Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this amendment divides the first reconciliation bill. All this amendment does is it takes welfare reform and separates it from Medicaid reform. It puts welfare reform in the first reconciliation bill. It leaves Medicaid reform in the second reconciliation bill so that we can have a straight vote on welfare reform. We should pass welfare reform in this Congress. We should and we can. It is not likely to be signed if it has a controversial Medicaid bill attached to it. So I call this the let-real-welfare- reform-become-law amendment. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. What happened to the vote on the other one?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, here we go again. The budget resolution goes about balancing the budget in all the wrong ways by placing education at the bottom of the Nation's priority list once again. I am pleased to cosponsor and support the Kerry amendment. The amendment puts education at the top of the national priority list by restoring funds for vital education and training programs over the next 6 years. The amendment eliminates the cuts in the budget resolution and provides the investments to education and training as proposed by President Clinton. You will hear a lot of talk from the other side that they provide increases in education. Make sure you look beyond the blue smoke and mirrors because it is simply not true. Just a few weeks ago we reversed deep education cuts by restoring $2.7 billion to the fiscal year 1996 education appropriations bill. However, the pending resolution does not include this restoration in the baseline, therefore we are right back where we started from. Unless we adopt this amendment not only there will be no real investments in education, but there will be cuts over even the inadequate fiscal year 1996 levels. And our Nation will suffer as a result. Mr. President, during the last year students, parents, teachers, school boards, and school administrators were treated to a roller coaster ride because of great uncertainties caused by the Federal budget process. Let's not repeat that mistake again this year. The American people are sick and tired of the partisan bickering and want us to get on with the business of governing. We started last year with proposals for deep cuts in student loans. The House planned to cut $18 billion, the resolution offered by the Budget Committee called for cuts of $14 billion. We finally adopted a bipartisan amendment in the Senate which reduced the cut to $4 billion. Students and their parents were not thrilled, but saw this as at least an improvement. But then the resolution went to conference and the cut was $10 billion. Students and their parents started to worry again. The Senate once again moderated the cuts and people rejoiced. The House did not and concern intensified. The final deal drastically cut the successful direct lending program and included cut of about $5 billion. That bill was rightfully vetoed. That was followed by the ups and downs of negotiations on the fiscal year 1996 appropriations bill. The Government was shutdown twice. The 7 months the Federal Government was directionless because of short-term continuing resolutions instead of annual appropriations. Parents worried that their children would not get the reading and math assistance they need because title I funding was cut by 17 percent. Teachers worried about whether or not they would have a job. School boards and administrators were unable to plan for the upcoming school year because they did not know what the budget would be for next year. In short, chaos reined. We should promise the American people that we will never do that again. Passing this amendment would be a good place to start. In addition to providing more sanity to the 1997 appropriations process, we will put out Nation on the right track for the future. We will make the investments that will enable the United States to remain competitive into the next century by making sure we have the healthiest, best educated and most skilled workers in the world. I urge adoption of the Kerry amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, last month I introduced the Commonsense Middle-Class Tax Relief Act which embodies the principles outlined in this sense-of-the-Senate resolution offered by the Senator from Minnesota. I enthusiastically support the pending amendment. Too many hard-working families in Iowa and across the country are worried about a lot of things--and of paramount concern is their ability to pay for college, for their children and for themselves. Families are struggling to pay the college tuition bill and student debt is soaring. Middle-income families need a break. The 1992 median income for families with children in Iowa was $35,100. Right now it costs $6,108 to pay tuition, fees, and room and board for a year at the University of Iowa. The cost is about the same at Iowa State. There is no doubt the average working family in Iowa is having great difficulty paying for 4 years of college for their children. But these families know that the key to a better future for their families is intricately linked to a good education, including college and vocational training. Therefore, they are doing whatever they can to send their kids to college. And for many, that means accumulating big debts to pay for those educations. Over the past decade and a half, college aid in the form of grants has decreased and has been replaced by an increased reliance on loans. The cost of attending the University of Northern Iowa is about $5,700. Over the past few years the average debt of students graduating from this very modestly priced state university has been climbing. For the 1990-91 school year, the average debt was $2,589 and rose to $4,395 for 1994-95. It is clear that many students