Tom Harkin: “I, along with 15 of my colleagues are introducing a bill today that addresses an issue we haven't talked enough about in…”

“I, along with 15 of my colleagues are introducing a bill today that addresses an issue we haven't talked enough about in the Senate in recent years--but it's a critically important issue that we cannot continue to ignore. I'm talking about workers' rights--specifically the erosion of a worker's fundamental right to strike, to protect that right. Today, we are introducing the Workplace Fairness Act. This may sound familiar to many of my colleagues here in the Senate. It was a bill my good friend and former colleague Senator Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio introduced in the 102nd and 103rd congress. The Workplace Fairness Act would amend the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act by prohibiting employers from hiring permanent replacement workers during a strike. It would also make it an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to allow a striking worker who has made an unconditional offer to return to go back to work. Why do we need this legislation? Because right now, a right to strike is a right to be permanently replaced--to lose your job. Every cut-rate, cutthroat employer knows they can break a union if they are willing to play hardball and ruin the lives of the people who have made their company what it is. In my own state of Iowa--Titan Tire Company out of Des Moines, is trying to drive out the union workers with permanent replacements--the union has been on strike for three years now.”