
W
R
R
R
R
R
R
A
W
R
R
W
R
91
R
R
W
W
91
W
50
50
Feinstein D (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
Moynihan D (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
100
100
R
91
91
Colorado
North Carolina
Faircloth L (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
Brown H (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
9
9
0
14
Helms J (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
Campbell B (D)
R
W
R
R
R
W
A
R
R
R
R
W
R
80
18
80
10
North Dakota
Connecticut
Conrad K (D)
R
R
R
W
W
R
R
R
R
R
R
82
81
Dodd C (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
82
92
Dorgan B (D)
R
R
R
W
W
A
A
R
R
R
R
78
78
Lieberman J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
82
83
Ohio
Delaware
Glenn J (D)
R
R
R
W
W
R
R
R
R
W
R
73
80
Biden J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
91
82
Metzenbaum H (D)
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
W
R
82
94
Roth W (R)
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
R
W
W
W
18
20
Oklahoma
Florida
Boren D (D)
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
R
R
W
W
36
42
Graham B (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R R W R
82
78
Nickles D (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
5
Mack C (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
19
Oregon
Georgia
Hatfleld M (R)
W
R
R
R
W
W
W
R R W W
45
52
Coverdell P (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
n
Packwood B (R)
W
R
R
R
W
W
W
0
R
W
W
w
:
Hawaii
Specter A (R)
WRRRWRW
R W W W
45
68
Akaka D (D)
RRWR
fford (D)
RRRRRRR
RRWR
9
91
RRRRRRR
91
Inouye D (D)
RRRRRRR
RRAR
100
hode Island
Idaho
Chafee J (R)
WRWWWRW
RWWW
27
44
Pell C (D)
RRRRRRW
RRWR
82
91
Craig L (R)
W R W W W W R
W W W W
18
20
Kempthorne D (R)
WWWWWWR
W W W W
9
9
South Carolina
Illinois
Hollings E (D)
RRRRRRR
W R R R
91
60
Thurmond S (R)
WWWWWWR
A W W W
10
12
Moseley-Braun C (D)
R R R W R R W
RRWR
73
73
Simon P (D)
RRRWWRW
RRWR
64
85
South Dakota
Indiana
Daschle T (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRR
91
83
Pressler L (R)
W W W W W W W
W W W W
0
29
Costs D (R)
W W W W W W W
R W R W
18
24
Lugar R (R)
W W W W W W W
W W W W
0
11
Tennessee
Mathews H (D)
R R R W R R W
R R W R
73
73
lowa
Sasser J (D)
R R R R W R R
R R W R
82
81
Grassley c (R)
W W W W W W W
W W W W
0
18
Harkin T (D)
R R R W R R W
R
R
W
R
73
89
Texas
Gramm P (R)
W W W W W W W
W # W W W
0
5
Kansas
Hutchison K (R)
I W W W W W W
I
I
W
0
0
Dole B (R)
W W W W W W W
W W W W
0
16
Kassebaum N (R)
W R W W W R W
W W W W
18
20
Utah
Bennett R (R)
W W W W W W W
W W W W
0
0
Kentucky
Hatch o (R)
W W W W W W W
W W W W
0
13
Ford W (D)
R R R R R R R
R R W R
91
78
McConnell M (R)
W W W A W W W
W W W W
0
17
Vermont
Jeffords J (R)
W R W W A R W
R R W W
40
46
Louisiana
Leahy P (D)
RRRRRRW
R R W R
82
84
Breaux J (D)
R R R R R R W
R R W R
82
81
Johnston B (D)
R R R R R R W
R R W W
73
55
Virginia
Robb C (D)
R R R R R R W
R R W R
82
72
Warner J (R)
W R W W W W W
W W W W
9
18
Maine
Coben W (R)
W W W R W R R
R W W W
36
38
Mitchell G (D)
R R R R R R W
R
R
W
R
82
86
Washington
Gorton S (R)
W R R R W W W
W W W W
27
21
Murray P (D)
RRRRRRW
R R R R
91
91
Maryland
Mikulski B (D)
R R R R R R R
R R R R
100
93
Sarbanes P (D)
R R R R R R R
RRWR
91
96
West Virginia
Byrd R (D)
R R R R R R R
R R R R
100
75
Rockefeller J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRWR
91
88
Massachusetts
Kennedy E (D)
R R R R R R W
R R W R
82
92
Kerry J (D)
R R R R R R W
R
R
W
R
82
91
Wisconsin
Feingold R (D)
RRRRRRR
RRWR
91
91
Kohl H (D)
RRRWWRR
RRWR
73
74
Michigan
Levin C (D)
R R R R R R R
R R W R
91
92
Riegle D (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R R W R
91
93
Wyoming
I
:
Simpson A (R)
AWWWWWW
W W W W
0
8
Wallop M (R)
WWWRWWW
A W W W
10
10
Minnesota
Durenberger D (R)
W R R W A W W
R W W W
30
45
Wellstone P (D)
RRRWRRR
R R W R
82
86
Mississippi
Cochran T (R)
WWWRWWW
W W W W
9
16
Lott T (R)
WWWRWWW
W W W W
9
19
Missouri
Bond C (R)
W W W W A W W
R W W W
10
24
Danforth J (R)
WWWWWRW
R W R W
27
31
Montana
Baucus M (D)
R R R W R R W
RRWR
73
74
Burns C (R)
W W W W W W R
R W W W
18
15
Nebraska
Exon J (D)
RRRWWRR
RRWR
73
54
Kerrey R (D)
RRRWWRW
RRWR
64
80
HOW YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
VOTED IN 1993
Extended Unemployment Benefits
Hatch Act Reform
Stimulus/Jobs
Workplace Fairness
National Service
ERISA Preemption
Lobor Votes
Family and Medical Leave
Motor Voter
Budget Reconciliation
Education
Budget Cuts/Penny-Kasich
Total All Votes 1993
1993 Percentage
Lifetime Voting Record
Lifetime Right Percentage
Extended Unemployment Benefits
Hotch Act Reform
Stimulus/Jobs
Workploce Fairness
National Service
ERISA Preemption
Labor Votes
Family and Medical Leave
Motor Voter
Budget Reconciliation
Education 11
Budget Cuts/Penny-Kasich
Total All Votes 1993
1993 Percentage
Lifetime Voling Record
Lifetime Right Percentage
NAFTA 7
NAFTA
R
W
8
9
10
11
12
R
W
%
R
W
%
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
R
W
8
9
10
12
R
W
%
R
W
%
1
2
3
4
5
6
Alabama
W
W
W
0
18
18 Condit G (D)
R
R
W
R
R
R
W
W
W
67
79
1 Callahan S (R)
W
83
92
R
3******
33*****
33*****
W
333#334 W
******
W
W
W
25
25
19 Lehman R (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
R
2 Everett T (R)
W W W W R R R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
W
67
72
3 Browder G (D)
R
W
W
W
58
62
20 Dooley C (D)
R
4 Bevill T (D)
R
W
R
R
92
62
21 Thomas W (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
17
13
W
17
17
W
R
R
83
75
22 Huffington M (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
R
5 Cramer B (D)
R
0
23 Gallegly E (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
8
16
6 Bachus S (R)
W
W
W
W
0
R
R
R
100
100
24 Bellenson A (D)
R
W
R
R
R
R
W
R
W
R
R
R
75
74
7 Hilliard E (D)
R
25 McKeon H (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
8
8
Alaska
26 Berman H (D)
RRRRRRW
R
R
R
R
R
92
88
27 Moorhead C (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
8
AL Young D (R)
R
A
W
R
R
R
R
R
W
W
R
W
64
46
28 Dreier D (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
2
R
R
R
R
100
89
Arizona
29 Waxman H (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
30 Becerra X (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
92
1 Coppersmith S (D)
R
R
W
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
W
67
67
31 Martinez M (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
97
2 Pastor (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
89
32 Dixon J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
96
3 Stump B (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
7
33 Roybal-Allard L(D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
92
4 Kyl (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
8
34 Torres E (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
97
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
8
10
35 Waters M (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
97
5 Kolbe J (R)
W
R
W
6 English K (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
92
36 Harman J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
92
92
37 Tucker W (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
Arkansas
38 Horn S (R)
R
R
W
W
R
R
W
R
W
W
R
R
58
58
W
W
8
8
W
R
75
75
39 Royce E (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
1 Lambert B (D)
R
KR33
3R33
****
KRYS
RK33
****
KR33
3*33
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
8
14
W
RRWRR
83
89
40 Lewis J (R)
W
R
W
W
W
2 Thornton (D)
R
W
W
W
W
W
0
0
41 Kim J (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
0
3 Hutchinson T (R)
W
W
W
W
8
8
42 Brown G (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
91
4 Dickey J (R)
W
R
43 Calvert K (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
0
California
44 McCandless A (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
4
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
12
1 Hamburg D (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
45 Rohrabacher D (R)
W
46 Dornan R (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
9
2 Herger W (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
WWWWW
0
17
47 Cox C (R)
W
A
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
7
3 Fazio V (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
RRRR
92
89
48 Packard R (R)
W
W
W
W
11
A
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
7
4 Doolittle J (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
WWWWW
8
R
R
R
W
92
92
R
R
R
92
87
49 Schenk L (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
5 Matsui R (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
50 Fliner B (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
6 Woolsey L (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
11
7 Miller G (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
90
51 Cunningham R (R)
R
92
52 Hunter D (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
8
21
94
8 Pelosi N (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
9 Dellums R (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
93
10 Baker B (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
0
Colorado
11 Pombo R (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
8
8
R
RRRR
92
78
12 Lantos T (D)
A
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
95
1 Schroeder P (D)
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
90
2 Skaggs D (D)
R
RRRRRW
RRRRR
92
83
13 Stark P (D)
R
R
R
R
14 Eshoo A (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
92
92
3 McInnis S (R)
WRWWWWW
W
wwww
8
ON
92
90
4 Allard (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
3
15 Mineta N (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
16 Edwards D (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
95
5 Hefley J (R)
W
*****
W
******
W
W
******
W
W
*****
***333
*****
W
0
11
W
W
W
W
W
OR
19
17 Farr S (D)
-
1
I
I
R
R
W
-
IRRR
83
83
6 Schaefer D (R)
W
W
HOUSE VOTES (cont.)
