Lateefah Simon: “let me talk about the other issue that is before us and that is striker replacement. In every Western industrialized…”

“let me talk about the other issue that is before us and that is striker replacement. In every Western industrialized nation with four exceptions permanent striker replacement is illegal. The exceptions are Great Britain, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States. We have by tradition not done that. The Presiding Officer used to be in business in North Carolina. I used to be in business in Illinois. And we operate within certain traditions in addition to the law, and those traditions we have generally followed. We are starting to move away from those traditions and I think that is not a healthy thing. One of the reasons that is happening is because such a small percentage of our work force is organized. When you exclude Government employees, only 11.8 percent of working men and women in the United States belong to unions. That is far lower than Canada, which is around 35 percent; Western Europe 40 to 90 percent; Japan somewhat similar. George Shultz, who was both Secretary of State and Secretary of Labor under Republican administrations, made a speech not too long ago in which he said we have an unhealthy amount of our working force that belongs to unions, because we are not getting some of the factors there that we ought to have. One of the things that is happening as a result of that is our wages are not going up. When wages do not go up then corporations and employers do not buy labor-saving devices, so we become less productive per man-hour.”