Thomas Daschle: “I admire the majority leader a great deal, as he knows. We all know what he is trying to do. We all know that the…”

“I admire the majority leader a great deal, as he knows. We all know what he is trying to do. We all know that the President, for good reason, opposes the TEAM Act, especially in its current form. Why? Because it gives license to companies to set up rump organizations to negotiate with themselves. That is what this is all about. This is not talking to employees. As the Senator from Massachusetts has indicated, they can do that right now. What they cannot do is set up rump organizations to negotiate with themselves and claim some new victory here. That is what this is all about. So that is what I said earlier, if you will recall. I said if the distinguished majority leader is prepared to separate the issues, the TEAM Act and minimum wage, so we are not amending a bill that is going nowhere, we will take a look at that. But that is not what I understood to be the suggestion here. So, again, as I said, we want to be real here. If we can be real--if we can come up with a scenario that we know will really work--then we are prepared to negotiate in good faith and come to some resolution here. But to add this amendment to a bill that the distinguished leader knows is going nowhere is not a deal at all.”