Political Quotes

“Although I have to admit the free enterprise system is great, what concerns me about this bill is, it removes the free enterprise system from the employees. The Fairness for Small Business Employees Act of 1998 more appropriately should be called the antiworker freedom bill of 1998. This Republican bill allows businesses to fire or refuse to hire employees based on their union affiliation. What concerns me is that this will now be used, if I went and applied right now for a job in a printing company because maybe I had at one time been a union member and maybe still am, I could not be hired based on that purpose, Mr. Speaker. And that is what this bill is allowing us to do. I call the sponsors' attention to page 4 of the bill, where it says 'a bona fide employee applicant.' That language in there will allow that person making that hiring to say, you are not a bona fide employee just because you happen to maybe have been a union member or maybe a current union member, even if you are not an organizer. Furthermore, it would allow employers to discriminate against people who might try to organize in the workplace by simply refusing to hire them.”