are borrowing to pay for college. These students and their families need help. Today, middle-class Americans are working longer hours for smaller paychecks. This amendment would pave the way to provide a tax deduction for college tuition and interest on student loans--giving American families a raise in incomes, a raise in education and skills, and a raise in living standards. The Commonsense Middle-Class Tax Relief Act and this amendment are based on a fundamental premise: A higher education means higher income. This amendment would cut taxes on hard-working families trying to get ahead, raise incomes, and prepare Americans for the 21st century. It will mean higher incomes, higher education, and higher quality jobs for hard-working Americans. Mr. President, education is key to both the raising of incomes of average Americans and to increasing the competitiveness of America in an increasingly global economy. We should be able to agree on a bipartisan basis that this type of important middle-class tax relief is needed and will mean better opportunities and better incomes for millions of Americans. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this commonsense proposal.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. For the purpose of offering an amendment I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily laid aside.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send this amendment on behalf of myself, Mr. Biden, Mr. Bryan, and Mr. Dorgan. This is the first of two amendments which I will offer. I will try not to take too much of the Senate's time. I just want to explain them briefly, what they do. First, this amendment which I just sent to the desk, Mr. President, is very simple and very straightforward. It takes the first reconciliation bill, which is supposed to have both welfare and Medicaid together in it, and divides it. So what my amendment would do is, welfare reform and welfare would still be in the first reconciliation bill, but Medicaid would become a part of the second reconciliation bill, the one concerned with all of the other entitlement changes. Mr. President, I believe there is overwhelming support in this body and in this country for tough, commonsense welfare reform. The Senate passed such a bill by a vote of 87 to 12 last year. The President has repeatedly said he would sign such a plan, and even leaders in the other body said the bill should be passed. Unfortunately, the Senate-passed measure was changed in conference in ways that were unacceptable to the President and to many Senators. So it is time to get back on track. Our country's welfare system is broken. It is wasting tax dollars and it is wasting human lives. Our present welfare system is unfair, unfair to the taxpayers and unfair to the people on welfare. It is time to make welfare work for America. In my own State of Iowa, we have a commonsense welfare reform that is working and getting results. It was done, I might add, in a bipartisan, well-crafted manner. In the late 1980's, we had experiments around Iowa on the best ways of delivering welfare, getting people off of welfare, that was incorporated into a bill that passed the Iowa Legislature in 1993. So we have had it in existence now for 3 years. Quite frankly, in that short span of time that it has been in effect--not quite 3 years; a little over 2 years--taxpayers have saved money, about one-third of those on welfare are now working, and fewer families are on the welfare rolls. I just have some charts here to illustrate what has happened in Iowa with the Iowa welfare reform program. It came into existence in the last of September of 1993--so the first of October 1993. At that time, we had about 18 percent of the people on welfare working. As of March of this year, we had almost 33 percent working, almost a third of those on welfare now working. You can see the trend line has been up. If I am not mistaken, I believe Iowa now has the distinction of having a higher percentage of people on welfare working than any State in the Nation. I believe that is right. That is because of this very commonsense welfare reform proposal that we passed. So that is the number working, and the trend line is still going up. Here is the caseload that we have from September of 1993, when we had 36,404. We had a big bump up when we made the changes. Everyone knew that was going to happen. But since that time the trend has been constantly down. We now have 33,320. So the trend line has been down. So we are successfully getting people off of the welfare rolls and into self- sufficiency. The third chart shows exactly what we are talking about in terms of expenditures. The green line is the expenditures on welfare in Iowa for 1992 to 1993, the year prior to the new plan going into effect. You can see we spent a total of $13.6 million that month. This is the last year; this is from April of 1995 through April of 1996. As you can see, there was $12.5 million, down to a little over $11 million. Just in the 2 years it has been in existence, we have gone from $13.6 million down to $11.1 million. So we have fewer people on welfare. We have more people working. We are expending less money on welfare. So by any yardstick of measurement, the Iowa program is working. Again, I think that one of the key ingredients is that it puts common sense ahead of ideology. It is built on good ideas that work, and it is founded on the driving goal of achieving self-sufficiency, not just getting people into a job, but getting people to achieve self-sufficiency. I might add, it was done in a bipartisan manner. It passed the Iowa Legislature by a huge bipartisan vote, signed into law by the Governor. It is working. I believe this is the way we ought to approach welfare reform, in a nonideological, bipartisan fashion. But I think, again, the budget before us lumps welfare reform