Extended Unemployment Benefits
Hotch Act Reform
Stimulus/Jobs
Workplace Fairness
National Service
ERISA Preemption
Lobor Votes
Family and Medical Leave
Motor Voter
Budget Reconciliation
Education
Budget Cuts/Penny-Kasich
NAFTA
Total All Votes 1993
1993 Percentage
Lifetime Voting Record
Lifetime Right Percentage
Extended Unemployment Benefits
Hatch Act Reform
Stimulus/Jobs
Workploce Fairness
5 National Service
ERISA Preemption
NAFTA
Lobor Votes
Family and Medical Leave
Motor Voter
10 Budget Reconcillation
Education
12 Budget Cuts/Penny-Kasich
Total All Votes 1993
% 1993 Percentage
Lifetime Voting Record
% Lifetime Right Percentage
1
2
3
4
5
6
,
R
W
8
9
10
11
12
R
W
%
R
W
%
1
2
3
4
6
7
R
W
8
9
11
R
W
R
W
Connecticut
New Jersey
1 Kennelly B (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
91
1 Andrews R (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
W
83
86
2 Gejdenson S (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
96
2 Hughes W (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
78
3 Delauro R (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
94
3 Saxton J (R)
W
R
W
W
W
R
R
R
W
W
R
W
42
37
4 Shays C (R)
W
R
W
W
R
R
W
R
R
W
W
W
42
58
4 Smith C (R)
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
W
W
67
72
5 Franks G (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
8
19
5 Roukema M (R)
R
A
W
W
W
R
W
R
W
W
W
W
27
36
6 Johnson N (R)
W
R
W
W
R
R
W
R
A
W
R
W
45
48
6 Pallone F (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
92
88
Delaware
7 Franks B (R)
W
R
W
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
W
W
50
50
8 Klein H (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
92
92
AL Castle M (R)
A
R
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
R
W
27
27
9 Torricelli R (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
94
10 Payne D (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
98
Florida
11 Gallo D (R)
R
R
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
33
34
12 Zimmer D (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
R
R
W
W
W
1 Hutto E (D)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
R
25
37
33
39
13 Menendez R (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
2 Peterson P (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
R
80
R
100
100
3 Brown C (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
New Mexico
4 Fowler T (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
0
5 Thurman K (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
1 Schiff S (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
8
28
6 Stearns C (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
R
W
17
14
2 Skeen J (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
17
14
, Mica J (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
8
8
3 Richardson B (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
89
8 McCollum B (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
9
9 Billrakis M (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
R
W
R
W
33
23
New York
10 Young B (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
R
W
25
16
1 Hochbrueckner G (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
97
11 Gibbons S (D)
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
83
56
2 Lario R (R)
W
R
W
R
R
R
W
RWWRR
58
58
12 Canady C (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
8
8
3 King P (R)
W
R
W
R
R
R
W
W
W
W
W
R
42
42
13 Miller D (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
17
17
4 Levy D (R)
W
R
W
R
R
R
W
W
W
W
W
R
42
42
14 Goss P (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
8
13
5 Ackerman G (D)
A
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
A
R
100
99
15 Bacchus J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
W
83
76
6 Flake F (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
97
16 Lewis T (R)
W
W
W
W
W
A
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
13
7 Manton T (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
A
R
100
95
17 Meek C (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
92
8 Nadler J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
18 Ros-Lebtinen I (R)
R
R
W
W
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
75
43
9 Schumer C (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
92
19 Johnston H (D)
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
83
10 Towns E (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
98
20 Deutsch P (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
11 Owens M (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
99
21 Diaz-Balart L (R)
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
83
83
12 Velazquez N (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
22 Shaw E (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
WWWRW
17
12
13 Molinari S (R)
R
W
W
W
R
W
R
W
W
R
W
42
50
23 Hastings A (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
92
92
14 Maloney C (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
15 Rangel c (D)
R
R
A
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
Georgia
R
100
95
16 Serrano J D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
98
1 Kingston J (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
8
8
17 Engel E (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
98
2 Bishop S (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
18 Lowey N (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
92
97
3 Collins M (R)
R
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
25
25
19 Fish H (R)
R
R
W
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
W
67
49
4 Linder J (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
0
20 Gilman B (R)
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
RRWRR
83
7
5 Lewis J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
98
21 McNulty M (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
97
6 Gingrich N (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
10
22 Solomon G (R)
A
R
W
A
W
R
R
W
W
W
W
40
28
7 Darden G (D)
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
W
R
R
R
R
75
52
23 Boehlert S (R)
R
R
R
R
R
R
W
R
R
W
R
R
83
70
8 Rowland J (D)
R
R
W
W
R
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
42
46
24 McHugh J (R)
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
W
W
W
W
58
58
9 Deal N (D)
W
R
R
W
R
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
42
42
25 Walsh J (R)
R
R
R
W
R
W
R
R
R
W
R
W
67
52
10 Johnson D (D)
W
R
R
W
R
R
W
W
R
R
R
W
58
58
26 Hinchey M (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
11 McKinney, C (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
27 Paron B (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
WWWWW
0
13
28 Slaughter L (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
RRRRR
100
96
Hawaii
29 LaFalce J (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
RRRRR
100
84
30 Quinn J (R)
R
R
W
R
R
R
R
1 Abercrombie (D)
A
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
97
RWWRW
67
67
31 Houghton A (R)
W
R
W
W
R
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
2 Mink (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
33
39
Idaho
North Carolina
1 Clayton E (D)
R
I LaRocco L (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
83
74
R
R
R
R
W
R
W
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
2 Valentine T m)
W
A
W
W
A
W
W
W
W
R
R
R
30
44
2 Reynolds M
RRRRRRW
COUR 11 (A)
"
