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Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, my amendment is very simple. It gives a preference to defense contractors who will remain neutral in union organizing. I say neutral--not pro and not con. Contractors who commit to remain neutral in organizing campaigns commit to not breaking strikes, and it gives preferences also to those who would have a union bargaining agreement. These are not requirements. These are preferences, the kind of preferences that we have for small businesses and that we have for veterans and a number of other preferences that are given.

Now, let's understand that we are talking about $422 billion in contracts that are given to businesses. By the way, small businesses also have a preference out of a $778 billion defense act. So these are big taxpayer expenditures that we are talking about.

It seems to me given that we want to make sure that workers are also acknowledged that we say that it would be a good thing if we don't have companies like Amazon, for example, that get a lot of money in defense contracts and spend a lot of money trying to make sure that workers cannot bargain collectively. So let's give preferences to those who actually do acknowledge workers. That is the only idea of this amendment.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that this has nothing to do with stifling the rights of companies to communicate. It does prevent them from harassing workers and preventing them from doing what they need to do. I just want to point out that there are companies that include UPS, Levi Strauss, AT&T, Verizon, and, most recently, Microsoft, that have these agreements.

Big companies do it. They can do it.

Let's protect workers and the rights of the companies as well. We can do both.

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