in with Medicaid reform. Quite frankly, Medicaid reform proposals are far more controversial. If they are added to welfare reform, it will be almost certainly what has been called a ``poison pill'' that would result in a Presidential veto. Mr. President, I want to make it clear, my amendment does not endorse the Medicaid cuts proposed in the pending measure. It simply shifts the sums assumed in the resolution to the second budget reconciliation bill which can be reached in a wide variety of ways or not reached at all. The reality is, there is little chance of enacting a bipartisan package on Medicaid at this present time. But there is a good chance of enacting a bipartisan bill on welfare reform. Why do I say that? Because we have already done it. We did it last fall by a vote of 87- 12. It had overwhelming bipartisan support. So let us not kill commonsense welfare reform. Let us not walk away from the common ground in favor of scoring political points. That I believe would be a tragic mistake. So this amendment says, let us put aside ideology, let us work together to give the American people what they want and what we can achieve, and that is genuine, balanced, and fair welfare reform. That is what our amendment is designed to do, to make sure that we address welfare reform separate and apart from Medicaid reform and divide those issues up in the two reconciliation bills that we will have in front of us. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Mr. Specter.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from Nebraska, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, for his kind words and insight into this amendment. I think, again, he hit the mark correctly, that if we are really interested in passing a bipartisan welfare reform bill this is the only way we are ever going to be able to do it. I hope we can get good support for this amendment on both sides of the aisle and get about the business of passing a good, strong, welfare reform bill this year in a bipartisan manner. Amendment No. 4012 Mr. President, my second amendment has to do with education and health funding. The budget resolution goes about balancing the budget in all the wrong ways by undoing the modest good that was done less than a month ago when the Congress finally passed an appropriations bill for fiscal year 1996 that the President could sign. The Senate voted 88 to 11 to approve that bipartisan compromise bill, about as close to a consensus as we ever get around here. It is incredible to me that we find ourselves debating a budget resolution that undoes that deal that we had just a month ago. I hear a lot of talk from the other side they provide increases in education. Make sure you look beyond the blue smoke and the mirrors because it simply is not true. As this chart shows, the resolution before the Senate provides about $36.3 billion for education and job training programs. That is about a $1.2 billion decrease from what CBO estimated it needed to freeze funding for those programs in fiscal year 1997. The resolution also provides for $21.6 billion, or $1.5 billion below a CBO freeze for health programs. Here are the figures. The 1996 omnibus continuing resolution that we passed, 88 Senators voted for it, contained $36.2 billion for education. CBO--not OMB, CBO--estimates that just to meet this requirement for next year would require $37.4 billion. The budget resolution before the Senate only provides for $36.3 billion, for an actual cut of $1.178 or almost $1.2 billion in education. The same is true in the health care on the omnibus continuing resolution that we passed by 88 votes. There is $23.2 billion. CBO says just to freeze that would require $23.2 billion. The budget resolution provides for $21.6 billion, for a $1.5 billion cut there. I am pleased to offer this amendment on behalf of Senator Specter who, because of other pending matters, could not be here today or else he would have offered the amendment. I am offering it on his behalf, but I am proud to be a cosponsor, along with a number of other Senators. This amendment would simply restore the $2.7 billion for education, job training, and health programs to the freeze levels, just to the freeze level. For example, the CBO freeze does not restore title I to its normal appropriations cycle which would require an additional $1.3 billion in fiscal year 1997 on top of the $1.2 billion. The offset is also simple. It cuts a little more than one-half of 1 percent across the board from all of defense and nondefense administrative expenses. This reduction would be taken only from administrative personnel services and contractual services. Mr. President, during the last year, students, parents, teachers, school boards, school administrators, were treated to a roller coaster ride because of great uncertainties caused by the Federal budget process. Let us not repeat that mistake again this year. The American people are sick and tired of the partisan bickering and want us to get on with the business of governing. We started last year with proposals for deep cuts in student loans. The House planned to cut $18 billion; the resolution offered by the Budget Committee called for cuts of $14 billion. We finally adopted a bipartisan amendment in the Senate which reduced the cut to $4 billion. Students and their parents were not thrilled but saw this at least as a significant improvement. Then the resolution went to conference and the cut was $10 billion. So, students and parents really started worrying again. The Senate once again moderated the cuts and people said, ``OK, this is good.'' The House did not, the concern intensified again. The final deal drastically cut the successful direct lending program including cuts of $5 billion. This bill was rightfully vetoed. That was followed by the ups and downs of negotiations on the fiscal year 1996 