Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. On whose time?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I think we have 7 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Here are individual companies that had been salted. This is their reaction to it. This letter comes from Coast Electric Company in Morgan Hill, California. It says: My company was ``salted'' by a member of the IBEW, a Mr. Pat Mangano, for the purposes of organizing. The work completed was of top quality and we in fact have maintained a friendship. Fortunately I had given thought to the idea of becoming a signatory contractor prior to this event due to the inability of my company to hire qualified people at any wage level. The salting activity convinced me that the decision to become signatory was in fact the right one. The contracting business is a complicated one even in the best of times and to be relieved of any problems is of great benefit. Having a reliable and qualified workforce at one s finger tips goes a long way to relieve some of the problems in a most stressful business. Thank God I am a union Contractor. From Central Sierra Electric Co., Inc.: Here is my opinion concerning the benefits and drawbacks to being a union shop. As you know, Central Sierra Electric Co, Inc. has been in business for fourteen years and has been signatory with IBEW for the past two years. Listed below are what I consider to be among the Union's strengths. To date we have found no drawbacks. Extremely helpful in getting qualified manpower. Notified us of numerous jobs out to bid. Given our name to developers and manufacturers looking for qualified contractors. Assistance in getting jobs when competing against non-union shops. From TL Electric, Inc., 2296 Mora Drive, Mountain View, CA: I was formerly a non-union firm who was just recently organized by the use of union salts from a couple of I.B.E.W. locals here in Northern Carolina. After these employees made it known to me that they were affiliated with the union, it became apparent to me that the skill and ability that they had, along with their understanding of their rights as employees could only help me become a better contractor. You see the fact is, Mr. President, when unions do use the salting technique, they send their best people into these companies. Opponents claim that they do not, and that they send people in there who are disruptive and harassing in order to break up the shops. In fact, they send their better people in to be an example in order to convince people to become union members. If they cannot win the respect of their co-workers, they will not be able to convince them to join the union. I will go on with some of these others when I conclude this evening. The principle of basic fairness was reaffirmed in the Town & Country case in 1992, decided by a National Labor Relations Board composed of members appointed by President Reagan and President Bush. In that case, the NLRB emphatically rejected the employer's claim that paid union organizers are not ``employees'' under the labor laws, and that they are incapable of possessing the requisite loyalty to the employer. Instead, the Board ruled, ``the statute is founded on the belief that an employee may legitimately give allegiance to both a union and an employer. To the extent that may appear to give rise to a conflict, it is a conflict that was resolved by Congress long since in favor of the right of employees to organize.'' The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the NLRB's decision. The Court described the issue before as follows: ``Can a worker be a company's `employee,' within the terms of the National Labor Relations Act . . . if, at the same time, a union pays that worker to help organize the company?'' In answer to that question, the Court held: ``We agree with the National Labor Relations Board that the answer is `yes.' '' The Court noted that the law protects employees' right to engage in union activities during nonworking time in nonworking areas. We understand that, Mr. President. They are only entitled to try to encourage people to involve themselves in union activities in nonworking time in nonworking areas. Otherwise, they can be disciplined. So we are talking about nonworking time in nonworking areas. That is key, Mr. President. The decision explained that ``this is true even if a company perceives these protected activities as disloyal. After all, the employer has no legal right to require that, as a part of his or her service to the company, a worker refrain from engaging in protected activity.'' Mr. President, the bill before the Senate destroys this protection. It lets employers force workers to renounce their right to engage in legitimate, lawful activities. Businesses can discharge employees who attempt to organize their coworkers to join a union, or protest dangerous working conditions, unfair pay practices, or race or sex discrimination. This legislation takes a giant step backward. It legitimizes conduct that our society has long condemned. It is hard to believe the Republican leadership is giving this misguided, antiworker bill such high priority as we near the end of this Congress. Many of us have been trying to get consideration of the Patient's Bill of Rights so we can debate that issue before we recess. And, no, the Republican leadership says, no to patient protections that are of central concern to more than 160 million Americans who are in various health maintenance organizations and managed care plans. But what do we have on the floor of the U.S. Senate? The salting legislation. We could ask how many Members of this body on either side have read through this legislation and understood it. It was scheduled at the close of business last Thursday for a cloture vote this evening. We could have debated patients' protection Friday, or if necessary, Saturday, or all day today. I bet you would have two-thirds of the Members of the U.S. Senate here instead of two Members. If we were dealing with the people's business, two-thirds of the Members would be here because they know the concern that families have about the abuses that are taking place. In too many instances in our Nation, it is insurance company accountants and agents making decisions on health care that ought to be made by doctors. Why aren't we debating that instead of an antiworker piece of legislation? The silence from the Republican leadership is amazing. ``Oh, no,'' they say, ``you can only have three amendments. You either have to have your bill or our bill or two other possible amendments because we don't want to take up the time.'' Here it is, two Members of the Senate are on the floor, and we are moving off this bill to consider the Interior Appropriations bill later in the afternoon, and they will be hard- pressed to get another couple of Senators on various amendments on that. How much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Iowa.

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, last night my Republican colleagues filed cloture on the so-called Truth in Employment Act. Supporters of this deceptively-titled bill claim that it is designed to bar a union organizing technique known as ``salting.'' Under that technique, union supporters seek a job at a non-union shop with the intention of persuading co-workers to join the union. I oppose this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to oppose cloture. I believe that salting, like other types of organizing activity, should be protected by the labor laws. Under the bill, employers could make employment decisions based on their subjective view of an employee's motivation. If an employer believed that a person was likely to try to organize a union, the employer would be free not to hire that person. If an employer unilaterally determined that an employee's interest in organizing co- workers would interfere with her ability to do the job, the employer could refuse to hire her. If an employer rightly or wrongly decided that an employee might work together with colleagues to change conditions on the job, the employer could discharge or discipline the employee. Many may remember the movie ``Norma Rae,'' starring Sally Field. In that film, Norma Rae decided she had had enough of the abusive practices in her factory, so she worked with a labor union to organize her co-workers so they could stand up to these abuses together. But under this bill, Norma Rae could be fired. This bill would make mind-reading a protected right under the National Labor Relations Act. It would let employers deny work to employees based on a perception that they might try to organize a union. That perception is most likely to come from the employee's membership in a union. In effect, this bill would institutionalize the blacklist. That is unacceptable. Let us be clear what types of activity are protected under the labor laws, and what kinds of conduct would be left open for employer retaliation under this bill. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects employees' rights to organize, bargain collectively, and engage in other concerted activities for mutual aid or protection. If this bill became law, an employer could refuse to hire an employee based on a fear that she might band together with co-workers to push for an on-the-job child care center. The employer could claim that this activity was undertaken in furtherance of an organization other than the employer, be it a union or a women's rights organization. Therefore, the workers' conduct would not be protected, and the employer could discriminate or discharge at will. Under this bill, a firm could fire African-American workers who together sought Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday. Once again, the employer could argue that the workers were acting in furtherance of a civil rights group's goals, and therefore were not protected by the National Labor Relations Act. Under this bill, a company could deny jobs to employees it believed might try to persuade others to support a political campaign, or get involved in a community group, or contribute to a church or synagogue. And, a firm could refuse to hire workers because they might join a union, or persuade others to do so. Most of us would agree that discrimination on the basis of race, or religion, or gender, or political belief--and many of us would also put sexual orientation on that list--is unacceptable in this society. The right to self-expression on these important issues flows from the First Amendment, and has been protected by decades-old federal laws. The National Labor Relations Act places an employee's right to organize and bargain collectively on an equal footing with these other rights, and so it should. This bill would effectively repeal that right. It leaves employees in an intolerable position. In 1995, the National Labor Relations Board ordered nearly 7,500 workers reinstated. Those workers had been fired unlawfully for union activity. Over 26,000 workers discharged for unionizing were awarded back pay. On average, workers waited four years from the date of the unlawful discharge before being awarded any relief. And, the Dunlop Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations found in 1994 that union supporters were unlawfully fired in one out of every four union election campaigns. These figures demonstrate that workers who become active supporters of a union after they are hired run a substantial risk of being fired. Under this bill, if the employer thinks an employee might become active in a union, that worker never gets the job in the first place. This is not progress. Instead, it takes us back to the days when employees could be required to sign ``yellow dog contracts,'' promising never to join the union, in order to be hired. The Supreme Court has emphatically rejected this approach. In 1995, the Court unanimously ruled that union supporters are employees protected by the National Labor Relations Act when they apply for a job. In the Town & Country decision, the Court dismissed the employer's claim that union organizers are inherently untrustworthy because they owe their primary loyalty to the union. But that is precisely the premise underlying this bill. Current law gives employers many ways to advance their legitimate interests in an efficient and productive workforce--without undermining employees' rights to engage in concerted activity. For example, an employer can establish a policy barring its employees from all outside employment. