Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (Senate - October 01, 2009)

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AMENDMENTS NOS. 2588, 2596, 2585, AND 2566, EN BLOC

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and on behalf of myself and Senators Bond and Coburn, I call up the following amendments en bloc, and ask that once they have been reported by number, they be set aside.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. FRANKEN. I call up amendments Nos. 2588, 2596, 2585, and 2566.

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AMENDMENT NO. 2588

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, the amendment I offer today is inspired by the courageous story of a young woman who has dedicated 4 years of her life to making sure no other woman lives through her nightmare.

Four years ago at the age of 19, Ms. Jamie Leigh Jones signed a contract to become an employee of KBR, then a Halliburton subsidiary. That contract contained a clause which required her to arbitrate any future dispute against her employer--this means to force her to give up her right to seek redress in court if she was wronged. At the time, Ms. Jones had no idea what implications this seemingly innocuous fine-print clause would have.

Ms. Jones arrived in Iraq in July of 2005. Immediately, she complained to supervisors about the hostile conditions imposed by KBR. She was constantly being harassed by her male colleagues and was housed in barracks with 400 men and only a few women. Her pleas for safer housing were ignored.

Four days after her arrival, Ms. Jones was drugged and gang-raped. She requested medical attention, and a doctor administered a rape kit. Parts of that rape kit have since mysteriously disappeared.

After Ms. Jones reported the rape to her supervisors, she was locked in a shipping container with an armed guard and prohibited any contact with the outside world. They locked her in a container. It was only after she convinced one of the guards to lend her a cell phone that she was able to talk to her father, who enlisted the help of Representative Ted Poe, a Republican Congressman from Texas, to arrange for her safe return to the United States.

But Ms. Jones' horrific plight did not end there. Having survived this ordeal, most of us would expect that she would have had her day in court to seek justice for the actions and inactions of her employer. Instead, KBR sought to enforce the arbitration clause in Ms. Jones' contract and tried to force her into arbitration. So over the past 3 years, Ms. Jones has been fighting for her right to bring a lawsuit, and KBR has been fighting her every step along the way.

This is simply too long for a rape victim to wait, just to have her day in court.

The only thing more outrageous than KBR's actions is that Ms. Jones' story is not an isolated one. Since Ms. Jones courageously shared her story, many more women have come out of the shadows saying the same thing happened to them. And, yes, some of these women are still waiting for their day in court too. Others were forced into arbitration, and their outcome remains secret due to the nondisclosure clauses in the arbitration agreement.

Arbitration has its place in our justice system. For two companies haggling over the price of goods, arbitration is an efficient forum, and the arbitrator will undoubtedly have the appropriate expertise. The privacy that arbitration offers can protect their proprietary business information. But arbitration has its limits. Arbitration is conducted behind closed doors and doesn't bring persistent, recurring, and egregious problems to the attention of the public. Arbitration doesn't ever allow a jury of your peers. Arbitration doesn't establish important precedent that can be used in later cases.

Many of our Nation's most cherished civil rights were established by individuals bringing claims in court, the court ruling in their favor, and then extending the protection of those rights to anyone in a similar situation. Arbitration does have a place in our system, but handling claims of sexual assault and egregious violations of civil rights is not its place.

Ms. Jones won a small but important victory just a few weeks ago. The conservative Fifth Circuit Court, encompassing Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, ruled that most of Ms. Jones' claims do not belong in arbitration, and she is entitled to her day in court. The Fifth Circuit ruled that even when you sign an employment contract requiring arbitration, there are some rights to sue your employer that can't be signed away. These include assault and battery, infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, and negligent hiring, retention, and supervision. But the Fifth Circuit's ruling only applies to the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction, so it is not settled law throughout the United States. Who can say what might happen to claims filed in other circuits?

My amendment seeks to extend much of the Fifth Circuit's reasoning to government contractors who continually subject workers to these so-called mandatory arbitration clauses. The government shouldn't be doing business with defense contractors such as KBR as long as they continue this practice.

The amendment I am offering today seeks to narrowly target the most egregious violations. The amendment applies to defense contracts, many of which are administered abroad, where women are the most vulnerable and least likely to have support resources. The amendment will apply to many contractors that have already demonstrated their incompetence in efficiently carrying out defense contracts and have further demonstrated their unwillingness and their inability to protect women from sexual assault.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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