appropriations bill. The Government shut down twice. For 7 months, the Federal Government was directionless because of short-term continuing resolutions instead of annual appropriations. Parents worried that their children would not get the reading and math assistance they need because title I funding was cut by 7 percent. Teachers worried about whether or not they would have a job next year. School boards and administrators were unable to plan for the upcoming year because they did not know what their budget would be. In short, chaos reigned. We should promise the American people that we will never do that again. Passing this amendment would be a good place to start. I do not believe that this takes us fully where we need to go, but it is a start. As I said, we are going to need more money than just this simple freeze to meet the increasing needs that we have out there. Especially for title I programs in this country, we are going to need some additional money in fiscal year 1997. But both Senator Specter and I, and others, felt that at least with the budget resolution we ought not to be starting in the hole, that we ought to, at least with this budget resolution, start where the freeze was from last year. I can only say that this Senator will support efforts by others to get it above the freeze from last year because I think the need is there for education and job training money. But if we start from a position of where we are $1.2 billion already in the hole in education and job training, or $1.5 billion in the hole on health, then it is going to make it that much harder to get above a freeze later on. So, again, this amendment is designed to put us in the same position as we were just a month ago, when 88 Senators voted to approve the Specter amendment and send this bill on, which increased the funding up to this level, as I said, in the fiscal 1996 omnibus continuing resolution. This would provide for us to get to the freeze level. Beyond that, I am hopeful that we will be able to add more money for education and job training, especially in the area of title I. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 4011 (Purpose: To provide that the first reconciliation bill not include Medicaid reform, focusing mainly on Welfare reform by shifting Medicaid changes from the first to the second reconciliation bill)

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have an amendment I send to the desk.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. I yield such time as the Senator desires. Amendment No. 4011

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, President Clinton recently issued an executive order restricting welfare benefits to teenage parents. I commend the President for taking this action to change welfare as we know it. His work demonstrates his strong commitment to welfare reform. We in Congress should build on his action by quickly passing a tough bipartisan welfare reform plan. There is no doubt about the dramatic increase in births to unmarried teens. It is clear that we must take aggressive and immediate action to address this serious problem. The Clinton administration would change welfare policy to keep teen parents in school, require teen parents to sign personal responsibility contracts and require minor mothers to live at home. While this executive order is not the comprehensive overhaul of the welfare system that I feel is needed, it addresses a critical concern--the increase of births to unmarried teenagers. It is a good place to start. Just last month, the Iowa welfare reform waiver was modified to institute similar changes. In the future, minor parents in Iowa will be required to stay in school and earn a high school diploma or GED and to live with their parents or another responsible adult. These changes will help build a welfare system that requires responsibility, strengthens families, and promotes independence by making families self-sufficient. Without at least a high school education, welfare parents are unable to get decent jobs that will make the family self-sufficient. Therefore, too many young families are consigned to years of welfare dependency because the parents do not possess the basic skills necessary to get and keep a job. By requiring minor parents to stay in school to earn a diploma or GED, we begin to break this devastating cycle of dependency. Further, too many minor parents go out and establish separate households when a child is born. Unfortunately many of these young parents are still children themselves and do not possess the skills to properly raise their children. By requiring these minors to remain with their own parents or live with another responsible adult, the young family will be in a more secure environment which will produce a stable family rather than a welfare dependent family for years to come. Since January 1994, all Iowa welfare recipients, not just teen parents, have been required to sign family investment agreements which outline the steps the family will take to move off of welfare and a date at which time welfare benefits would end. The Clinton personal responsibility contract requirement is modeled on the family investment agreement which is working very well in Iowa. Mr. President, as I have discussed many times before, Iowa instituted a statewide reform of the welfare system in October 1993. Since then, more families are working and earning income, the number of families on welfare has been declining and the amount of money spent on cash grant is down. In short, welfare reform is working in Iowa. In 1993 and 1995, Senator Bond and I introduced a common sense bipartisan reform plan based on the good work being done in Iowa and in Missouri on reforming welfare. Mr. President, in February, the National Governors Association announced a bipartisan agreement on welfare reform. At that time, I