RRRRR
-
W
92
WWWWW
16
3 Lipinski V
RRRRRRR
7 Rose C (D)
RWWRR
RRRRRRW
83
RRRRR
68
4 Gutierre
RRRRRRR
8 Hefner W (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
100
RRRRR
59
5 Rostenko
RARRRRW
9 McMillan A (R)
WRWWWWW
RRRRR
WWWRW
18
91
6 Hyde H (.
WRWWWWW
10 Ballenger C (R)
WwWwwww
RWWWW
WWWWW
17
14
7 Collins C (L.
RRRRRRR
11 Taylor C (R)
RRRRR
WWWWWWR
WWwWw
17
100
90
8 Crane P (R)
WWWWWWW
12 Watt M (D)
wwwww
RRRRRRR
RRRR
5
R
100
0
100
9 Yates S (D)
ARRRRRR
RRRRR
100
92
North Dakota
10 Porter J (R)
WWWWWWW
wwwww
0
14
11 Sangmeister G (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
86
AL Pomeroy E (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
92
12 Costello J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
91
13 Fawell H (R)
WWWWWWW
WWwWw
Ohio
0
7
14 Hastert D (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWWW
8
13
1 Mann D (D)
WRWRRAW
RRWRW
55
55
15 Ewing T (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWW
0
16
2 Portman R (R)
IIIWWWW
IIWWW
0
0
16 Manzullo D (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWW
0
0
3 Hall T (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRA
100
81
17 Evans L (D)
ARRRRRR
RRRRR
100
96
4 Oxley M (R)
ARWWWWW
WWWWW
9
8
18 Michel R (R)
WRWWWWW
wWWWW
8
12
5 Gillmor P (R)
ARWWWWW
RAWRW
30
24
19 Poshard G (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
87
6 Strickland T (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
20 Durbin R (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
88
7 Hobson D (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWRW
17
25
Indiana
8 Boehner J (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWW
0
6
9 Kaptur M (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
92
1 Visclosky P (D)
RRRRRRR
RWRRR
92
90
10 Hoke M (R)
WRWWWWR
RWWWW
25
25
2 Sharp P (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
76
11 Stokes L (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
95
3 Roemer T (D)
RAWRRRR
RRWRW
73
66
12 Kasich J (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWWW
8
16
4 Long J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRWRW
83
76
13 Brown S (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
5 Buyer S (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWRW
17
17
14 Sawyer T (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
91
6 Burton D (R)
WRWWWWR
WWWWW
17
13
15 Pryce D (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWWW
8
8
7 Myers J (R)
WRAWWWR
WWWRR
36
17
16 Regula R (R)
WRWRWRR
P,WWRW
50
38
8 McCloskey F (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
89
17 Traflcant J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRWRR
92
97
9 Hamilton L (D)
RRRRRRW
WRRRW
75
57
18 Applegate D (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
79
10 Jacobs A (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
76
19 Fingerhut E (D)
RRRRRRR
R
R
R
W
W
83
83
Iowa
Oklahoma
1 Leach J (R)
W
W
W
W
R
R
W
RRWRW
1 Inhofe J (R)
W
W
42
W
35
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
8
15
2 Nussle (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWRW
8
14
2 Synar M (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
67
3 Lightfoot J (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWR
8
12
3 Brewster B (D)
RRWWRRW
WWWRR
50
56
4 Smith N (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
80
4 McCurdy D (D)
WRRWARW
RRWRW
55
49
5 Grandy F (R)
WRWWWW
W
WWWRW
17
5 Istook E (R)
WWWWWWW
21
WWWWW
0
0
6 English G (D)
WRWWRRW
RRWRR
58
37
Kansas
Oregon
1 Roberts P (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
0
5
2 Stattery J (D)
RRRRRRR
WRRRW
83
67
I Furse E (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
3 Meyers J (R)
WRWWWWW
WRWRW
25
2 Smith B (R)
WRWWWWW
19
WWWWW
8
15
4 Glickman D (D)
RRRRRRY
W
WRRRR
83
65
3 Wyden R (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
82
4 DeFario P (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
91
Kentucky
5 Kopetski M (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
81
1 Barlow T (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
92
Pennsylvania
2 Natcher W (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
76
3 Mazzoll R (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRW
83
66
1 Foglletta T (D)
R
WRRRRR
RRRRR
92
96
4 Bunning J (R)
WWWWWWR
WWWWW
8
11
2 Blackwell L (D)
RRRRRRR
R R R R R
100
100
5 Rogers H (R)
RWRWWWR
WWWRR
42
28
3 Borski R (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRAR
100
X
6 Baesler S (D)
R
R
R
R
R
W
RRWRW
75
75
4 Klink R (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
92
5 Clinger W (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWRA
18
37
Louisiana
6 Holden T (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
92
7 Weldon c (R)
WRWRRRR
RWWAW
55
59
1 Livingston B (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
WWWWW
8
11
8 Greenwood J (R)
WWWWWRW
wwWWw
8
8
2 Jefferson (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
92
9 Shuster B (R)
WWWWWWR
wWWWW
8
18
3 Tauzin W (D)
RRWWWWR
WRWRW
42
43
10 McDade J (R)
AAWRRRW
RWWAR
56
68
4 Fields C (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
11 Kanjorski P (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
91
5 McCrery J (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWW
0
9
12 Murths J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRAR
100
88
6 Baker R (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWW
0
12
13 Margelles-Mervinsky M (D)
RRWRRRR
RRRRW
83
83
, Hayes J (D)
RRWWRRW
W
R
W
R
W
50
62
14 Coyne W (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
96
Maine
15 McHale P (R)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
92
16 Walker R (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWW
0
13
1 Andrews T (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
94
17 Gekas G (R)
WWWWWWW
WWWWW
0
17
2 Snowe o (R)
RWWWRWR
RWWRW
42
47
18 Santorum R (R)
WRWRRRR
WRWWW
50
50
19 Goodling B (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWRW
17
27
Maryland
20 Murphy A (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
83
1 Glichrest (R)
R
R
W
W
W
W
W
WRWRW
33
29
21 Ridge T (R)
RRWWWRW
WWWWW
25
53
2 Bentley H (R)
WRWRWRR
WWWRW
42
48
Rhode Island
3 Cardin B (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
92
4 Wynn A (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
I Machtley R (R)
R
R
W
W
R
R
W
RRWRR
67
55
5 Hoyer S (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
93
2 Reed J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
94
6 Bartlett R (R)
WRWWAWR
WWWWW
18
18
7 Mfume K (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
98
South Carolina
8 Morella C (R)
RRWWRRW
RRWRR
67
62
I Ravenel A (R)
WRWWWWR
RWWRW
33
40
Massachusetts
2 Spence F (R)
WRWWWWR
WWWWW
17
18
3 Derrick B (D)
RRRWRRR
RRRRR
92
59
1 Olver J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
97
4 Inglis B (R)
WWWWWWR
WWWWW
8
8
2 Neal R (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
96
5 Spratt J (D)
RRRWRRW
RRRRR
83
66
3 Blute P (R)
RWWWRRR
RWWRW
50
50
6 Clyburn J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
4 Frank B (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
91
5 Meehan M (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRW
83
83
South Dakota
6 Torkildsen P (R)
RRWWRRW
WWWRW
42
42
AL Johnson T (D)