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held just a few months ago that such a policy can be applied against union organizers, so long as it is also applied neutrally to all other types of employment. Workers who neglect their job duties in order to organize other workers can be disciplined or discharged. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that it is lawful for an employer to fire employees who fail to carry out their duties because they are trying to organize. Employers can lawfully discipline employees who fail to do the job they were hired to do, or disrupt the employer's operations, or engage in unlawful conduct. Employers can file charges with the National Labor Relations Board, or even the police, if the conduct is criminal. In short, employers have many tools available today to address the concerns that supposedly motivate this bill. Finally, I note that many of this legislation's proponents are also strong supporters of the so-called TEAM Act. TEAM Act supporters claim that bill is necessary in order to promote employee participation in the workplace. The present bill would permit employers to refuse to hire workers who band together in order to participate in the workplace. It is ironic that supporters claim to favor employee participation in the one context, but seek to squelch it in the other. The common thread appears to be employer domination. Participation is seen as desirable only if employers can control the ``team,'' and worker-controlled groups such as unions can be prohibited. This legislation poses a significant threat to employee rights that have been fundamental to our industrial democracy for over 60 years. Because the bill is dangerous as well as unnecessary, I must oppose it. I yield the floor. Mr. BREAUX addressed the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments, now that we have the statistics behind us and we have dealt with the economic issues. If there are those who have differing economic indicators, we welcome them. Present those so we will have a chance to debate. But we have not heard from them as we have been making this case in the past weeks and past months, even the past year, about the importance of this increase. We haven't heard those arguments made. Let me indicate to this body who we are really talking about, because I think it is important that we realize who these individuals are who are the recipients of the minimum wage. Mr. President, 33 percent of those who benefit from this increase are in service occupations, including home health care workers. These are workers like Cathy Adams, a home health aide from Viola, IL. Cathy is a high school graduate, who is currently enrolled in a computer training program at the local community college. She lives with her two daughters, who are 10 and 11. Cathy works 11\1/2\ hours a day, 5 days a week. She cares for a woman with multiple sclerosis. She bathes her, dresses her, and feeds her. She does the grocery shopping, the laundry, and the cleaning. She runs errands and schedules doctor appointments. Cathy likes her job and is fond of her client, but she finds it hard to live on $5.30 an hour. In March, she told a minimum wage forum: I literally live paycheck to paycheck. After paying the bills, whatever is left over goes to groceries. I have $9 in my savings account and worry about being able to save for my girls' education. We rarely have money to go to a movie or eat out at a restaurant. The other day, my girls asked me to take them ice skating at school. While it only costs $10, I had to think twice about whether we could afford it. Most of the clothing I buy for my kids and for myself comes from yard sales and secondhand stores. This is a minimum wage worker, someone who will be affected by our amendment. A second group, is child care workers. According to ``Worthy Work, Unlivable Wages,'' a recent study by the Center for Child Care Workforce, in 1997, the average wage for a teaching assistant in child care centers ranged from $6 to $7 an hour. This is less than the 1998 poverty level for a family of three--$13,650. Turnover among these assistants is high, 40 percent. We talk about what we care about in terms of our children. One of the most important aspects of the child's life is what is happening to them in their home, primarily, but also what happens to them when they are in some kind of child care setting, in a Head Start child care setting. So many of those who take care of those children are child care workers. Those child care workers, by and large, are receiving the minimum wage. One of the reasons you have the great turnover is because they can't make it. Rather than having the child care workers who stay with your children throughout the year and interact with them and help and assist them getting a decent, livable wage, we have this very considerable turnover. The study found that centers paying higher than average salaries had lower turnover rates than centers paying less. We find that true in the Head Start programs, as well. We care about children. We care about fairness and we care about child care workers. We need to do something about a minimum wage. These are workers like Kimberly Frazier, a child care aide from Philadelphia. Kimberly works full time and earns $5.20 an hour. She is a single mother with three children and has worked at the same center since 1992. Kimberly says her salary barely covers her bills--rent of $250 a month, food, utilities, clothing for three growing children, and carfare to get her daughter and herself to the child care center. She told our forum: Of course, there is never money for a vacation for my children or me. I go without new clothes for myself because I have to keep buying new sneakers for my children, they outgrow them so fast. I can't afford a car and pay for gas and insurance so I rely on public transportation. If I had a car, I could get out to the places where there are better paying jobs. And, like all Americans, I dream of buying my own house so that I can raise my kids in a neighborhood that has less crime and more trees. But I know that, although I work and study as hard as I can, I will never have the down payment for a house earning the minimum wage. She concluded, A dollar an hour probably doesn't sound like a lot to many people, but to me and my children it would mean a real improvement in our lives. Many minimum wage workers are janitors, cleaning offices in buildings across the country. They are people like Valerie Bell. Valerie works as a custodian at the Baltimore City World Trade Center. Since 1995, that building has been covered by Baltimore's Living Wage Ordinance, which requires city contractors to pay $6.10 an hour. That's higher than the federal minimum, but still lower than the level that I have proposed. According to Valerie Bell, the living wage means dignity for workers and their families. As she puts it, ``under the living wage, we no longer have to receive food stamps or other social services to supplement our incomes. We can fix up our homes and invest in our neighborhoods. We can spend more at the local grocery store. We can possibly work two jobs rather than three low wage jobs and spend more time with our families. Our utilities won't be cut off. We can pay the medical bills we accumulated from not having benefits in these jobs. The best welfare reform is a living wage job.'' Nationwide, most security screeners at airports earn the minimum wage. These workers screen passenger luggage, operate metal detectors and work x-ray machines. They are responsible for the safety of millions of passengers and thousands of airplanes entering and leaving airports around the country--yet they earn the minimum wage. These are workers like Melvin Ware, a customs carousel handler at the Los Angeles Airport. He takes home about $317 every two weeks. ``By the time you pay rent and utilities, you're broke,'' he said. ``There's no life after work.'' Raquel Littlejohn screens passenger luggage, and spends much of her day at a computer terminal. This strains her eyes but, with take-home pay of under $400 every two weeks, she can't afford to get them checked. A sympathetic L.A. Councilwoman said, ``I don't think it's good that the person who is doing such an important job has to be worrying about trying to get to the next one because the security job doesn't pay a living wage.'' Eighteen percent of today's workforce is employed in the retail industry--that's 22.5 million workers. Many are paid the minimum wage. These are people like Cordelia Bradley of Philadelphia. She works at a clothing chain just outside Philadelphia. She is the mother of one son, and she earns $5.15 an hour. She told our minimum wage forum in March that: I am currently living in a rented room for which I pay $300 a month. I would like to have my own apartment but I cannot afford one. In addition to paying my rent, I pay for food, clothing and transportation. . . . If the minimum wage was higher I would be able to save up for my own apartment for me and my son. . . . I ask you to reward the people who go to work by raising up the minimum wage. Things are very rough for people, not just people on welfare. There are many people like me who go to work every day and cannot afford to live. Please do the right thing. Then there are laundry workers, and the list goes on. These are the individuals whose lives would be impacted by the increase in the minimum wage. We are talking about a dollar--a dollar an hour. We are talking probably $2,000 over the course of a year. That's not two- thirds as much as the increase that every Member of the U.S. Senate received in this Congress--two-thirds as much as we have received in this Congress. We are being asked whether we are going to try to give those individuals some relief, some help, some assistance, as we have in the best days of our past, to say that these individuals could and should be able to have an