viewed the proposal as the vehicle to jump-start the congressional debate on welfare reform and restore bipartisanship to the process. This does not seem to be happening and I am very frustrated by that reality. There is no doubt that the current welfare system is badly broken and in desperate need of repair. Further, there is no question that there is strong, bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate for welfare reform legislation. I still hold out hope that we can and will enact bipartisan welfare reform legislation during the remaining days of the 104th Congress. The current dependency inducing welfare system must be replaced with one that promotes independence and self-sufficiency. One that sends the clear message to families on welfare that if you can work, you must work. One that requires every family to take responsibility, from day one on welfare, to begin the journey off of welfare and into self- sufficient employment. There is overwhelming support in the Senate for this kind of commonsense welfare reform. This support was demonstrated last fall when 87 Senators voted for a bipartisan bill to reform welfare. Mr. President, the American people desperately want us to address the major problems facing our country and stop the political game playing. We should take the Senate passed plan backup, amend it to adhere to some of the key recommendations of the National Governors Association such as increased funding for child care, and pass it. We clearly have an overwhelming bipartisan majority to do that. That's the clearest way to get comprehensive welfare reform signed into law this year. Leaders in the House of Representatives have spoken in favor of taking up the Senate bill. The President has said he could support the Senate bill and has said good things about the NGA plan. So it is very clear that there is a path available to us to enact welfare reform. We should take it, and quickly. Mr. President, I am very concerned, however, that some seem to want to take a different course--one that is clearly destined to result in more gridlock, political fingerpointing and no welfare reform. The budget resolution passed out of the Budget Committee ties welfare reform to a poison pill--elimination of guarantees for elderly people in nursing homes to continued coverage of their care through Medicaid. By block granting and severely cutting Medicaid, health care for pregnant women and children would also be placed on the chopping block. And the President has rightly said that this is wrong and would force him to veto a bill that contained it. In an effort to clear the path for enactment of welfare reform, I will be offering an amendment to the budget resolution that would take out the poison pill. My amendment will require consideration of welfare reform separate from ending guaranteed coverage for health care to millions of elderly and other Americans. This is the only hope for welfare reform this year. So I hope that all of my colleagues who share my support for comprehensive welfare reform will join me in support of this amendment. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues on this and other important issues during the remainder of this session and ask that a summary of the executive order be printed in the Record. The summary follows: Executive Action on Welfare Reform Today, President Clinton announced four measures to make responsibility the law of the land, by ensuring that teen mothers on welfare stay in school and live at home. These four executive actions include requiring all States to submit plans for requiring teen mothers to stay in school and prepare for employment; cutting through redtape to allow States to pay cash bonuses to teen mothers who finish high school; requiring all States to have teen mothers who have dropped out of school return to school and sign personal responsibility plans; and challenging all States to require minor mothers to live with a responsible adult. With these actions, we're focusing on one of the key components of welfare reform: parental responsibility. And we're putting young mothers on the right path, toward employment and self- sufficiency. requiring teen mothers to stay in school Currently, 26 States require teen parents to stay in school to receive assistance, 23 under waivers approved by the Clinton administration. Ohio, for example, has a model program called LEAP: Learning, Earning, and Parenting. LEAP reduces checks of teen mothers when they don't go to school, and pays them a bonus when they do. Other States are trying similar approaches with our support. For example, Delaware reduces benefits for truancy, and pays teen mothers a $50 bonus when they graduate from high school. Colorado pays bonuses when teen mothers graduate from high school or receive a GED. These States are putting teen mothers on the right path, toward employment and self-sufficiency--and all 50 States around the country should follow their lead. That's why the President is directing all States to submit plans to require school attendance among teens who receive welfare. And to be sure they do, the Department of Health and Human Services will do annual surveys of their success. allowing states to reward teen mothers who complete high school Today, President Clinton is also cutting through redtape to allow States to reward teen mothers who stay in school and complete high school, in addition to sanctioning those who don't. States would be able to give teen mothers cash bonuses for strong school attendance, graduating from high school, or GED receipt--without requesting a waiver. requiring teen mothers to sign personal responsibility plans Today, the Clinton administration is requiring all 50 States to ensure that teen mothers on welfare who have dropped out of school both return to school and sign personal responsibility plans. These actions