WRRRRRR
R
R
R
R
R
92
83
7 Markey E (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
91
8 Kennedy J (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
93
Tennessee
9 Moakley J (D)
RRRRAAR
RRRRR
100
94
10 Studds G (D)
RRRRRRW
RARRR
91
91
1 Quillen J (R)
WRAWWWW
WAWRR
30
19
2 Duncan J (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWRW
17
30
Michigan
3 Lloyd M (D)
RRRRRRW
RRWRR
83
61
4 Cooper J (D)
ARRWRRW
RRRRW
73
66
1 Stupak D (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
RRRRR
100
100
5 Clement B (D)
WRRRRRW
RRWRR
75
78
, Hosketee P on
P
W
W
W
w
W
w
W
W
W
W
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28
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7 Smith N (F
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8 Carr B (
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Texas
WRRRR
9 Klidee D
RRRRRRR
92
RRRRR
100
1 Chapman J (D)
RRRRRRW
R
R
W
10 Bonior D
R
R
RRRRRRR
65
RRRRR
11 Knollenbe.
100
2 Wilson c (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
WWWWWWW
71
wwwww
0
0
3 Johnson S (R)
WWWWWWW
12 Levin S (D)
wwwww
0
RRRRRRR
9
RRRRR
100
95
4 Hall R (D)
WRWWWWR
13 Ford W (D)
WRWRW
33
34
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
14 Conyers J (D)
100
97
5 Bryant J (D)
RARRRRW
RRRRR
91
92
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
93
6 Barton J (R)
AWAWWWW
WAWWW
15 Collins B (D)
0
6
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
97
7 Archer B (R)
wwwwwwW
WAWWW
16 Dingell J (D)
0
4
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
93
8 Fields J (R)
WAWWWWW
WAWWW
0
8
Minnesota
9 Brooks J (D)
ARRRRRR
RRRRR
100
78
10 Pickle J (D)
RRRWRWW
RRRRR
75
55
1 Penny T (D)
WRRRRRW
WRRWW
11 Edwards C (D)
58
WRRRRRW
RRWRW
55
67
72
2 Minge D (D)
WRRRRRR
RRWRW
12 Geren P (D)
RRWWWWW
3 Ramsted J (R)
75
WRWRW
WRWWWWW
75
33
48
RRWRW
13 Sarpalius B (D)
RRRRRWW
4 Vento B (D)
33
WRRRR
RRRRRRR
36
75
51
RRRRR
14 Laughlin G (D)
WRRRRWW
100
WAWRW
93
45
49
5 Sabo M (D)
R RRRRRR
RRRRR
15 de la Garza E (D)
RRRWRRW
6 Grams R (R)
100
RRRRR
WWWWWWW
92
83
63
wWwww
16 Coleman R (D)
RRRRRRW
0
RRRRR
0
92
88
7 Peterson C (D)
RRRRRRR
RRWRW
17 Stenholm C (D)
WRWWWWW
8 Oberstar J (D)
83
WWWRW
75
17
19
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
18 Washington (D)
RRRRARR
100
RRRRR
93
100
96
19 Combest L (R)
wwwWWww
WWWWR
Mississippi
8
12
20 Gonzalez H (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
91
I Whitten J (D)
21 Smith L (R)
RRRWRAW
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RWWWW
RRRRR
8
17
82
2 Thompson B (D)
48
22 DeLay T (R)
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IIIRRRR
wWWWw
0
IIRRR
3
100
3 Montgomery G (D)
100
23 Bonilla H (R)
WRWWRWW
wwwwwww
WWWWW
WRWRR
0
0
42
4 Parker M (D)
17
24 Frost M (D)
WRWWWWW
RRRRARW
RRRRR
WRWRR
91
82
33
5 Taylor G (D)
29
25 Andrews M (D)
W
RRRRRRW
R
W
W
W
W
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RRRRW
83
65
RRWRW
42
45
26 Armey D (R)
wwwwwww
WWWWW
0
2
Missouri
27 Ortiz S (D)
RRRWRRW
R R R R R
83
83
28 Tejeda F (D)
RRRWRRW
RRRRR
83
83
1 Clay W (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
96
29 Green G (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
2 Talent J (R)
WWWWWWR
WWwWw
8
30 Johnson E (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
92
3 Gephardt R (D)
8
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
4 Skelton 1 (D)
85
RRRRARW
WRRAR
Utah
80
5 Whest A (D)
68
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
6 Danner P (D)
97
1 Hansen J (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
RRRRRRR
W
W
8
4
RRWRR
92
92
2 Shepherd K (D)
7 Hancock M (R)
RRRRRRW
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92
WWwWw
92
0
8
3 Orton B (D)
8 Emerson B (R)
RRWRRRR
W
RRWWWWW
R
W
R
W
67
47
WWWWW
17
24
9 Volkmer H (D)
RRRRRRR
R
RRRR
100
74
Vermont
Montana
AL Sanders B (I)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
100
100
1 Williams P (D)
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
RRRRR
100
89
Virginia
Nebraska
1 Bateman H (R)
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
8
11
2 Pickett o (D)
1 Bereuter D (R)
WRWWRRW
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
R
R
W
42
W
60
W
W
W
W
8
20
3 Scott R (D)
RRRRRRR
2 Hoagland P (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
100
100
RRRRW
83
83
4 Sisisky N (D)
RRWWRRR
3 Barrett B (R)
W
W
W
WRRRR
W
W
W
75
W
64
W
W
W
W
W
0
11
5 Payne L (D)
RRRWWWW
W R R R W
50
52
Nevada
6 Goodlatte R (R)
WRWWWW W
WWWWW
8
8
7 Billey T (R)
WRWWWRW
wWwwW
17
13
I Bilbray J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
8 Moran J (D)
as
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
83
2 Vucanovich B (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
17
9 Boucher R (D)
11
RRRARRR
RRRRR
100
84
10 Wolf F (R)
wwwwwwW
WWWWW
New Hampshire
0
17
11 Byrne L (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
100
1 Zeliff B (R)
W
R
W
W
W
A
W
W W W W W
9
14
2 Swett D (D)
RRRRRRR
Washington
RRWRW
83
86
I Cantwell M (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRW
83
83
2 Swift A (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
84
3 Unsoeld J (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
98
4 Inslee J (D)
WRRRRRW
RRWRW
67
67
5 Foley T (D)
SSSSSSW
SSRSR
67
80
6 Dicks N (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
84
7 McDermott J (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
90
8 Dunn J (R)
WWwWWWw
WAWWW
0
0
9 Kreidler M (D)
RRRRRRW
RRRRR
92
92
West Virginia
1 Mollohan A (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
95
2 Wise B (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
95
3 Raball N (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
90
Wisconsin
1 Barca P (D)
I I I R R R R
IIRRW
86
86
2 Klug S (R)
WRWWWWW
RRWRW
33
33
3 Gunderson S (R)
WRWWRRW
WRWRW
42
30
4 Kleczka G (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
85
5 Barrett, T (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRW
92
92
6 Petri T (R)
WRWWRAW
RWWRW
36
24
7 Obey D (D)
RRRRRRR
RRRRR
100
88
8 Roth T (R)
WRWWWWW
WWWWR
17
13
9 Sensenbrenner F (R)
wWWWWWW
W
W
W
W
W
0
9
Wyoming
AL Thomas C (R)
W
R
W
W
W
W
W
R
W
W
W
W
17
16
Clinton Presidential Records
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indicated below.
COPE & AGJ
Divider Title:
February 17, 1994
MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT
FROM:
MICHAEL BURTON
SUBJECT: COPE ON AGJ
Your voting record with the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education has
been outstanding in recent years.
Since 1977, your COPE ratings have increased steadily. At no time have they
fallen below 70 percent. From 1986 onward, your voting record agreed with their
agenda at least 86 percent of the time. In 1992, you received a 100 percent rating.
(This number should be handled with caution, however, because this figure
encompasses the campaign, during which time you only were able to vote on only
three of the seven issues they scored.)
A graph showing your COPE ratings is attached.
In your last four years in the Senate, you cast what COPE considered "Wrong"
votes on four occasions. The votes were on the following issues: (1) A Dixon
amendment to the FSX deal in 1989; (2) increased CAFE standards in 1990; (3)
NAFTA Fast Track; and (4) campaign finance reform, also in 1991. You are listed as
having no "Wrong" votes in 1992.
AGJS "WRONG" VOTES--1989-92
1989 FSX Sale
The Senate rejected a Dixon amendment to FSX legislation that would have
banned the transfer of aviation-related technology. Such an amendment would have
had the effect of killing the deal. As you recall, the FSX deal was a joint U.S.-
Japanese effort to develop a new generation of advanced combat fighter aircraft. The
AFL-CIO opposed the deal because the union believed the effort would cost thousands
of American jobs and allow the Japanese to acquire U.S. technology to develop their
own aerospace industry
You voted against the highly restrictive Dixon amendment, which the AFL-CIO
supported, but which ultimately failed; however, on a separate vote, you favored
overriding a Bush veto of legislation requiring less restrictive prohibitions--this
legislation being supported by the AFL-CIO. The veto override failed.
1990 Increased CAFE Standards.
On the assumption that Senator Bryan's proposed auto fuel efficiency
requirements would be so strict as to cause domestic plant closings, the AFL-CIO
opposed this measure. You voted to close debate on Bryan's bill; the cloture vote
failed.
1991 NAFTA Fast-Track
The AFL-CIO opposed Fast Track for NAFTA; you voted against a Hollings
resolution that would have denied this authority.
Campaign Finance Reform
The Senate sought to reform campaign finance by, among other things,
eliminating PAC contributions. The AFL-CIO views union PACs as a countervailing
answer to the massive financial power of wealthy individuals, and thus opposed the
bill. You voted in favor of reform.