impact. Nationwide, the soup kitchens, food pantries and homeless shelters are increasingly serving the working poor, not just the unemployed. According to a recent study by Second Harvest, the nationwide networks of food banks, in 1997, 39 percent of households seeking emergency food aid had at least one member who was working. Eighty-six percent of households receiving emergency food aid earned under $15,500 a year, and 67 percent of the households earned less than $10,000 a year. According to a U.S. Conference of Mayors study, requests for emergency food aid increased 86 percent in the cities survey. And 67 percent of the cities cited low-paying jobs as one of the main causes of hunger. These aren't only just for the parents, these are for the children. This is not a Member of Congress that is saying it, these are the mayors of the country saying what is happening out across the Nation, which is that individuals can't make it with this kind of an income, and there is something that we can do. We are facing many complex problems here in the United States Congress and Senate. We have faced many of them. But one that we can impact and one that we should impact is trying to make sure that people who work will not be in poverty for themselves and their children. We hear a lot about American values in our country, about what is important and what is unimportant. The newspapers are filled with that. Well, this is something that is important. I welcome the fact that President Clinton has been a strong supporter of this particular issue. So we will have an opportunity, Mr. President, to come back and visit this issue. Nothing, I believe--and I have had a chance to vote and participate on many different issues over 37 years in the U.S. Senate--there is no single issue that is more defined in terms of fairness than the issue of the minimum wage. Nothing. Just in terms of fairness, are we going to be fair to working people in our country and in our society? Are we going to be fair against the background and history of Republicans and Democrats that were fair? We are going to be asked next Tuesday whether this body will be fair. We will have a chance then to speak to that issue.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier today the majority leader propounded the unanimous consent request relevant to the bankruptcy legislation. In that proposition, he had indicated that the first amendment to be considered to the bankruptcy bill would be the amendment which I will offer with a number of our colleagues on behalf of the Americans who are at the bottom two rungs of the economic ladder, those who are making the minimum wage in our Nation. It is an amendment to increase the minimum wage by 50 cents in January of next year and another 50-cent increase the following year. The total increase would be a $1 increase in the minimum wage. We will have an opportunity to debate that issue on Tuesday morning, with a vote on that sometime around the noon hour. At that time, the membership will express itself on whether we are going to reward work in the United States of America, whether we are going to say that our fellow Americans who are at the lower end of the economic ladder, who have lost more than any other group in our society in terms of their purchasing power over the period of these last years, whether they are going to be able to have a very, very modest increase of $1 over the period of the next year and a half to 2 years to their wages. Mr. President, there are a number of reasons for this increase. I think the most compelling one is the reason that those of us in this country have a sense of common purpose, have a sense of community, have a sense of caring about our neighbors and those who are fellow citizens. That has been a strength of our Nation ever since its earliest days. We also put a strong emphasis and a strong quality on the issue of working. What we are saying is that those who are going to work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year, should no longer live in poverty. That has been the reason for the minimum wage in the first place, following the Great Depression and over a long period of time. There have been five raises in the minimum wage since 1955. Raising the minimum wage has been supported by Republicans and Democrats, Republican Presidents, Democratic Presidents. It has by and large been a bipartisan effort over the recent years. The principal cautions in raising the minimum wage have been, would the raising of the minimum wage result in an increase in the rates of inflation which would work to the detriment of other workers in our society, and would it contribute to increasing unemployment in our society and, in that respect, have a disadvantaging impact on the various people we are trying to help? Those are powerful economic issues. And they ought to be considered at any particular time. And we are glad to consider those issues at this time as we are advancing the cause of workers in our society, workers who have not benefited from this extraordinary prosperity which we as Americans have seen over the period of the last 6 years, the greatest economic growth, the greatest price stability, the lowest unemployment, the lowest rates of inflation. The economy, with all of the ups and downs of the stock market, is extremely strong, and it has been strong, and it continues to be strong. Nonetheless, we have seen that over the period of recent years the purchasing power of those at the lower level of the economic ladder has deteriorated significantly. And what we are attempting to do is to say to our fellow Americans, as we as a nation move ahead in terms of the economic prosperity, that we want all of our fellow citizens to move along together. It is not asking very much to have a 50 cent increase in the minimum wage or $1 over a period of the next 2 years. That is the issue, Mr. President, that will be squarely before this body on Tuesday next and where we will have an opportunity to vote on it. Mr. President, as we have on other occasions, I think it is fair to look at where the minimum wage is today and where it has been. The inclusions in our amendment, are they really reasonable given the current economic conditions? We maintain they are extremely reasonable. On this chart here, the real minimum wage reflects where the purchasing power of the minimum wage in real dollars is--in real dollars from 1995, 1998, and beyond. If you look at this end of the chart, Mr. President, you will see 1997, 1998; and you will see where my pen is, that at this point here we are talking about a $1 increase from $5.15 to what would be $6.15, with the increase in the minimum wage in real dollars. By the year 2000, it will only amount to $5.76 in real dollars. If you go across this line, Mr. President, going back through the 1960s all the way through the 1970s, you will see even with this kind of increase in the minimum wage of $1, the purchasing power of the minimum wage for working families will still be lower than it was for a period of some 20, 23 years from 1960s all the way through the early 1980s. So even with this increase, it is extremely modest, Mr. President, extremely moderate--it still does not bring us back to the purchasing power that the minimum wage has had for the better part of our postwar period. But, nonetheless, it is important progress for families. All you have to do is ask any family what a difference it makes for a 50-cent or a $1 increase in the minimum wage. They will answer very quickly, ``It means that we'll have to have two jobs instead of three jobs.'' That will be their first answer. And secondly, an increase of $1 in the minimum wage will mean the purchase of groceries for probably 6 months of a year. It will mean the rent for a working-poor family of about 7 months of a year. It will be about two-thirds the cost of the tuition for a son or a daughter, of a working family earning the minimum wage, to attend a public university in their State. This is very important to those at the lower end of the economic ladder. That is basically the historical situation, Mr. President. It is fair to ask ourselves now, what has happened in the rates of inflation? Let us take a look at inflation and the minimum wage. Many say, ``If we increase the minimum wage, we're going to see a bump in the rate of inflation.'' Well, if we look at what happens to the minimum wage--and in this particular chart here we go from 1996 all the way up to 1998--we look at what is happening to the rate of inflation. Prior to the rise in the minimum wage, which was in October 1996, the rate of inflation per month was three-tenths of 1 percent. Then we raised the minimum wage to $4.75. And if you look at this chart here, you will find that it continued along virtually the same three-tenths of 1 percent. It dropped down here in the wintertime, it rose again in the early spring, dropped again, and then settled into a significant drop. If you are talking of three-tenths of 1 percent per month to two- tenths of 1 percent, you are talking about a significant drop in the rate of inflation, even with the last increase in the minimum wage. Then it rose another 50 cents in 1997. And the inflation rate was two- tenths of 1 percent. Look what has happened since that last raise to $5.15. It went along for a period of time, dropped, bounced up, and is now down to one-tenth of 1 percent. Mr. President, the clear signal from this chart is that the last increase in the minimum wage virtually had no impact on the rate of inflation. And if we are to look at the history of these last several years, we will see that the rate of inflation has actually gone down. It is not a valid point to say that if we try to do something to raise the minimum wage, it is going to add to inflation. Now, if we look at what the impact is on unemployment, this is a second argument. If we raise the minimum wage, it is going to have an adverse impact on inflation and it is going to increase unemployment. Again, if we go back to October 1996 where we saw an increase in the minimum wage, we had 5.2 percent unemployment, a little bump, and then a gradual decline through September 1997, when the last increase in the minimum wage went to $5.15. Since that last increase in September of 1997, up until August of 1998, we have seen a continuing reduction of the unemployment, down at the present time to 4.5, 4.4 percent. It has not added to inflation. It has not added or contributed to unemployment. Those two economic arguments do not stand. If we look at the impact on our teens, the arguments are made, ``Senator, we are concerned about what the impact is going to be on teen unemployment and particularly among the minorities.'' The fact is, about 20 to 25 percent of all those who receive the minimum wage are teenagers. Most of the teenagers in my State who are receiving the minimum wage are out there their first year in college trying to make ends meet. Travel with me to the University of Massachusetts in Boston at the campus. Mr. President, many of the children who go to that excellent school are from families where the parents never went to the school. And much of the student body is working 25 hours a week or more. These are teenagers. These are many of the children who are trying to gain sufficient income to fund their education. We should think it is a worthwhile and valuable endeavor in trying to support kids who are trying to go to school and stay in school, many of whom are coming from difficult and complex backgrounds. Nonetheless, they go on. Take the minorities. In this case, the black teen unemployment--we can go through any of the various groups in terms of unemployment--and what we see again is the increase in the minimum wage, the continued decline in terms of unemployment of black teenagers and minority teenagers. This chart is just a reflection of the same trend. We see that the total number of employment in terms of teenagers 16 to 19, with the increase in the minimum wage, these are the individuals who find the employment going up. Increase in the minimum wage based upon sound economic principles, and we see that there has not been an adverse impact on the issues of employment or inflation. Now, I think it is worthwhile to ask who is really for this increase in the minimum wage. Mr. President, 170 organizations--170 organizations--representing not just workers. The AFL-CIO, even though their workers are all receiving far above the minimum wage, is certainly interested because of respect for the value of work. The principal church groups and church leaders are strongly supportive. The leaders of the various women's and children's organizations are strongly supportive. The various civil rights organizations, knowing the importance of this in terms of the individuals, are strongly supportive. