Date: 1998-05-20
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. reclaiming my time. my colleague has made an important distinction that I think is important for this Congress to keep in mind. and that is that many people think that this debate is about whether we support labor .unions or not. and it really is not that at all. There is a huge division among people associated with labor unions on paycheck protection. There are those who are the rank and file hardworking union members who join labor unions because they desire collective bargaining. they want agency representation. they want the many benefits associated with labor unions. but they want to have some say in how their wages are used when it comes to politics. That is one subset of the overall union organization that has a position on this issue that agrees with my colleague and I. The other half of the equation. though. is the union bosses. those who work their way up the union hierarchy and become the managers. in fact the players. on a political level of distributing political cash for their advantages. There are many political bosses I am sure. and I have met some of them. who are genuine in their desire to represent their union to back political causes that are in the best interest of creating jobs and workplace security for their members. But when we start reading headlines about Teamster Union members indited. the president of the Teamsters Union being disqualified from carrying on his job. That was Teamster President Ron Carey and James Hoffa.. Jr. And now Iguess there is going to be another election and Hoffa is clear to run. This is just in the Teamsters Union. In this article. this was in the Washington Times not long ago. there is an individual who was an accountant or the comptroller of union funds was charged with embezzlement. conspiracy. wire fraud. mail fraud. perjury. making false statements to a Federal election officer. If convicted. he faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines. This is a different group of people that we are talking about who oppose the Paycheck Protection Act. And this is the reason why. they have a tremendous amount of cash at their disposal and it buys them certain favors with Members of Congress. It buys them easy access to meetings that go on here in Washington. It buys them friendship with those who are inclined to listen to these particular individuals. But again. these kinds of people who are at the union boss level. the ones who are in the business of being political insiders are very. very different from the people that my colleague will and I represent. the ones that we care about and the ones that we fight for and speak for here on the House floor. those individuals who are actually doing the hard work of driving the American economy. the ones who work 40 hours or more per week. who are very skilled and very dedicated to economic prosperity in our country. who have families. who go to church. who enjoy their constitutional rights. who enjoy full participation in our community as real leaders and friends and neighbors. But the last thing they want from this Congress or from anyone else is to allow a set of laws to continue on our books that allows union bosses to steal cash from the paychecks of hardworking Americans. I am really looking forward to this debate coming up here in the next few days so that the American people can see whether this Congress is really going to stand with the rank and file hardworking Americans or whether it is going to choose the few union bosses. I regret to say that the last time this question came up the -political stakes were very. very high here. And those lobbyists running around the hallway representing the union bosses. they were very persuasive with a large number of Members of our Congress. So I am hopeful that the American people will put their collective foot down this week and just say enough is enough. Politics in America should be voluntary. It is the one time when everyday rank and file citizens are in charge of their government. It is when they elect somebody to go to Washington and when they put their dollars behind their candidacy. People want to know that their dollars matter. that their political participation really counts. that their candidates. their elected officials listen to them. But they do not want to hear. as we do today. and I will going through those graphs again perhaps. they. do not want to hear that their message is getting confused and distorted by a handful of political insiders who use hardearned cash as though it were monopoly money.