1992 No "Wrong Votes.
2
COPE on AGJ
1977 - 1992
100%
100%
86% 86%
88%
87% 87% 87% 87%
80%
79% 79%
81%
82%
78%
80%
80%
70%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
Clinton Presidential Records
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marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
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digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
Senate-ERA Work on Labor
Divider Title:
SENATE LADOR none 1
OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM
DATE:
February 17, 1994
TO:
The Vice President
Bm
FROM:
Bill Mason, Director of Correspondence
RE:
Senate-Era Work on Labor
For your reference, I have attached three items illustrative
of your work on behalf of labor during your tenure as Senator.
Most significant of these was your support--as an original
cosponsor--of the plant closing bill. Your Congressional Record
statement of June 22, 1988, was very well received by labor, and
we reprinted it for general distribution. This was considered
the biggest labor issue of that year, and the bill passed over
strenuous Republican opposition. You returned from the campaign
for votes on the bill at the urging of labor.
The letter and press release attached simply illustrate your
personal interest in worker issues at the local level in
Tennessee.
Congressional Record
United States
of America
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE
100th
CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION
Vol. 134
WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1988
No. 93
Senate
Mr. GORE Mr. President. I am
does looking after the Interests of the
Mr. President. the time has long
pleased to be an original cosponsor of
people who have made America what
passed when an employer should be al-
S. 2527. the Worker Adjustment and
it is today. This President will give
lowed to withhold information simply
Retraining Notification Act. to require
Noriega all the advance notification he
because the corporation wants to avoid
advance notification of plant closings
wants. and cut a deal in the process:
public scrutiny of Its decision or public
and layoffs. This measure is Identical
but he says. "tough luck" to the Amer-
pressure to cushion the impact.
to that which both Houses of Congress
Ican garment worker or assembly line
Opponents of advance notification
approved as part of the trade bill earli-
employee about to lose his job.
have been active. They even claim
er this year. I congratulate the distin-
Mr. President. between 1981 and
that this legislation would prevent
guished Senator from Ohio [Mr. METZ-
1986, companies laid off almost 11 mil-
them from closing their plants or
ENBAUM) and the majority leader for
lion Americans. Production workers all
laying off workers. Of course. that is
pushing ahead with this bill. a modest
across this Nation-people with bills to
not true. If business circumstances not
but necessary step toward fair treat-
pay and dependent families-were sud-
reasonably foreseeable occur. a compa-
ment for the working people of this
denly without work in a market woe-
ny does not have to comply with the
Nation.
fully lacking in manufacturing jobs.
provisions of this bill. No company is
I have been a supporter of advance
About one-fourth of all workers, blue
compelled to change any business deci-
notification from the start. I cospon-
collar and white collar. receive no
sion. The free-market system is not as-
sored the original legislation. a much
notice of a workplace closing. And
stronger version. that was Introduced
only 26 percent get more than 30 days'
saulted. The South is not unfairly pe-
In February of last year. When the
notice. The United States of America
nalized. as some have maintained. All
trade bill was being considered. the
Is the only major Industrialized coun-
that is required is that companies let
sponsors of the advance notification
try without a law requiring employers
their employees know what is going to
provision agreed to a much more
to notify their employees before clos-
happen to their jobs. I fall to see what
modest version. Concession after con-
ing down a workplace.
is unreasonable about that.
cession was made to meet. I think un-
A major study published by the De-
Mr. President. some say that this bill
founded. objections.
partment of Labor recommended a
constitutes Government Interference.
We shortened the notification period
number of procedures for successful
How Interesting that is. I doubt that
for closings or mass layoffs to Just 60
re-employment and retraining pro-
there Is a single Member of this body
days. down from a much longer period
grams. It is important to note that all
who has not participated in some way
for large companies. We raised the
successful programs cited by the Labor
in his or her State's effort to recruit a
small business exemption: excluded
Department included advance notice
new industry. And we all know what Is
the layoff of seasonal and part-time
of layoffs. The study found almost no
involved in recruiting a new plant.
employees: exempted businesses which
evidence of disruptions. theft. loss of
When the company wants (and gets) a
were seeking capital or customers to
customers. or declining productivity
new road. or an Industrial park site al-
keep going and which feared notifica-
after notification.
ready equipped with sewer and utility
tion would hurt those prospects: and
connections. or a property tax break,
deleted an Information disclosure re-
Mr. President. It is unfortunate that
or State-sponsored training and re-
quirement.
many of the benefits available to
cruiting programs. or any number of
The result was a very mild. and per-
American workers are not realized be-
other incentives-that is "good govern-
fectly reasonable. requirement that
cause they do not receive adequate ad-
ment."
employers give Just 60 days notice If
vance notice when a workplace is plan-
But when a community has Invested
they are going to close down a plant or
ning to close. There seems to be a gen-
all of this in a company-indeed when
layoff a huge number of employees.
eral consensus on the need for more
a community has staked its economic
The Senate refused to delete this pro-
investment in programs for job search
future on a plant operation-It is
visions from the trade bill by a 60 to
services. vocational training. basic edu-
called government Interference when
40 vote. We acknowledged that reason-
cation. relocation assistance, adequate
It simply asks for 60 days notice that
able advance notification was a matter
unemployment benefits. Income sup-
the plant Is going to close its doors.
of basic fairness and common human
port during retraining. and similar ef-
fire everybody. throw hundreds of
decency.]
forts. But the resources reserved for
people onto the unemployment rolls.
But. as we all know. the President of
such benefits will often go for nought
destroy the tax base and the commu-
the United States vetoed the trade bill
because of the lack of an advance
nity's disposable Income. and disrupt
because of this advance notification
notice requirement.
the lives of the employees and their
provision. That veto, for that reason.
Clearly. advance notice would con-
families.
demonstrates probably more than any
tribute to increased participation In
Mr. President, that logic won't wash.
other action by this President his con-
various worker adjustment programs.
The American people overwhelmingly
tempt for the working men and
significant declines in unemployment
support this measure. It Is time for us
women of this country. It was a slap in
and under-employment for dislocated
to do the right thing and pass this ad-
the face to anyone who puts in an
workers. easier adjustment to what
vance notification bill.
honest day's work in the United States
might otherwise be a wrenching
of America. This administration
change In affected communities. and
spends more time protecting the inter-
Legislative Asst:
substantial savings in unemployment
ests of plant workers overseas than It
Insurance costs.
Bill Mason
SENATE LABOR WORK 3 of 5
News from Senator
ALBERT GORE JR.
(D - Tennessee) SR 393 Russell Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Bill Mason
April 14, 1988
(202) 224-4944
GORE ASKS BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES TO HELP MOUNTAIN CITY
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Albert Gore Jr. (D-TN) has asked
Burlington Industries to provide a package of employee and
community benefits to cushion the impact of the impending closing
of the company's Mountain City facility.
In a letter to Frank S. Greenberg, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Burlington Industries, Gore requested "more
in the way of benefits and assistance to the individual employees
and to the community than what has been offered."
Burlington announced plans late last month to close its
Mountain City plant, which manufactures textured polyester
apparel fabrics, by the end of September, with 350 employees in
Johnson County losing their jobs.
Gore said the plant closing will be "a devastating blow to
the community," and the limited benefits available to the
employees are not sufficient. Burlington has offered employees
some severance pay and their normal retirement allowances, and no
help has been offered to the general community.
"Johnson County has an already depressed economy, and the
loss of 350 jobs will push the unemployment rate beyond 25
percent," Gore told Greenberg in the letter.
"The loss of income, purchasing power, and the other
positive benefits of an industrial operation will also hurt the
entire community and services to the people who live there. This
plant closing will have an impact on Mountain City well beyond
that which might be expected of a facility this size."
For direct employee benefits, Gore suggested generous
severance pay, weighted in favor of those with longer service;
early retirement for employees in their 50s, "those who have been
employed by Burlington for 15-20 years and will have the hardest
time finding new employment;" and full protection and provision
of all retirement benefits and pension funds.
SENATE LABOR WORK 4 of 5
In the area of medical benefits, Gore requested
transitional benefits in the form of group-rate insurance
premiums for an extended period for any employee who remains out
of work; lifetime coverage for employees over 55; and guaranteed
medical coverage for those with pre-existing major illnesses.