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of the various groups and organizations that are in support of this legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 25 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, just a short while ago I was informed that the majority leader was looking for amendments to the bankruptcy legislation and also mentioned my name during that discussion. I am quite prepared to call up our amendment at the present time, Amendment Number 3540, and move for consideration of that amendment. The majority leader indicated--I am getting the transcript--that he was prepared to enter in a time agreement on this amendment, and that he was inviting amendments to the bankruptcy bill. I am here on the floor now prepared to move ahead, and I am also willing to enter into a reasonable time limit. Therefore I am constrained to object given what the majority leader has stated.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the leader for his explanation. As I mentioned earlier, I am prepared to enter into a reasonable time agreement for this amendment. But I do want to give the Senate the opportunity to express itself on this amendment because it is of such vital importance for so many millions of Americans who depend upon the minimum wage for their survival, and who have seen, over the past several years, a decline in the purchasing power of the minimum wage. I will just take a few moments now to continue some of the thoughts that I expressed last evening. I see that Senator Wellstone wants to address some of the needs of his own State. I will not take much of the Senate's time now. But I will either take additional time this evening when the Senate concludes its business, or at other opportunities, because this is an issue of great importance. Mr. President, I pointed out last night what has happened to the purchasing power of those who earn the minimum wage. Even with the increase I propose, which is 50 cents in January of next year and 50 cents the following year--even if we are successful, the purchasing power of those at the lower economic levels will still be substantially lower than it was during the 1960s, 1970s, and the early 1980s. This is at a time of extraordinary economic prosperity--the greatest prosperity we have had in this country, with great economic growth, and low inflation, a budget that is balanced, and an increasing surplus. The real issue is: Are we going to reward work? Are we going to say to men and women who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, that they are going to be out of poverty in the most powerful Nation in the world, with the strongest economy in the world? That is something that I believe is very basic, very fundamental. It is an issue of fairness, and an issue that will not go away. That is why those of us who support it are going to be persistent in insisting that we are going to have a vote on the issue in these next several days. Because we are not permitted to have a freestanding bill, we have to use an amendment strategy so the Senate can address this issue. But address it the Senate will. Last evening, Mr. President, I pointed out and responded to 2 of the arguments that are constantly made in opposition to an increase in the minimum wage. The first argument is that it adds to the rate of inflation. I also pointed out last night that we have the lowest rate of inflation of any time when the Senate has considered an increase in the minimum wage since the end of World War II. The second argument is that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment. Last night I pointed out that we have the lowest unemployment rate of any time we have considered an increase in the minimum wage since the end of World War II. These two claims are continually offered by opponents of an increase in the minimum wage. But they do not hold water. The facts belie those claims. Other issues have been raised, Mr. President. One was, what will be the impact on small businesses? A recent survey by the Jerome Levy Institute for Economics shows that 90 percent of small businesses said the last increase in the minimum wage had no impact on their hiring or employment decisions. Only one-third of 1 percent said they laid off workers. If the minimum wage were increased to $6 an hour, fewer than 3 percent said they would hire fewer employees or lay off existing workers. Over 90 percent said they anticipated no ill effects from such increases. That data has been substantiated by the Small Business Administration, which pointed out that, in 1997 alone, industries dominated by small business created 60 percent more jobs than did industries dominated by the large firms. Last year, over 1.2 million new jobs were created in the sectors dominated by small businesses, which often are those that pay minimum wage to their workers. This data contrasts starkly with the rhetoric from the National Restaurant Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, and other naysayers. Those groups continue to cry ``wolf'' about the impact of raising the minimum wage. They should ask their members what really happened after the last increase, before they try to feed Senators the same empty arguments. These interest groups do not speak for all small businesses in the country. 115 small businesses from across the country have joined the Campaign for a Fair Minimum Wage. They come from 16 States and the District of Columbia, and they include restaurants, retail stores, banks, investment firms, publishers and communications companies. These firms understand that raising the minimum wage is good for employers as well as employees. Fair pay for workers improves productivity and reduces turnover. That is extremely important. Another point I want to mention, Mr. President, is what is happening to living standards for low-income Americans, including minimum wage workers. Many low wage workers are desperate for this kind of assistance. Nationwide, soup kitchens, food pantries and homeless shelters are increasingly serving the working poor--not just the unemployed. According to a U.S. Conference of Mayors study in 1997, requests for emergency food aid increased in 86 percent of the cities surveyed, and 67 percent of cities cited low-paying jobs as one of the main causes for hunger. Here we have individuals who are making the minimum wage and don't earn enough to keep themselves and their children out of soup kitchens. This is powerful evidence about what is happening to the working poor. The purchasing power of these workers has declined, as I discussed last night. This is more dramatic evidence about the significant increase in working poor families who are forced to rely on soup kitchens and charities. This is something that the mayors understand. This is something the mayors have indicated is of increasing concern to all of them. We have an opportunity to do something about that for families who are making the minimum wage, and that is an additional reason for this increase. Mr. President, we can also look at the effect of the increase that I am proposing--the two 50-cent increases that will bring the minimum wage to $6.15 in the year 2000. But that amount translates to just $5.74 in purchasing power in the year 2000, even if we go ahead. Now, what else is happening to wages in our country? Salaries and bonuses paid to executives have never been higher, Mr. President. In April, the Wall Street Journal surveyed executive pay at 350 of the country's largest firms. The median CEO salary and bonus in 1997 was $1.6 million, or $770 an hour. The CEO takes less than 2 days to earn what a minimum wage worker earns in a full year. The same groups that complain about an increase in the minimum wage are the ones that have made dramatic increases in the payment of their officials, Mr. President. On the one hand, they say, ``We can't afford to pay a 50 cent or $1 increase in the minimum wage''; yet, they are able to afford millions more in salaries and stock options to their executives. Over 170 groups have joined the Campaign for a Fair Minimum Wage. They include religious groups, such as the American Friends Service Committee, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, the United States Catholic Conference--and dozens more. Women's organizations are also represented: the American Association of University Women, the National Committee on Pay Equity, the National Partnership for Women & Families, the National Women's Political Caucus, the Older Women's League, and many others. Civil rights groups also support the Campaign. These groups and others understand that the minimum wage is a civil rights issue--a partial list includes the American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the Rainbow Coalition, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and many more. Trade unions have joined the Campaign, too. Virtually every union member earns more than the minimum wage, thanks to union representation at the bargaining table. But that hasn't stopped the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the Communications Workers, the Steel Workers, the Service Employees and other unions from strongly supporting this increase. They believe that every working American deserves a decent wage, and they are working hard to achieve that result. Mr. President, we will continue to consider the issues that have been raised in past debates on the minimum wage. We are eager to debate these issues on the floor of the U.S. Senate and give the membership an opportunity to vote on this issue. As I have mentioned, and will continue to say time in and time