will help teen mothers plan for their futures and turn their lives around. requiring minor mothers to live at home Under current law, States have the option to require minor mothers to live at home--but only 21 States have such requirements, 11 initiated under waivers granted by the Clinton administration and 10 adopted under the State option. Today, the Clinton administration is challenging all 50 States to put minor mothers on the right track by requiring them to live at home or with a responsible adult in order to receive assistance. ending welfare as we know it The President's goals for welfare reform are clear: requiring work, promoting responsibility, and protecting children. With this new initiative, President Clinton underscores his commitment to helping welfare recipients become--and stay--self-sufficient. President Clinton continues to call for a national welfare reform bill that gets these priorities right. Under welfare reform waivers, we've already freed 37 States from redtape to pursue innovative welfare reforms--more than under any previous administration. State welfare demonstrations approved by the Clinton administration now cover 75 percent of all welfare recipients nationwide.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I would say to my friend, they want input that is genuine input from the employees, from employee organizations that are not structured by management--as I just pointed out, this was structured by management. The representatives were selected from volunteers by management, not the employees. Management selected them. I just pointed out that management selected the confidential secretary of the president.

Mr. HARKIN. But you see, in order for a team to work, there must be open discourse, there must be a consideration, and there must be not just the semblance of, but the genuine foundation of cooperation and equal participation. See, I think what my friend from Missouri still believes is that management ought to be able to tell workers what to do all the time just because they own the plant. They ought to be able to tell a worker exactly what to do, when to do it and everything else, and if the worker does not like it, out the door. I do not happen to believe that, you see. I am sorry we have a philosophical difference. I happen to believe that workers, that labor should take equal positions with capital. They both ought to be respected.

Mr. HARKIN. In all of the organizations that I have seen which are organized under 8(a)(2), where you have employer representatives and you have management and where they met in that spirit of mutual respect, I can tell you I have not seen one case, nor do I know of one, where there has been that kind of a gridlock and deadlock. I think there is an assumption by the Senator from Missouri that labor is always--or at least sometimes--always going to act in a way that is going to be detrimental to the management. Workers do not want to do that. They want the company to function correctly. What they want is their rights protected. They want their rights protected. No one wants to return to slavery in this country where someone just tells a human being, ``Look, you do as I say, or else, out the door.'' We have advanced beyond that. We do not want to go back to the old days where labor had no rights whatsoever.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator. I think we ought to have more like this. I would be glad to discuss it even further because I think we start to get to the real differences here and the views of what we are trying to do here in this bill. Again, I guess the Senator and I just have a gentlemen's disagreement on the role of labor and management in our society. Again, I have seen so many times in our country where management is open, respectful, where they really encourage employees to get together, to organize and to bargain with them in good faith. That is the most productive unit you have in America. It is the cases where an employer comes in and says, ``Look, I know what is best. I will set up the structure. You can give me your advice if you want, but if I do not like it I will throw it out the door,'' and there is not the sense that workers really have a legitimate role to play in the decisions that affect their very jobs, that affect the future of that plant. When that happens, then I think productivity falls. Again, I point out to my friend from Missouri, we have had section 882 all these years. We have labor-management councils. They operate in my State. Building trades are working, I know in my Quad Cities area, the Davenport area and in Des Moines, where building trades are working with contractors. We call these labor-management councils. They work wonders. It is done in a sense where you have a level playing field. I think what my friend from Missouri basically is saying, ``Look, management in the end ought to control everything.'' I am saying that in a team if you have this real teamwork, the employees have to know that they are equal partners in making the productivity force in America move forward. That is why, I repeat, I get back to the EFCO situation here, we hear about EFCO, but when you go through the whole history of EFCO you find this is a classic case of why section 882 is necessary. I ended on September 1992 when the management committee determined whether or not to adopt the committee's recommendations. Now we go to December 1992, on December 28, EFCO's president created the employee suggestion screening committee. He did it by memorandum to the six employees he appointed to the committee. That is not bad. Listen to that: EFCO's president created the employee suggestion screening committee. He did it by memorandum to the six employees he appointed to the committee. How much freedom and how much do you think that these six employees, handpicked by the