To assist with job training and relocation, Gore asked
Burlington to provide job training assistance through a
retraining allowance; first choice to fill Job openings at other
Burlington facilities; an aggressive program of job placement
assistance; and a relocation allowance.
Gore also requested "professional assistance, including
legal help, with the employee petition for Trade Adjustment
Assistance (TAA), which provides extended unemployment benefits
for workers who lose their jobs because of import pressures.
Even though Burlington does not plan to sell or lease the
Mountain City plant, Gore urged Burlington to find another
company to occupy the facility and provide new jobs.
"I would, of course, like to see Burlington return, but the
economic situation in Johnson County makes the prospect of an
empty facility an undesirable one," Gore said.
The Senator also asked for reasonable payments, including
property taxes and utility allowances, to make up for lost
revenues to the city and county; and a continuation of United Way
contributions for such organizations as the Boy and Girl Scouts
and the Red Cross.
Gore noted that he cannot require Burlington to make any
concessions, and he said he does not question the business
decision to shut down the plant. Burlington has faced increased
import pressures, and it carries a heavy debt burden after a
recent takeover battle.
But Burlington is a Fortune 500 Company, well able to step
up to its responsibilities to Mountain City, which has "provided
a good climate and enthusiastic support for Burlington over the
past two decades," he said.
#####
ALBERT GORE, JR.
393 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
TENNESSEE
PHONE: 202-224-4944
United States Senate
WASHINGTON, DC 205 10
November 25, 1986
Mr. Mike Stanley, President
United Rubber Workers, Local 878
P. O. Box 584
Union City, Tennessee 38261
Dear Mr. Stanley:
Thank you for stopping by my office to discuss the possible
takeover of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and to deliver a
petition from the employees at the Union City plant. I agree that
acquisition of the company by the Goldsmith group would raise serious
concerns not only about the jobs directly affected in Tennessee, but
also about the nation's economic structure and security.
Apparently, the Goldsmith takeover attempt has been averted by
Goodyear. It is my understanding that the company bought out
Goldsmith's holdings for $616.3 million and will now proceed with a
restructuring program including the sale of three subsidiaries, an
early retirement program, and wide-ranging cost cuts. Officials at
Goodyear have told me that there is no direct threat to the employees
at Union City in terms of layoffs in the foreseeable future.
While I am pleased that the Tennessee operation will continue, I
remain concerned about the situation. Goodyear is a successful and
highly competitive company. The unfriendly takeover attempt forced
Goodyear to spend a huge amount of money to buy stock, sell off
profitable subsidiaries which provide a "buffer" against the
uncertainties of the automobile industry, and concentrate on short-
term rather than long-term policies for growth and expansion.
Legislation probably will be considered sometime next year to
limit or prohibit unfriendly takeovers of this type. I intend to
study closely the provisions of any such proposals, and I will bear
this episode in mind. I appreciate your assistance and support, and I
look forward to working with you in the effort to protect the best
interests of Tennessee's working men and women.
allent Sincerely, Albert Gore, Jr.
F.
U. S. Senator
AG/wem
GORE RECORD ON LABOR
Gore cosponsored the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Voted to expand appropriations for Head Start, child support
enforcement, family violence prevention, and Pell Grants.
Voted for the Workplace Fairness Act to ban permanent
replacement of striking workers and preserve the collective
bargaining process.
Voted for Unemployment Compensation which provides an
additional 13 weeks of extended benefits to unemployed workers.
Cosponsored the Child Welfare and Preventive Services Act which
amends the titles of the Social Security Act to establish innovative
child welfare and family support services in order to strengthen
families.
Clinton Presidential Records
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digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
VP Labor Correspondence
Divider Title:
OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM
DATE:
February 17, 1994
TO:
The Vice President
FROM:
Bill Mason, Director of Correspondence
Bull
RE:
Labor-Related Correspondence
Organized labor does not generate a great deal of
correspondence to the Office of the Vice President. The one
exception concerned the Railroad Retirement program, which is
discussed below. Even the mail on NAFTA had a small fraction
specifically geared to labor concerns about the agreement.
(Environmental concerns were more prominent.) Actual figures on
NAFTA mail since October 1:
general concerns about NAFTA/pro and con
2,585
praise of the VP's NAFTA debate performance
1,015
environmental concerns about NAFTA
263
** labor objections to NAFTA
139
** concerns about NAFTA sending textile jobs to Mexico
82
So the letters we have received on NAFTA specifically geared to
organized labor have been very few, slightly more than 200 total.
As for other, more generalized, labor issues, the mail also
has been very light. Actual figures on other labor-oriented mail
since October 1:
concerns about American plants going overseas
122
specifically about a plant closing in the community
73
general pro-growth letters, "we need jobs"
57
striker replacement bill - con
19
striker replacement bill - pro
10
general support for unions
8
So this was a very small percentage (4/10s of 1%) of the nearly
75,000 letters we produced in this period.
Two very specific labor issues have generated correspondence
to this office: 1) the Railroad Retirement Board issue, and
2) concerns about the effect of the federal recycling standards
on paper mills in Maine.
(more)
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE L or 14
Labor Mail Memorandum
Bill Mason
page 2
The issue of reforming the Railroad Retirement Program has
generated a huge volume of mail, virtually all of it opposed to
the NPR proposal on this issue. Much of this was in the form of
company-and union-organized mail campaigns. To date, we have
responded to 17,079 letters on this issue, by far one of the
biggest issues of your Vice Presidency. (Attached is some
related correspondence and a labor position paper.)
Much smaller in volume, we have responded to 257 letters
from members of the United Paperworkers International Union in
Maine, all of whom were concerned about the effect of the federal
recycling order if recycled waste sawdust was not allowed to meet
the requirements for content. Partly through the intervention of
Senator Mitchell, the final order allowed paper manufactured from
waste sawdust to be considered a recycled product, provided that
the sawdust would otherwise be disposed of in a landfill (as
determined by the state). This had the effect of removing any
threat to the union jobs at the Maine papermills.
Also attached for your reference are sample letters from
labor. We have generall responded with letters reinforcing your
support for labor and assuring the writers of the intentions of
this Adminsitration to pursue "policies that promote the shared
goals of American workers and management and which strengthen the
ability of our businesses and industry to compete successfully in
the worls economy.'
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 3 of 12
NATIONAL RAILWAY LABOR CONFERENCE
1901 L STREET, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036/AREA CODE: 202-862-7200 FAX: 202-862-7230
OCT
13
1993
CHARLES 1. HOPKINS, Jr.
Chairman
G. F. DANIELS
D. P. LEE
Vice Chairman
Vice Chairman and
General Counsel
R. P. ORIGER
Director of Labor Relations
September 24, 1993
The Honorable Albert E. Gore
Vice President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. Vice President:
As chief negotiator for rail management's bargaining arm, the National
Railway Labor Conference, I write to express our deep concern over those
recommendations of the National Performance Review Committee directed to the
operations of the Railroad Retirement Board. These operations represent the
financial life line for most rail workers at the conclusions of their active railroad
careers as well as providing an indispensable safety net for many workers
confronted by sudden and often prolonged economic adversity during their work
life. Threats to these systems are of deep concern to rail management as well
as, I am sure, rail labor.
Therefore, we urge with all the force at our command that there be no
effort to act on such recommendations, at this time. Rather, that there be a full
and fair opportunity for the analysis, study and input by the affected parties
that they deserve and that have not been allowed to date. Indeed, the
recommendations are so unclear in many respects as to amount only to ideas
rather than legislative proposals, stemming we presume from certain fragments
of the reports of the prior Commissions. There is nothing to indicate that any
of them will save and not cost taxpayers' money or avoid burdening the industry
or severely impacting retired or unemployed railroad workers. The
recommendations on railroad retirement, taken to the extreme, could add billions
to the federal deficit and sink the industry with an immediate liability of more
than $30 billion.
We must oppose recommendations that have not been subjected to
thoroughgoing analysis by anyone, least of all the affected parties, and that hold
the potential for undermining venerable and venerated statutory guarantees. At
the same time we do not consider ourselves as opposed to change or to initiatives
to cut the cost of government. Rather, the industry supports the goal of cutting
government waste.