out, this is an issue of fundamental fairness and decency. It is a real reflection of the kind of values which this institution has. This is a women's issue because the majority of minimum wage workers are women. It is a children's issue because many of those women have children. It basically is a fairness issue. And we are very hopeful that we will have the opportunity to debate this and have a decision on this issue in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with this amendment the United States Senate has an excellent opportunity to restore public faith in the political system by enacting long overdue campaign finance reform. After cynically withdrawing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill last winter, the Senate followed the lead of the House and passed a needed new law to limit the role of money in election campaigns. The current system is a scandal, and I commend Senator McCain and Senator Feingold for their leadership in demanding that the Senate act on reform. The vast sums of special interest money pouring into campaigns are a cancer on our democracy. The voice of the average citizen today is scarcely heard over the din of lobbyists and big corporations contributing millions of dollars to political campaigns and buying hundreds of TV ads to promote the causes of their special interests. Every Democrat supports the proposal before us. If enough Republicans join us, this reform will pass. It is time to end special interest gimmickry in campaign advertising. Currently, special interests can run as many so-called issue ads as they wish as long as they do not specifically advocate a candidate's election. The American people aren't being fooled--they know that these are campaign ads in disguise and should be regulated accordingly. Democrats also want to close the gaping loophole on soft money, which allows special interests to bypass legal limits on giving money directly to candidates. Big corporations and other special interests use this loophole to funnel money to candidates through the back door, by making so-called ``soft-money'' contributions to political parties and other political organizations that are spent to benefit candidates. More than $250 million in soft money contributions played a part in the 1996 elections. McCain-Feingold proposal will ban this practice. The fact is that phony issue ads and soft money contributions have created a climate in which our elections and our legislative agenda are determined more and more by how much money candidates can raise and less and less by issues of concern to families and communities across America. The public doesn't have to look any further than the Senate floor to see the effect big money has on the Republican legislative agenda. For example, Republicans are determined to pass a bankruptcy bill bought and paid for by the consumer credit industry, despite the pleas of bankruptcy judges, scholars, and consumer groups. Why is Congress moving so quickly to pass legislation that raises such grave concerns? Who benefits from the bill? Is it working families, the elderly, women and children? The answer is a resounding ``no.'' If you want to know who benefits from this legislation, just look at the corporate interests making soft money contributions--the consumer credit industry gave $5.5 million in soft money during the 1995-1996 election cycle. Common Cause reports that since 1995, Republicans in the House of Representatives have received more than twice the PAC and soft money contributions from consumer creditors as Democrats, and--not surprisingly--Republicans voted wholesale for the bankrtupcy bill. In the House of Representatives, the bill had the support of every Republican. The tobacco industry's total PAC and soft money contributions are less than half of what the credit industry gave during the same period--but, it was enough for the Republican leadership to reject needed anti-tobacco legislation and prevent it from being enacted. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports that Senators who voted consistently against the tobacco reform legislation took far more money from the industry--four times more--than those who supported the bill. In the past ten years, Senators supporting the tobacco industry's position have accepted an average of $34,000, while those who support reform measures accepted about $8,000 in contributions. The challenge of managed care reform is another example of the power that big corporations can wield against the interests of individuals and families in the political process. In the halls of Congress, big money from campaign contributors is drowning the voices of our constituents. A year ago, in a private strategy meeting called to defeat the Patients' Bill of Rights, staff from the Senate Republican leadership exhorted insurance industry lobbyists to ``Get off your butts, get off your wallets.'' And lo and behold, the industry ingloriously responded. In fact, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and its state affiliates have made $1 million in political contributions during the 1997-1998 cycle, with four out of every five dollars going to Republicans. They are also the number one PAC donors to leadership committees. They more than doubled their contributions during the 1995-1996 election cycle and 98 percent of the contributions were directed to Republicans. According to the Center on Responsive Politics, managed care PACs-- including the American Association of Health Plans, the Health Insurance Association of America, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield--gave $77,250 to leadership political action committees. All but $1,500 went to the Republican majority. As of July 1, these industry PACs have made $1.8 million in political contributions during this election cycle, and 70 percent of the money is directed to Republicans. These same corporations have also funded a multi-million dollar advertising campaign of disinformation and distortion on managed case reform. The same corporations profit by denying care to patients who have faithfully paid their premiums. These same corporations, with their crocodile tears, claim that patient protections will bankrupt them or force them to raise premiums by hundreds of dollars. These same corporations are spending millions of dollars--taken from premiums paid by patients--on political campaign contributions and advertising to defeat the very legislation that patients need and deserve. What did this significant investment buy? Just what they wanted. Inaction by Congress. Stonewalling. A ``just say no'' strategy. At the behest of their big donors and special interest friends, the Senate Republican leadership has delayed and denied consideration of the Patients' Bill of Rights for nearly a year and a half. The choice is clear. Will the Senate stand with patients, families, and physicians, or with the well-heeled special interests that put profits ahead of patients? It is clear that the majority of Senator Republicans are standing with the special interests. There is no mystery about what is going on. The Republican Leadership's position is to protect the insurance industry instead of protecting the patients. They know they can't do that in the light of day. So their strategy has been to work behind closed doors to kill the bill. Keep it bottled up in Committee. No markup. No floor debate or vote. Bill Gradison, the head of the Health Insurance Association of America, was asked in a interview published in the Rocky Mountain News to sum up the coalition's strategy. According to the article, Mr. Gradison replied ``[t]here's a lot to be said for `Just say no.' '' The author of the article goes on to report that: [a]t a strategy session . . . called by a top aide to Senator Don Nickles, Gradison advised Republicans to avoid taking public positions that could draw fire during the election campaign. Opponents will rely on Republican leaders in both chambers to keep managed care legislation bottled up in committee. Just as managed care plans gag their doctors, the Republican leadership wants to gag the Senate. Just as insurance companies delay and deny care, the Republican leadership is trying to delay and deny meaningful reform. Just as health plans want to avoid being held accountable when they kill or injure a patient, the Republican leadership wants to avoid being held accountable for killing patient protection legislation. That is why the Republican leadership is trying to hide its tactics of delay and denial behind a smokescreen of parliamentary maneuvers and phony procedural justifications. They say we don't have time to debate managed care. They reject offer after offer from the Democratic leader, thereby continuing the stall of this critically important legislation. I say, the American people aren't interested in excuses. They want action. They want reforms. They want clean elections. This legislation will give it to them and it deserves to pass by an overwhelming majority of the Senate.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Majority Leader has told us that there is no time left in this session to work on legislation which can improve the quality of life for most Americans. But there is time. As the Minority Leader has noted several times, there is time every evening after the day's work is completed when we can work a second shift. The so-called ``two-track'' system has not been an uncommon practice in the Senate. More than a dozen times in the last 13 years, this body has worked well into the evening on legislation separate from that which it worked on during the day in an effort to get the job done. I ask unanimous consent that the 14 excerpts from floor speeches which refer to this practice be printed in the Record. These are examples initiated by Republicans and Democrats, majority and minority. We have the opportunity to pass legislation which will make a positive impact on the lives of millions of Americans. We should not let this chance pass us by.