president, is going to take a position contrary to the president's position? Not only that, the president defined the committee's purpose as reviewing and referring to management with recommendations, employee suggestions. EFCO issued a general announcement of the committee's formation and solicited suggestions from all employees on January 14, 1993. EFCO's senior vice president and its CFO were assigned to attend the meetings. Again, you have a meeting, you have the senior vice president, the chief financial officer sitting there, listening to everybody. Again, that heavy hand over everyone. The CFO set forth the agenda at the first committee meeting. Not a spirit of, ``OK, representatives of labor, what would you like our agenda to be?'' No, management saying, ``Here is the agenda, here is what we are going to discuss.'' The elected chairman of this committee--mind you, this is a committee of six employees handpicked by the president--the elected chairman of the committee was promoted to a management position in the summer and yet continued to chair the meetings. The committee had no authority to decide which suggestions would be adopted. None. They could pass them on, but they had no authority to decide. Again, back to my friend from Missouri, he said, yes; we should give management suggestions. We should let employees suggest things. If management does not want to do them, to heck with them. Well, I tend to think if you will have this type of arrangement you should have employees and management together in a teamwork, and if they are equal, and if they have equal status, then if they make suggestions that ought to be adopted by that committee, representing both management and labor--I do not know what the exact effects are if they do not reach a agreement. I assume if they do not reach agreement it would not be adopted. If there is gridlock you do not adopt. If they agree, it ought to be adopted, not reviewed further, and adopted by management. Finally, January 1993, January 14, 1993, EFCO announced that it was establishing an employer policy review committee, whose purpose was to gather comments and ideas from the employees regarding company policies, and to make policy recommendations to the management committee. The human resources manager--this is part of management-- selected the committee members. Again, the management selected the committee members. The management appointed the cochairman. The manager also attended committee meetings. One of the members of the employee's group was a supervisor, and a cochairman was shortly promoted to a supervisory position. EFCO's president attended the first meeting on February 9, 1993. Here is what he did. He laid out the ground rule. He dictated the first policy to be considered. He issued a deadline for the presentation of a recommendation to the management committee. It does not sound quite like equal representation of management and employees. It is sort of like the management saying, ``OK, again, here is the policy to be considered, here are the ground rules, here is the deadline for you to submit suggestions to the management committee,'' and again, those suggestions might be accepted or they might not be accepted. The appointed cochairman met with the management committee to discuss recommended policies and the management committee determined which recommendations would be adopted. Again, EFCO set up the elaborate sham structure, management laid out the ground rules, management picked many of the people to be on it, they dictated the policies and they said, OK, if you come up with a suggestion or recommendation, it goes to the management committee, and that management committee decides what will be adopted. Again, I guess we get back to my friend from Missouri. His philosophy is if you are management, your word is God and you don't need employee input. I am sorry, I disagree with that. I disagree with that because I think that labor and management ought to both be equally represented in these kinds of situations. In short, EFCO unilaterally decided upon and formulated the program of employee committees. It created committees and determined their size, functions and procedures. It appointed their members and included supervisors among their membership. It set the scope of each committee's concerns, goals, and limitations. It established the committee's agendas. It directed the committees to solicit opinions, ideas, and suggestions from other employees. The committees met on company property, during working hours. High management officials attended these meetings. Committee members were paid for the time spent on committee work and EFCO provided any necessary materials or supplies. Cumulatively, when you look at this, the committee dealt with EFCO as company-created and company-directed representatives on every conceivable area of employees' wages, hours and working conditions. The very existence of those committees was and is dependent upon EFCO's unfettered discretion. Moreover, EFCO endowed the committees with absolutely no actual power. The company reserved to itself the exclusive authority to decide which recommended suggestions, policies, safety rules, or employee benefits would be adopted. The committees were not even authorized to administrator or enforce those of the recommended policies or rules actually implemented by management. Again, I think when you look at the whole case, when you do not just read the prosecution side, when you read both the prosecution side and you read the defense side as in any case, perhaps we get to the truth. The truth is that EFCO wanted to set up a structure whereby, yes, employees could give suggestions, only under the steady gaze and the heavy hand of management, where those representatives would be picked by management, where the structures and guidelines would be established by management, and