We ask that you give these concerns most serious consideration.
Yours very truly,
C.L. Hophins, fo.
C.I. Hopkins, Jr.
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 4 of 12
UTU AND RAIL LABOR'S VIEW
*
MR. VICE PRESIDENT, RAIL LABOR IS OUTRAGED. WE REPRESENT
AN OUTRAGED MEMBERSHIP. THEY FEEL BETRAYED.
*
WE WENT TO THE MAT AND PUSHED OUR MEMBERSHIP TO GET THE
CLINTON/GORE ADMINISTRATION ELECTED.
*
IN RETURN, YOU DID NOT GIVE US THE MEREST DECENCY OR
COURTESY OF AN OPPORTUNITY TO RESPOND ON OUR RETIREMENT
ISSUE BEFORE YOU ISSUED YOUR REPORT.
*
WE WILL OPPOSE THIS PLAN ON THE HILL WITH EVERY MEANS AT
OUR DISPOSAL. THAT WILL HURT THE ENTIRE NPR. THAT IS
TRAGIC.
THIS RAILROAD RETIREMENT PROPOSAL MAY BE FRESH AND NEW TO
YOU. NOT TO US. WE'VE LIVED WITH IT FOR 12 YEARS - SO
HAVE THE PEOPLE WHO SOLD THE IDEA TO YOU. IT'S CALLED
REAGANOMICS, PURE AND SIMPLE.
*
MR. VICE PRESIDENT. YOUR PLAN ATTACKS THE MOST CHERISHED
ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF RAIL LABOR -- OUR
RETIREMENT PLAN.
*
OUR STATUTORY PLAN - WHICH WE PAY FOR - WORKS. IN ITS
PLACE YOU PROPOSE AN UNWORKABLE CONCOCTION WHICH IS $34
BILLION IN THE HOLE. IT WILL LEAD TO BENEFIT REDUCTIONS
DOWN THE ROAD -- WE BOTH KNOW THAT.
*
WE KNOW THERE'S NOT TWO-CENTS OF SAVINGS, NO EFFICIENCY,
OR ANY OTHER BENEFIT. YOU'RE PUTTING 1.5 MILLION PEOPLE
AT RISK FOR A DROP IN THE OCEAN OF CHANGE. THE IMBALANCE
IS UNCONSCIONABLE.
*
MR. VICE PRESIDENT, FOR MANY IN RAIL LABOR, ACTIVE AND
RETIRED, THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FIGHT OF OUR LIVES --
WE NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD HAVE TO BE FOUGHT AGAINST THIS
ADMINISTRATION.
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 5 of 12
INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF
Theatrical Stage Employees and Hoving Picture Machine Operators
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
5
BRIEN CASEY
PRESIDENT
T
JOHN BISHOP
1206 33RD STREET
S
SECRETARY TREASURER
LOCAL
63'
NO. 631
ORLANDO. FLORIDA 32805
J. SCOTT SMITH
(407) 422-2747
BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE
FAX: (407) 843-9170
April 26, 1993
Mr. Albert Gore
Vice President of the United States
Blair House
1700 Jackson Place NW
Washington, DC 20019
Dear Vice President Gore:
As I am sure you know, the International Alliance of Theatrical
Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators (IASTE)
represents employees throughout the entertainment industry. Here,
in Orlando, I.A.T.S.E., Local 631 represents such employees in the
Central Florida area.
Recently, numerous employees of Universal Studios Florida
approached Local 631 about organizing the Universal facility in
Orlando. Universal responded with a vicious anti-union campaign.
The National Labor Relations Board is currently prosecuting
Universal for its pervasive violations of the act. A copy of the
governments complaint is attached for your review.
Out of deference to you, and in recognition of your long record at
supporting working people and their labor organizations, local 631
elected not to picket or handbill Universal Studios while you were
there. However, because your visit to Universal Studios, at the
same time the Federal Government is prosecuting Universal Studios
for extensive unfair labor prictices, could be misinterpreted, we
respectfully request that you write and tell us about your position
in this matter.
We thank you in advance for you support.
Respectfully,
1
James Scott Smith
Business Representative
JSS/smr
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 6 of 12
UNITED RUBBER. CORK. LINOLEUM AND PLASTIC WORKERS OF AMERICA
LOCAL 715
SEP 22 i993
? :. 3CX 237
MOODE TRN INDIANA
WISEMAN
TELEPHONES
1,9,332,4816
83
2') 502-4248
September 15, 1993
Albert Gore
Vice President United States
Capitol Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Vice President Gore,
Enclosed you will find a copy of the message that was directed
to Michelin, the membership of URW Local 715, and the General
Public, which was written by Ray E. Wiseman, President of URW Local
715.
URW Local 715 represents the wage workers at the Uniroyal
Goodrich Ft. Wayne, Indiana Tire Plant and is a party to the Master
Language which covers the 1,800 wage employees at the Uniroyal
oodrich Ft. Wayne, Indiana Tire Plant, the 2,000 wage employees at
che Uniroyal Goodrich Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tire Plant, and the 1,800
wage employees at the Uniroyal Goodrich Opelika, Alabama Tire
Plant.
In 1989, the Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company, which is
headquartered in Akron, Ohio, was purchased by the Michelin Groupe,
a French owned company. The enclosed communication from President
Wiseman details what has happened to the Uniroyal Goodrich
employees and the factories that they work or worked in, since the
French owned Michelin Groupe purchased the North American Uniroyal
Goodrich Tire Company.
If you can be of any assistance, in helping to combat what the
French owned Michelin Groupe is doing to the American worker and to
the Unionized Uniroyal Goodrich Thre Plants in North America,
please contact URW International President Kenneth L. Coss, at URW
International Headquarters located at 570 White Pond Drive, Akron,
Ohio 44320-1156 or phone 216-869-0320, or contact URW Local 715
President Ray E. Wiseman at P.O. Box 237, Woodburn, Indiana 46797
or phone 219-632-4816.
We are asking for any assistance that you may be able to
provide us, in our quest for fair and equable treatment. I thank
you in advance for any help that you may be able to provide us.
Very truly yours,
Ray EL Wiseman, Wiseman President
Claim
U.R.C.L.P.W.A. Local 715
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 7 of 12
E
NOV OF DELIVERING 38
Local 336
JAN - 6 1994
ALBERT J. FRANZEN
I.B.E.W.
President-Business Manager
DONALD L. MOSELEY
"
Vice President
LARRY J. MOELLER
1319 Butterfield Rd., Suite 504
Recording Secretary-Treasurer
Downers Grove, Illinois 60515
IRA DEAN SPENCER
(708) 960-4466
January 5, 1994
Financial Secretary
Fax No. (708) 960-9607
The Honorable Albert Gore
Vice President of the United States
Capitol Building S-212
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Vice President Gore:
I listened with interest to your address to the National Press
Club concerning the new information superhighway and the need
to protect universal service and simultaneously address the needs
of business. You also spoke about the need for free and open
competition under legal, regulatory and financial restraints.
As the President-Business Manager of Local 336, I.B.E.W., I
represent approximately 6,000 members employed in the
telecommunications industry including members employed by various
cable television companies. I have supported deregulation of the
telecommunications industry and expressed my views to the FCC
and Congress (copy enclosed).
It is and has been your position that deregulation and the need
for the information superhighway will be good for our nation,
inasmuch as it will stimulate the U.S. economy as a whole and
will result in high tech, well paying jobs. I agree.
However, the convergence of voice and video could, in fact,
jeopardize essential and the proposed enhanced universal service
if regional holding companies are not allowed to play a part in
cable and interactive services. Cable companies and Competitive
Access Providers have, since the divestiture of AT&T, demonstrated
that they are only interested and have only selected the most
lucrative markets. As more competition enters the communication
market, they will inevitability reduce the profitability, and
therefore, the ability of the regional holding companies to invest
in the existing network. Long term, existing plant will
deteriorate and the inability or unwillingness of Regional Holding
Companies to invest in new outside plant could force them to lease
facilities for telephone service from an "unregulated subsidiary"
or other providers at an unregulated rate, thus driving up the
cost of basic service to all.