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the leader for, again, his leadership in this important area. Next time there is objection to the proposal--the Republican leadership says we can't afford the time for this; we can't afford the time to debate it-- it is going to ring very hollow after we have seen the very reasonable request of the leader to debate those issues this evening. The Senator from South Dakota has introduced the legislation. He is here tonight to debate it, and I welcome the chance to join with him in debating that. We are here ready to go on this legislation. We could do it this evening or any night this week. It is not satisfactory enough for the American people, just to say, as the Republican leadership has, ``No, we are not going to do this, and we are going to refuse to permit this debate and discussion.'' That is not really in the great traditions of this body. This body was supposed to deal with the public interest, the unfinished agenda. There is nothing more important than protecting American families from decisions being made by insurance companies rather than health professionals. There is nothing more important, in terms of the health care of these families, before the Senate this year. I think it is grossly unfair. So I commend, again, the leader for bringing this up. I know the leader will bring up the amendment. Then we will hear from the other side, ``Oh, my goodness, we can't do that; we can't do this. It's impossible to do it.'' We could have done it this evening; probably last night and the other nights this week. I certainly join in supporting his efforts to insist that we are going to debate these, and we are going to reach resolution on these matters before we conclude. I thank the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator. Would he not agree with me that we have a general understanding that Thursday nights are the late night in the Senate? We do that with the idea that we hope we can finish various measures that may go on over to Friday out of consideration to some of those Senators who live in different parts, some distance away from the Nation's Capital, to try at least to accommodate some of their interests. So the idea that we have a night session is not really unique or special. Members are here during the period of the week. They are on notice now. We have just come back from a good break in the period of August, but we have a limited time that is available. I must say, I fail to find an adequate response by the Republican leadership to the Senator's eminently fair and reasonable proposal. It would seem to me we ought to at least try it for a week, try it for a week or two and find out how we are proceeding. We could consider the Patients' Bill of Rights, for example, a measure of enormous importance to the millions of families in this country. We have been denied that opportunity to have the debate. We have always been told we cannot have that debate because we are not going to take up a lot of the Senate's time. The way I understand the leader's proposal is we might be able to do that in the evening time until we reach a conclusion on that so we would not interfere with the appropriations legislation. What is possibly the justification not to do it? Are we saying our own personal requirements are of greater importance than trying to deal with the business of America's families--whether they are in South Dakota or in Massachusetts--who are very, very much affected by what we fail to do here in reaching some resolution on the Patients' Bill of Rights? I do not know whether the leader had an opportunity to see the list of the various parts of the Patients' Bill of Rights bill that I had on the floor a short time ago, but I know the Senator is very familiar with them. Doesn't he agree that probably 17 or 18 topic areas are about it with regard to the Patients' Bill of Rights, and probably even some of those areas could be accommodated by individual Members on both sides who are really interested in trying to reach a resolution? We could deal with these other measures--whether women are going to be in clinical trials; whether we are going to have appeals procedures; whether we are going to have gag rules--and the various other protections the Senator mentioned earlier. Doesn't the Senator feel we could work that through in a reasonable period of time if we involved the Senate in debate during these weekday nights?

Mr. KENNEDY. As the Senator has pointed out, it is 7 o'clock this evening. We had last evening, we will have tomorrow evening. There is no reason we can't go from 7 to 10 or 10:30. The Senator remembers the times where we have had these double sessions. They are not a very unusual process and procedure. I will include in the Record tomorrow the instances when we have had these, generally at the end of sessions, but they have been a two-track process by which we deal with certain measures during the day and others during the course of the evening. Does the Senator agree with me, for example, on the Patients' Bill of Rights that if we took Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday evenings and did it from 7 to 10, 10:30 probably this week, three different evenings, there would be a good opportunity where we could probably finish that legislation, or perhaps take one or more evenings of next week to address the issues which the Senator has talked about. We could have a good debate on the question of minimum wage--whether it has been inflationary, whether there has been loss of employment, the impact on small employment, the various kinds of arguments that have been made-- and we would be able to dispose of that in a fair and reasonable time, as well as the agriculture and farm issues, pay equity, and other issues? Does the Senator believe, if we knew now that we were going to do this, the membership would become engaged in this legislation, particularly if we had notice that we were going to consider various legislation with due notice, in 2 or 3 nights we would consider X legislation, which is sort of a time-honored way that we have proceeded here? Is that the kind of arrangement that the Senator is looking for so that the membership would have notice of the legislation and we could have that kind of debate during the course of the evenings? Does the Senator think there is any other business that is more important for us to be involved in at this time than those issues which people have expressed an interest and concern about such as the Patients' Bill of Rights issue?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as I understand the parliamentary situation, we are in the post-cloture period, which allocates up to one hour to each Member of the Senate. Am I correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might use. Mr. President, we have just a few moments ago decided as a Senate to consider the bankruptcy legislation that was reported out of the Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago. I mentioned at the time that this measure was being considered by the leadership, that I had hoped we would have the opportunity at the time that the leadership was considering calling up the bankruptcy legislation to consider other legislation that had been pending for some period of time. The legislation that I was hoping would be considered is the Patients' Bill of Rights. It has been introduced by the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, and supported by a number of us. Or, alternatively, I had hoped that the Senate would have been able to accept the proposal of the minority leader, Senator Daschle, that we would lay down before the Senate the Republican managed care proposal that passed the House of Representatives in July. This would have provided us with an opportunity to debate an issue that is enormously important to families in this country. I mentioned before, the bankruptcy legislation deals with 1,200,000 people or occasions in this country per year. The Patients' Bill of Rights, however, affects 160 million Americans. The concerns that these families have are very real and very powerful. Time and again, we hear of insurance company abuses that cripple or kill patients in states around the country. Yet, the response of the Republican leadership has been, well, you can either take it or leave it. That's it. Take the alternative that is advanced by the Republican leadership--which allows one vote on Senator Daschle's bill, one vote on the Republican bill, and perhaps three other amendments, but no more than those amendments in number that are designated by the majority leader--or leave it and do nothing. Mr. President, this proposal effectively gags the Senate from having full debate and discussion on this legislation. But, we have been told that was the position of the leadership and that was what we were going to be stuck with. Mr. President, this is unsatisfactory because it excludes the opportunity to debate the major differences that exist between the Republicans and the Democrats on the issues of health care. I have here before me a comparison of each of the patient protection bills--the proposal that has been advanced by the Republicans, and also the Patients' Bill of Rights proposal introduced by the Democrats. At the heart of this debate is a very simple concept: Are medical professionals, the doctors and nurses, going to make the health care decisions that affect patients? Or are insurance company accountants going to make those judgments and make those decisions, which is the case in too many instances in our country today? We believe that in all of these circumstances medical decisions ought to be made by the health professionals who have been trained, qualified, and certified to be able to deal with the health care challenges that will affect our families in this country. We believe there should be a prohibition on gag practices; access to emergency rooms when there is a need for services, which is not guaranteed in too many instances today; access to the Ob/Gyn providers; the ability to keep your doctor; and guaranteed access to the specialists, including out-of-network providers, when those needs are important. We believe that there should be standing referrals to specialists or that specialists should be allowed to act as primary care providers when that is important for particular patients, such as cancer patients, or persons with disabilities or HIV; the ability to have access to doctor-prescribed drugs when the various formularies override a physician's decision; and access to clinical trials, which are absolutely essential for patients who have life-threatening conditions--such as breast cancer-- that have failed to respond to conventional therapies. The failure to promote and cover routine costs for participation in these clinical trials is something that the Senate ought to make some judgment and decision about. The interesting point about clinical trials is that it really is not more costly to the HMOs, because the drug and biotechnology companies or the government continue to assume the burden for the experimentation. The HMOs are simply asked to shoulder their fair share of the routine costs that the patient would incur anyway. So it really is not costly to the HMOs to guarantee this access to clinical trials. We ought to have the opportunity to debate that here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We ought to be able to ensure there is going to be protection for patient advocacy, and that we are going to have information on plan quality. People need to understand which plans present themselves to be quality plans, and which do not. And, perhaps most importantly, there should be a clear right to a timely and independent appeal process and the ability to hold health plans accountable for their actions. These are the areas of public policy that we ought to have an opportunity to debate and discuss. We have not heard from the Republican leadership what particular aspect of this list, which basically includes the President's reservations about the Republican proposal, that they object to. All they say is: We are not going to debate it. We are not going to discuss it. You can get one amendment, two amendments, three amendments, but we are just not going to tie the Senate up to debate these particular measures, even though these are the items which have been embraced by not just Members of the U.S. Senate but by nearly 