Burgess Owens: “there is a move afoot to pass labor legislation in this half of the 104th Congress through a kind of guerrilla warfare…”

“there is a move afoot to pass labor legislation in this half of the 104th Congress through a kind of guerrilla warfare process, antilabor legislation, I should say antiunion labor legislation, antiworker legislation. We had a very interesting development take place as the Republican majority assumed control of the 104th Congress. We had what might be called a sneak attack on American workers. I say it is a sneak attack because there was a Contract With America which laid out in great detail what the Republican majority would do once they took control, and it spelled out the issues, and that is the basis on which they went to the American people and were able to win the majority of that small number of people who came out to vote. They won a majority of the 39 percent of the people who came out to vote, and they had a clear bill of particulars, a clear agenda, and it was felt that whether you agreed with that agenda or not, it would be that agenda that the 104th Congress would operate on. It is to their credit that they have moved forward on their Contract With America. But what has been surprising, what has been shocking, is the fact that there were items that were not in the agenda that have been pursued with great hostility, with great vengeance. The attack on the American workers and the working families of America was unexpected, totally. It was not expected that the Republican majority would attempt to wipe out the Davis-Bacon Act.”