Bill Bennett: “The headline coming from another circumstance but driving to the heart of this issue said this: ``Why are the liberals…”

“The headline coming from another circumstance but driving to the heart of this issue said this: ``Why are the liberals afraid of democracy?'' This had to do with another circumstance where liberals were complaining about people voting on an issue and saying that the Government should dictate it. Why, said the speaker at this particular symposium, himself a liberal, ``are the liberals afraid of democracy? Are they afraid they would lose? Why are the unions afraid of the TEAM Act? Are they afraid that workers, speaking for themselves, exercising democratic rights, will in fact end up in a circumstance that might be good for those workers? Do they not trust the workers?'' Here are the kinds of things that are illegal now, without the passage of the TEAM Act, in terms of discussions between workers and businesses. They cannot discuss an extension of employees' lunch breaks by 15 minutes. That is illegal. They have to have the union discuss that in their behalf. They cannot discuss the issue of decreasing rest breaks from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. You would think they could get together, exercise their democratic rights, rights of free speech, to talk about that? Oh, no. Under the present law that is illegal. The union has to be the one to do that. How about sitting down with management and the workers to discuss tornado warning procedures? Oh, no, we cannot trust the workers to have that kind of discussion. They may give away the store.…”