where in the end, where any suggestion, any advice, would then go to a management committee to be finally acted upon, adopted or reject. Again, a clear example of why we need section 882. Well, I guess it really boils down to, if you believe that workers are intelligent, if you believe that workers have the best interests of their country at heart, if you believe that workers have the best interests of their employer and their factories and their plants and places of work at heart, if you believe that, then you ought to permit workers to sit at the table with management. That is what section 8(a)(2) does; it permits workers to sit at the table. This so-called TEAM Act says, ``Well, you have been at the table all these years under section 8(a)(2).'' You know, we have had a pretty good run of it since the Depression. We are the most productive nation on Earth today, as we have been for the last 50 years. Oh, we always hear about these other countries, but the fact is, American productivity, last year, was higher than any other country in the world--output per hours worked. Oh, yes, for the last 50 years we have been the most productive nation on Earth. We built the freest, strongest nation the world has ever seen. We have built great universities and colleges. We have the best medical research anywhere in the world. We have the freest society. We have the greatest opportunity for the greatest number of people. And guess what? We did it under the Wagner Act. We did it with section 8(a)(2), and we did it with labor sitting at the table. Now we hear voices--my friend from Missouri among them--who say labor no longer needs to be at the table. Management is at the table; labor is sitting on a lower chair. They are down a little bit lower. They are sort of sitting on the floor. If the management would deign to give them some crumbs off the table, that is fine. If management does not, well, that is fine, also, because if the workers do not like it, they can get off the floor and walk out the door. Well, that is what has been happening, and that is what is behind this so-called TEAM Act. I do not ascribe any bad motives to anyone. My friend from Missouri is an honorable gentlemen. But I just believe that this policy is totally misdirected. I think it flies in the face of what we in America have done over the last 50 years and what we are still accomplishing in becoming the most productive nation on Earth. Mr. President, there is a line from one of my favorite plays that goes something like this: Life is like cricket. We play by the rules, but the secret, which few people know, that keeps men of class far apart from the fools, is to make up the rules as you go. Well, I suppose if you want to keep management up and labor down, you make up new rules as you go along. That is what this is. We are making up new rules--rules that would take away a legitimate right of labor to be heard and to sit at the table. No, I am sorry, Mr. President, this is not a team act. This is not a team act at all. This breaks down the team. This is a class act, making one class of management and owners at a higher level than the laborers. So, Mr. President, this is not just a little piece of legislation. I think the majority leader referred to it as a ``minor'' piece of legislation, and no one should bother about it. It is not a minor piece of legislation. It is a dagger right at the heart of what has made this country so productive over the last 50 years. It is a dagger right at the heart of our workers in this country, and we should not let it pass this floor. We ought to reaffirm, once again, our commitment to a level playing field and, as John L. Lewis once said, make sure labor has a seat at the table, not on the floor, where labor would partake of the same meal as management and not just get the crumbs from the table. This bill would undo all that we have done in our society to give our working people a decent voice, to give them the recognition, which is due any human being, that their labor is worth something, that they themselves are human beings, and that labor is not just another unit of production to be written off and thrown out the back door; but that our working people are more than just numbers on a piece of paper, or machines on a shop floor, and that they deserve, and ought to have, by right and by law, all of the protections that the Wagner Act and section 8(a)(2) provides them. This Senate and this Congress would do a disservice to our country were we to let this TEAM Act pass. I yield the floor. Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. I would be glad to.

Mr. HARKIN. No, management always makes the ultimate decision. However, it is this Senator's position that when we are talking about teamwork, in these kinds of structures, there ought to be a level playing field so that the employees can pick their own representatives where there is not the heavy hand and the ever present authority of management there guiding, directing, and selecting, and then have that discussion proceed, have the committees, management, labor committees jointly reach their agreements, and then, yes, management can sign off on it. That was not the structure in this case.

Mr. HARKIN. If they work on the management side. But let the workers decide who they want to represent them, not management. That is my point.

Mr. HARKIN. We ought to have more discussions like this.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. HARKIN. I was trying to pay attention to the Senator. Will the Senator repeat again how many people there are working in the United States that have these kind of arrangements? I thought I heard 30,000. Will the Senator please clarify that for me so I have an understanding of that figure? Was it 30,000 different businesses? Or 30,000 people? I am sorry, I just did not hear it and I apologize.