On the recordFebruary 7, 2022
I thank the chairman for yielding. I salute our colleague, Congresswoman Bustos, for introducing what will certainly be the most important piece of pro-labor legislation to pass out of the 117th Congress. Our Constitution guarantees our people the right to a jury trial, but forced arbitration in the workplace brutally cheats victims of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace out of their right to a trial before a jury of their peers. And by stripping women of this right, forced arbitration is creating corporate cultures of pervasive and severe sexual harassment all across the country, like the one Eliza Dushku faced in Hollywood where she got fired for objecting to constant sexually degrading and humiliating treatment in the workplace. We heard testimony from women sexually harassed and raped by repeat offenders who have been made proud and contemptuous because their conduct is consistently buried and hidden in regimes of coerced, closed-door arbitration. We have created monsters out of repeat- offender sexual harassers across the country. Let's throw the doors open and let's let the sun shine in. Let's restore the full constitutional rights of women in the workplace. Let's pass this legislation.