190 organizations across this country that represent--who? Represent the Congress? The Senate? No. They represent the doctors, represent the nurses, represent the researchers, represent the patients and consumers. Nearly every single major and minor consumer group has effectively endorsed the proposal that we have advanced, and we have not heard of a single group that has endorsed or embraced the Republican proposal--not one. Not one. They do not have a single group--doctors or patients or nurses or health delivery professionals--that endorses their proposal. All of them endorse ours. Yet we are told by the Republican leadership that you are going to be denied the opportunity to even raise these issues in an orderly way, to have debate and discussion and an outcome decided on the floor of the U.S. Senate. These are the areas that need to be discussed. These are the gaps in the Republican bill. Some of them probably could be worked on through an agreement--not a great number. But they certainly are the ones that have been mentioned and identified by the health professionals in this country that are essential if we are going to provide quality health care for the American people. And we are denied this. We are being stonewalled, those of us who believe the patients' interests should be advanced. The Republican leadership have closed us out. They say, ``No. No.'' They don't mind getting consideration for the bankruptcy bill. They don't say we will take the bankruptcy bill up, but there are only X number of amendments. No. They just went ahead and scheduled the bankruptcy bill, which, interestingly, is supported by major financial institutions and credit companies that have spent over $50 million in support of the legislation. Whom does that bill protect? It protects the banking and the financial interests over, I believe, the interests of the consumers. So we have seen that legislation that protects big business is on the fast track, and the legislation that protects patients and families is being denied the floor of the U.S. Senate for debate and discussion. I do not think, in the remaining time that we are here, outside of the various appropriations bills, there is any piece of legislation that is more important than this legislation. But we have been in a constant position now, for week after week after week, month after month after month. We were denied the opportunity to get even a markup in the relevant committee, in the Human Resources Committee. We were denied an opportunity to consider this as an amendment on other legislation. We have been denied the opportunity to have a full debate and discussion. We are told, ``You take it or leave it. You take the three-amendment strategy or you just do not get any debate or discussion.'' That is not satisfactory. Although the leadership has been able to prevent us from the opportunity of having that kind of debate and discussion up to this period of time, they will not be successful in denying us the chance to have the kind of debate that we need in order to protect the consumers of this country. So I think we have, again, missed an extraordinarily important opportunity to do the public business, to do the people's business, to try to do something about the quality of health care for the American people. We here this evening would like to give the assurance to the American people, as the leader has, as our Democratic leader has, that we will have the opportunity one way or the other to have consideration of this legislation before we adjourn. We should be able to do it in the way in which we deal with important legislation, where we call the legislation up and move toward the consideration of these various amendments, trying to work through a timeframe to get the final resolution. The Democratic leader even indicated that we were prepared to deal with these issues at nighttime, at 6 o'clock tonight, 6 o'clock in the evening. There is no reason in the world that the Senate of the United States should not work tonight, from 6 o'clock to 10 o'clock, for the next 4 hours, debating these particular issues, and do so tomorrow night, too. We could have done it last night as well. There is no reason, no reason in the world. If we believe this legislation is important, why aren't we here debating this issue tonight? What is so important, in terms of Members' schedules, that we are not debating or discussing this? I have been in the Senate for a period of time and we have had evening sessions. We have had two-track sessions many, many times. At this time in the session when there is important legislation to consider, Senator Daschle has proposed that to the majority leader, saying, 6 o'clock this evening, why aren't we out here considering and debating these issues tonight for 3 or 4 hours and having resolution of those? But we have been told no, we cannot do that either. We cannot take the time this evening or tomorrow evening, or Friday evening, or next week, or any of the evenings of next week to try to deal with the issues on the Patients' Bill of Rights--no. We are told we will not do it. You are not entitled to have that kind of debate and discussion. Evidently, the public interest with regard to health care will not be considered by the Republican leadership. So we will be forced, as the leader pointed out, to take the extraordinary steps that can be taken from a parliamentary point of view to move ahead and consider this at another time. We will continue to press the leadership for that consideration, because we believe that this issue is of such overpowering importance to children, to women, to grandparents, to members of the family, and it is essential that we deal with it. And we will, as our leader has pointed out. Now, we are told, as we are moving towards the consideration of the bankruptcy legislation, we will have a cloture motion filed so we will not be able to have debate on various amendments that are relevant to the issue at hand. They may not fall within the particular framework of the technical provisions of the cloture motion. So we are facing the prospect of another cloture vote coming up on this Friday. I am hopeful that we will be able to consider, on that particular piece of legislation, a modest increase in the minimum wage. But we are told that the leadership will not permit a debate or discussion on any increase in the minimum wage. I have been asked why we should consider having an amendment on increasing the minimum wage on this legislation. I have been asked, what is its relevancy to bankruptcy? The fact of the matter is that the average wage of people filing for bankruptcy is just over $17,000 a year. One of the principal reasons that individuals file bankruptcy is because their income has declined--their purchasing power has been reduced. No one in this Nation has seen a greater decline in their purchasing power than minimum wage workers. Mr. President, I have here a chart that reviews where the minimum wage has been in the past 40 years. As we can see, the real value of the minimum wage went up to $6, and then to $6.50, until it reached $7.38 in the mid to late 1960s. Again, it bounced up and down through the 1970s at about $6 or slightly above. Then we saw a continued decline down to $4.34 in 1989. We saw an increase again in 1991 and then the increases in 1996 and 1997 which brought it up to $5.15. The proposal I have made will increase the minimum wage in two stages--50 cents on January 1, 1999 and 50 cents on January 1, 2000. That will bring the nominal value of the minimum wage to $6.15, but the real value, because of inflation, will be only $5.76. Even if this body accepted the increase in the minimum wage, we would still be well below the historical value of the minimum wage for some 20 years in the 1960s and 1970s. These individuals on the lower rung of the economic ladder, the men and women who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year, hard-working men and women trying to provide for their families--they will still be earning well below what the minimum wage was worth for more than 20 years. This issue is a woman's issue, because 60 percent of all minimum-wage workers are women. It is a children's issue, because many, many of those women are single moms and, therefore, their income is going to dictate what they can provide for their children. It is a family issue. I will always remember the witness who described what an increase in the minimum wage would mean to her. She said, ``It is very simple, Senator, we will only have to work two jobs now instead of three.'' Only two jobs instead of three. What that means is increasing the ability of those parents to spend time with their children, increasing the ability of those parents to take a little time and work with their children on homework. The additional money may allow them to take their child to a ball game. Maybe they can afford a birthday present. Maybe they can afford to take a child out to dinner, or even see a movie. Of course, a vacation is completely out of reach--it is not even being considered. This is what I mean when I talk about family issues. We hear a great deal of discussion about family issues and about family values. The minimum wage is a family value. It is a working family value. It is saying to someone who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year that we are going to honor their work, and that in the United States of America working people are not going to live in poverty. These are family values. We are going to hear, Mr. President, when we get a chance to debate this--and I can understand why the Republican leadership does not want to permit us to debate it--we are going to hear that we don't need to have an increase in the minimum wage. The market will take care of these workers. If we do increase the minimum wage, opponents will claim it will add to inflation and unemployment. This is against the background of the most extraordinary economic growth in the history of this country, with the greatest prosperity, the lowest inflation, the lowest unemployment in a generation. We will hear, ``We can't afford it; we're going to lose jobs.'' We will hear that from Members of Congress who have experienced an increase in their own salary of more than $3,000 only last year. We will hear, ``We just can't afford to do that for working Americans.'' It is the working Americans, the working poor who have fallen further and further behind in their purchasing power--further behind than any group in our society. I think some of us remember those wonderful charts Secretary Reich used to present at the Joint Economic Committee when he talked about the five different economic groups and what has happened in the postwar period from 1947 right up to 1979. And it showed that the wage rates of these groups increased at similar rates. Incomes of those at the lower rungs went up in percentages as high as if not higher than those at the highest levels. This is not true any more. It is the top 1 percent, the top 5 percent, the top 20 percent. Their incomes are going up through the roof. Those at the lower end have been going right down through the cellar. This is an issue that we have an opportunity to do something about. