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President Barack Hussein Obama is as guilty as Senator John Thune of protecting gang rapists. The Pentagon supported the position of 30 Republican Senators in opposing the Franken amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would deny federal contracts to companies that try forcing employees to sign contracts surrendering their legal right to take their employer to court for workplace abuse like the gang rape and imprisonment Jamie Leigh Jones says she experienced at the hands of her Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad in 2005.
The Department of Defense gave this reason for opposing the amendment:
“The Department of Defense, the prime contractor, and higher tier subcontractors may not be in a position to know about such things. Enforcement would be problematic, especially in cases where privity of contract does not exist between parties within the supply chain that supports a contract,” reads the DoD note. “It may be more effective to seek a statutory prohibition of all such arrangements in any business transaction entered into within the jurisdiction of the United States, if these arrangements are deemed to pose an unacceptable method of recourse” [Araminta Wordsworth, "Thirty Senators and the Jamie Leigh Jones Rape Case," National Post, 2009.10.21]
Now I might split hairs a little, noting that DoD's reasoning is different from that of Senator Thune and his free-market fundamentalist colleagues. The Obama Administration dances in technicalities but then grants that it might be better to ban forced arbitration in all contracts—that's an idea worth considering!
Senator Thune, however, frets over removing arbitration as a "tool available for labor and management to use when it comes to labor agreements..." except, of course, when labor might benefit from using that tool. As Think Progress points out, Thune's excuse on his Franken Amendment vote is all hypocrisy:
While Thune is committed to the principle that corporations have the right to use binding arbitration to muzzle victims of rape, he has long argued against the use of arbitrators in regards to reforming how unions sign labor contracts. In fact, Thune has fashioned himself a chief opponent of the Employee Free Choice Act simply because of arbitration. Arbitration is a part of EFCA because, all too often, when employees vote to form a union, they still can’t get a first contract due to their employer’s delay tactics. However, Thune has argued that the most “egregious” provision of EFCA is arbitration. Arbitration to help unions form contracts with their employers, Thune argues, would “kill jobs” and hurt “every American business, both large and small” [Lee Fang, "Thune Offers Weak And Hypocritical Argument For Voting Against Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment," Think Progress, 2009.10.21].
President Obama deserves serious criticism for letting his Defense Department take the wrong side on the issue of federal defense contractors, arbitration, and protecting women. So does Senator Thune.
I would argue that our defense contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan need to be held to a higher standard of responsibility for screening and monitoring their employees abroad because those employees are not held legally accountable for their actions. They fall under the jurisdiction of neither the U.S. justice system nor the host country justice system. Therefore, these contractors have a high level of responsibility for screening and monitoring their employees and should have zero-tolerance policies for ANY form of assault or harrassment.
ReplyDeleteDale E. Tozier
Oregon
Cory,
ReplyDeleteYou now include Barack Obama in the lie that their position is based solely on the motivation to protect gang rapists. You include two good reasons, other than protecting gang rapists, for opposing this legislation, but refuse to accept them as you refuse to acknowledge that the gang rape aspect is being dealt with in federal court. Your Progressive anti-American, anti-military, and anti-capitalism worldview has made you delusional and incapable of understanding the truth...the rape allegation is being dealt with by the courts. This legislation was put together in order to get an emotional vote based on a lie by Franken. Not very funny.
I have updated my post in regard to this issue, and also agree that this should be covered by the media, but in a responsible way. Hope you will soon come to your senses.
Defense contractors should be subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If a contractor is unwilling to subject themselves and their employees to the UCMJ then the contract should be refused.
ReplyDeleteCory, an employer refusing to enter into a contract of employment with somebody unless they sign off to binding arbitration is not the same as a union demanding power it has no intrinsic right to.
ReplyDeleteIf the union lacks the influence to bring the company to the table the company has no interest in relinquishing its authority. Why should the employees have any faith in a weak union?
EFCA - because union thugs need work too
Nick: sounds like another good reason we should fight our wars with our military rather than with the lowest private bidder.
ReplyDeleteI give Sibby love, and he still calls me a liar. Oh woe is me.
ReplyDeleteCory,
ReplyDeleteAddress the facts, and leave out the emotions. The truth is what is important here.