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 8 of 12
Vice President Gore
January 5, 1994
Page 2
If deregulation/re-regulation does not occur in the near future,
existing telephone companies will be forced into a position that
would require them to create separate "unregulated subsidiaries"
to accomplish that end. And the very people who have brought
the benefits of telecommunication for the last hundred years,
will be left in the dust. As these new enterprises build the
necessary infrastructure--the RHCs will not continue to invest
capital in the plant, but lease facilities from these new providers
for current and future telecommunications needs, potentially
causing loss of job and wages to these "new providers". Communities
perceived as remote or undesirable could be left behind, or worse,
would not be able to be serviced or maintained by telephone
companies who will no longer have the capital to improve or
maintain their plant due to the inevitable market share loss in
the more lucrative markets. However, if the existing RHCs provide
these services, it will secure current jobs into the future and
additional individuals will enjoy the benefits negotiated for
them into this bright bold future. If separated, companies could
choose to serve only markets of their choice, and your vision
of universal access to these superhighways to all Americans could
vanish.
Unbundling the existing network would not restrict competitors
from building their own network, but would allow other providers
an opportunity to participate, and encourages RHCs not to abandon
the current network, and in effect, (abandon) their current
employees. Unbundling the networks, further provides the synergies
of using the capacity of fiber to its fullest and access to any
service providers, including the regional holding companies, who
choose to enter the cable television, telephone, or Info Service
markets, on an equal basis.
You appropriately drew the analogy of the information highway
to harbors, railroads and highways. Just as it is impractical
and uneconomical to create more right of way for rail or roadway
then necessary, it is equally impractical and uneconomical to
replicate a fiber network for each provider, which would return
us to the chaos of 100 networks in the same city, as was the case
in the early telephone years, that lead us to current regulation.
Similarly, lack of regulation in the early days of railroading
lead to monopolistic abuse and later stifling regulation which
ended in deregulation of a gutted industry. It is important that
we not repeat the mistakes of history. We should enhance the
current networks as opposed to creating new separate network(s).
Creating a new network, the inability to provide a network, or
limited access to the necessary "right of way" for other
competitive networks could freeze many potentially great
information providers out of the picture.
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 9 of 12
Vice President Gore
January 5, 1994
Page 3
Providing access to existing network through Network Interface
Device, as current regulation requires, along with the unbundling
that the "Ameritech Customer First" plan provides would open the
network to all interested parties on an equal basis.
RHCs creating their own Info Service, Cable Television networks
should be required to use the same network and not be allowed
to bypass their own pipe, through a separate subsidiary, as many
regional holding companies are currently doing, essentially and
unnecessarily replicating outside plant facilities, undermining
universal service and existing labor agreements.
We are finally at a point in our history where advanced technology
has the potential of creating many well-paying jobs in America
as opposed to reducing the work force, as we have already
experienced. Let's not make the mistake in which regulation
structures the way our industries must enter these markets, that
could result in lower-paying jobs than those that exist today
where the work that will be performed is similar, if not identical,
in nature.
Your goals as stated:
1. Encourage private investment
2. Promote and protect competition
3. Open Access
4. Avoid a society of haves and have nots
5. Encourage the flexibility that will allow access to who
want the ability to do so
6. Universal Access
Conclusion: Require local operating companies to provide the
network to the Network Interface Device and offer access on an
unbundled equal access basis. This will serve our country, the
various providers, business and citizens well, as well as assure
the continued employment of people currently employed and provide
for additional opportunity for other service providers.
It is important that you and the Legislature recognize the enormous
technological, economic, competitive, political and regulatory
changes in the telecommunications industry.
Without relief from regulation, local exchange telephone operations
will b.e forced by financial considerations to abandon being full
service information age providers to provide utility based POTS
(Plain Old Telephone Service) only.
All businesses survive on their communication services which
are vital to make their business prosper; which will expand
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 10 of 12
Vice President Gore
January 5, 1994
Page 4
employment as well as impact the quality of education, health
care and everyone's home life in the U.S.
6,000 members of our local are employed and have invested their
lives in the world's finest communication business. If these
companies abandon further investment into new products and
services, it will result in the loss of jobs as well as slowing
technical advances in the industry.
It is important that telephone companies in U.S. be allowed to
offer services unrestricted by regulation for the betterment of
the home and business environments which will allow faster
deployment of new technologies as they evolve.
The existing local exchanges have proven themselves as the best
communication network in the world; don't restrict them with regard
to enhanced services which they can provide and cripple the U.S.'
communication advantage with continued regulation.
The companies need the flexibility to use their existing structure
to pursue future opportunities without regulatory restraints.
It is essential that the ability of the telephone companies to
compete effectively, to attract investment, to maintain quality
service at reasonable rates, to extend the full benefits of the
Information Age in the U.S., and provide continued employment
at decent wages, should be a priority of all legislators.
On behalf of our membership I ask your support on this important
issue and would appreciate and share your point of view on this
issue with them.
If you need any clarification as to my reasoning, please contact
me. I would consider it a privilege to do so.
Sincerely,
President-Business Manager
AJF:co
Encl.
cc: FCC Chairman, Reed Hundt
Telecommunication and Finance Subcommittee Chairman, Ed Markey
IBFW Int'l President, J. J. Barry
IBEW 6th Dist. V.P., James Conway
LABOR CORRESPONDENCE 11 of 12
AFFILIATED
E
OF
Local 336
ALBERT J. FRANZEN
I.B.E.W.
President-Business Manager
DONALD L. MOSELEY
⑉⑉
Vice President
LARRY J. MOELLER
1319 Butterfield Rd.. Suite 504
Recording Secretary-Treasur:
Downers Grove. Illinois 60515
IRA DEAN SPENCER
(708) 960-4466
Financial Secretary
Fax No. (708) 960-9607
June 8, 1993
Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
1919 M. Street, NW
Washington, DC 20554
Re: In the Matter of a Petition for a Declaratory Ruling and Related Waivers to
Establish a New Regulatory Model for the Ameritech Region.
Dear Sir:
Local 336, IBEW, represents 5973 members employed in the telecommunications industry.
Regulation reform is a matter of serious concern for our members employed by Illinois
Bell, Indiana Bell and Ameritech among others.
continue to see an ever increasing number of competitors entering every market niche
in We the services we provide. Our regulated business is being bypassed by alternate providers
of: networks; 800 service; intraLATA long distance; equipment features; and yes, even
high capacity services; private lines; pay phone; cellular; personal communication plain
old dial tone.
These communications services are now being offered by a wide variety of companies,
many of which have the technology, knowledge and financing to become dominate players
in the information age.
Our companies are required to provide service to anyone within their service area; yet,
regulators allow these alternate providers to serve only those customers and markets they
select, and they are selecting only the most profitable markets.
Current Regulation and the subsequent lack of pricing flexibility places our companies
at a distinct disadvantage as we attempt to service those same markets.
It is imperative that our companies be allowed to be competitive, dynamic, and at minimum, have
be provided equal treatment that will potentially allow us to maintain the business we
served for 100 years.
Certainly, we currently have a healthy industry and a healthy company in the forefront
LADOR UNDENCE 14 or 12
Secretary, FCC
June 8, 1993
Page 2
of technology today; but we can fall behind if regulation doesn't keep pace. Thirty-five
states have already modified traditional Regulation in some way.
The question isn't "Will new services and technologies be of fered" but "by whom and how
quickly". We have been here and we're ready now. This is and has been our life's work.
This issue is not only about jobs maintained but jobs to be created. We telecommunications
people in the I.B.E.W. have dedicated our careers to making our industry the best in the
world. We should not be restrained from sharing in the bright bold future of the information
age that we have made possible.
It is in the best interest of the public, our members and our companies, that we be allowed
to compete on a equal basis, and we encourage you to support us in this effort. We have
served our communities well and should be allowed fair access to the very customers we
serve today. It is imperative that our companies and, therefore, we the craft and clerical
forces who have brought telecommunications to what it is today, be principal players in
this bright, bold, clearly emerging information age.
We have the expertise and ability to deliver if the Regulatory Commission and the Federal
Government will permit us to do so.
We must be advocates of regulation reform: it is in our country's, our communities', and
our members' mutual best interest.
Sincerely,
Albert Franger
Albert J. Frunzen
President-Business Manager
AJF:co
cc: Peggy Retzel, Common Carrier Bureau
ITS, Inc.