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to answer some of the arguments that will be made with regard to an increase in the minimum wage, of what that means in terms of inflation. When we debate this issue, I will review some of the statements that our friends and colleagues made during those final hours of the 1996 debate about the effect on inflation and unemployment of the increase. These were the most extraordinary statements. I will not take the time of the Senate to go through them now, but they are just so out of touch with reality that it really is extraordinary. Raising the minimum wage does not fuel inflation. This chart shows what the inflation rate was per month during the year or two before the increase in 1996. The rate of inflation was relatively flat between February of 1996 and October 1996. It was pretty flat--it held fairly steady at three-tenths of 1 percent per month. The minimum wage increased to $4.75, and look what happened to inflation. The rate stayed steady. In October 1996, the inflation rate was maintained at three-tenths of 1 percent. Inflation declined in December 1996, and then went up and down slightly between January and September 1997. Then the minimum wage increased in September 1997 to $5.15. Here we see the continued decline of inflation. In June of 1998 the inflation rate was one-tenth of 1 percent. This chart puts the lie to claims that the minimum wage increase added to the rate of inflation in the United States. I believe that the overwhelming power of this argument comes from notions of basic fairness and justice. But if the opponents are going to claim that increasing the minimum wage will increase inflation, let us look at what happened over the period of the last two increases, going back to October 1996 and then the increase in September 1997. Mr. President, I would like to consider at the other argument that is made in opposition. That is the claim that raising the minimum wage causes unemployment to rise. Opponents always say, ``If you increase the minimum wage, you're going to see a rise in unemployment.'' I will come to teenage unemployment in a minute. Unemployment overall declined dramatically since the minimum wage increased in October 1996. And then, after the minimum wage increased again in September 1997, unemployment continued to drop. Now we are at 4.5 percent unemployment, which is virtually the lowest unemployment level in a generation. Since 1996, the nation has experienced the lowest rate of inflation and the lowest rate of inflation in a generation. So you cannot make the argument, Mr. President, that if we increase the minimum wage, it will add to the rate of inflation or add to the rate of unemployment. Mr. President, what is always said is, ``Well, all right, you don't really understand it. It is teenagers, teenage unemployment. They are the ones who really get squeezed.'' Let us look at teen unemployment, ages 16 to 19, over this same period. Before the minimum wage increase, you had some 16 percent teenage unemployment in 1996. Since the 1996 and 1997 increases, it has dropped to 15 percent unemployment. The fact of the matter is, Mr. President, that about a quarter of those who earn the minimum wage are teenagers. Many of those teenagers are trying to go out and work their way through their first or second year of community college. They are teenagers. These kids, in many instances, are the ones who are trying to earn in order to continue their education. They need that increase as well. So, Mr. President, this chart makes the point that the total unemployment for teenagers is down. Mr. President, the greatest opposition to this has come from the retail industry. But retail employment has grown by leaps and bounds over this period. It is growing 31 percent faster. Before the minimum wage increased, from September 1995 to September 1996--394,000 new retail jobs were added. The minimum wage increased in October 1996, and then again in September 1997. This is a 1-year period before the minimum wage went up. From September to September, 394,000 new retail jobs were added. Then in the 11 months after the increase took effect, 517,000 new jobs were added. This is very dramatic growth. The point about it is, Mr. President, that there is not a valid economic argument to be made. I wish we had the opportunity to engage in that debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate with those who are opposed to the increase because they claim they are concerned about teenage unemployment, about inflation and about the effect on people who work in retail stores and will lose their jobs. The facts belie those claims. Mr. President, we are talking about individuals who are still earning $2,900 below the poverty level for a family of three. What will this $1 an hour increase mean to minimum wage workers? It would buy almost 7 months of groceries. $1 an hour may not mean much to many in this country. Certainly, it doesn't mean a lot to the people who saw the stock market go up 370 points yesterday, gain over $1 trillion in value in one day. Of course, all of us are glad to have seen the stock market go up these past few days. $1 an hour might not make so much difference to those who are investing in the stock market, but it represents about 7 months of groceries to an average family of four. It buys about 8 months of rent for that family. It pays three-fourths of a year's tuition and fees at a community college. It is a matter of enormous importance and it is a matter of critical need for working families. When you come right down to it, this issue is really about dignity. It is about dignity for individuals who can pay their bills. It is about dignity for people who don't have to go on welfare. It is the dignity of a family knowing they will not have their electricity or their water turned off because they can't pay the bill. Raising the minimum wage is really about dignity. It is about a sense of pride. It is the way parents look at children and the way children look at parents. This is an issue of fairness, an issue of whether we as a society honor work, for people who will work and want to work; those people who are the child-care helpers, the teachers' aides in our schools. We talk a great deal about education. Teachers' aides are important. Many of them earn the minimum wage. We talk about the importance of Medicare and Medicaid and making sure that our parents are going to be able to live in dignity. Much of that dignity is provided for by health aides who earn the minimum wage. The men and women who clean office buildings at nighttime, by and large, are minimum-wage earners. These are people who have a sense of dignity and pride in themselves, as they should. This is an issue of fundamental fairness. In the past, this body has responded. It has responded at other times when the minimum wage has sunk this low. It has responded with Republican and Democratic leadership, with Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents, alike. But we are now being told by the Republican leadership that we are going to be denied the opportunity even to address this issue on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We are told, ``We will not give you the time.'' We will not have that debate tonight, here in the U.S. Senate, and vote at 10 o'clock tonight. What is more important to the 12 million Americans who would benefit from an increase than a debate this evening and a vote at 10 o'clock tonight? I can understand that many of my Republican colleagues don't want to vote on this issue. But that isn't a good enough reason. We are sent here to make choices. This is a choice that ought to be made in the light of day, or even in the evening, but it ought to be made here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Parliamentary tricks should not be used to deny us the opportunity to address it. This is not a complicated issue, involving constitutional questions. This is a simple issue of fairness and justice. The Members of this body know it. The Members of this body understand it. We don't need any more hearings on this issue. People know what this issue is all about. It is simple and plain: Here in the U.S. Senate, are we going to take steps that will guarantee some fairness to American workers who need that increase and have been falling further and further behind? Are we going to say, as a society, that we are all going to move together, that we have a sense of common purpose and common direction? Will we make sure that our fellow citizens can participate in this extraordinary economic expansion? Or are we going to say, no, we will let you stay out there in the cold, we won't even debate any kind of increase? Sure, you are providing for your kids, but we will not even permit the U.S. Senate the opportunity to debate this and vote on this, up or down; up or down. Mr. President, that is why this issue is so important. I believe it is one of fundamental fairness. It is a defining issue. It has been a defining issue at other times, and it is at this time. I am hopeful that we could have a time to debate this issue. We are not interested in prolonged debate and discussion. As I mentioned, we would settle for a reasonable period of time to debate this and have a vote. It is not a complex issue. We are going to continue to pursue it because we believe it is right and it is just and it is fair. Those are values which I think most of us were sent here to uphold in the U.S. Senate. How much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Boston University School of Medicine on its 150 anniversary. The School of Medicine has a long and distinguished history, and I am proud to join in paying tribute to its remarkable leadership for the city of Boston and the nation. Boston University School of Medicine was founded in 1848 as the New England Female Medical College, and was the first institution in the world to offer medical education to women. In 1864, the school graduated its first African-American female physician, Rebecca Lee. In 1873, Boston University merged with the New England Female Medical College to establish a co-educational School of Medicine. In addition to being the first medical school to graduate women, Boston University School of Medicine was also the first school to establish Home Medical Services, an educational and patient care service that continues today. The School of Medicine has constantly introduced innovations in medical education and played a central role in developing the Boston University School of Public Health. Down through the years, Boston University School of Medicine has provided outstanding service to our community. It is renowned for its clinical care and its professional training in a vast network of affiliated hospitals including Boston Medical Center, community health centers, and physicians' offices. In 1995, this commitment to service earned the school the Association of American Medical College's Outstanding Community Service Award. Mr. President, I congratulate Boston University School of Medicine on its 150 years of excellence, and I know that its outstanding tradition, professional commitment, and community service will continue in the years ahead.