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| Kansas Senators Are Disappointing |
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| Opinion | |||
| Written by Travis Perry | |||
| Wednesday, 21 October 2009 07:00 | |||
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Most people know Al Franken for his jokes rather than his serious nature, but on Oct. 1 the junior senator from Minnesota brought up an amendment that was no laughing matter. Specifically, Franken proposed an amendment to a bill passed through the House of Representatives, HR 3326, or the 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. The change Franken introduced addressed a serious issue in regard to companies that receive funding from the Defense Department — namely the fact that some require employees to sign private arbitration contracts.  Jamie Lee Jones said she was drugged and gang-raped by co-workers while working for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, in Iraq in 2005. After bringing claims of the incident to her employer, she alleged, she was locked in a shipping container with no communication, food or water. She said she eventually persuaded one of her guards to lend her a cell phone, which she used to call for help, eventually leading to intervention and release by way of the U.S. Embassy. Army doctors who examined Jones concluded that she had been raped. Unfortunately, KBR said Jones couldn’t bring the case to court because of a stipulation in her employment contract that sexual assault claims can only be heard in private arbitration. It is because of this that Franken brought the amendment before the Senate. What is disappointing, though, is that 30 senators voted against the measure. Among them was Kansas’ own Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts. The opposition levied by the 30 men, all Republicans, circled mainly around criticism that the amendment was too broad in some aspects and that it amounted to a political attack on Halliburton and its subsidiaries. “This amendment does not single out a single contractor,” Franken said from the Senate floor. “This amendment would de-fund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court.” Essentially, the amendment as proposed would prevent the Defense Department from contracting with organizations who make employees sign arbitration contracts for claims such as “sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, negligent hiring, supervision or retention.” When contacted for comment, a spokesman for Brownback said with the way Franken explained the amendment, not only would defense contractors be affected, but also subcontractors and any other company that dealt with those organizations. Although I called several times in the last week, I failed to receive a response from Roberts. Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought any good law had an appropriate level of broadness to it so it isn’t equated to a targeted attack on a single entity. The Brownback spokesman said that the amendment would extend to companies like IBM and AT&T as well. Fair enough, but even so, do we really want any organization receiving government funding, regardless of which department it is coming from, that employs such reprehensible policies with its employees? I know I don’t. The spokesman also said Brownback had two other motives for voting against the amendment. The first was that the amendment wouldn’t affect the case of Jones. This is inexcusable reasoning. Laws are created because of unacceptable actions that have occurred in the past in order to prevent them from happening in the future. That’s kind of the point. His second was that regardless of what an employee contract states, acts like rape will find their way into court. In my experience, that one little barrier is sometimes all it takes to discourage some Americans from taking legal action or being aware that they are able to take legal action. In any case, allowing a company to tell an employee he or she cannot sue if they are abused, harassed or battered is unacceptable, and the practice should be punished. I salute the vast majority of the Senate, which did vote for the amendment. Companies who practice these policies should be ridiculed, not awarded government funding.
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