Fixing a Civil-Rights Wrong : Congress has a chance to remedy Alaska cannery outrage

Why are 2,000 Alaskan cannery workers of Filipino, Samoan, Chinese, Japanese and Alaska Native descent unable to seek all the protections provided by the Civil Rights Act of 1991? Because the state’s two senators--Republicans Frank H. Murkowski and Ted Stevens--succeeded in attaching to the act an amendment that bars the workers from suing the Wards Cove Co. cannery for alleged discriminatory employment practices. Congress was derelict in agreeing to this egregious exemption. The amendment robs the workers of civil rights protections available to other Americans.

In 1974, Frank Atonio, a U.S. citizen of Samoan descent, filed what became a class action suit alleging discrimination in Wards Cove’s racially segregated housing, mess facilities, recruitment and jobs. A 1989 Supreme Court ruling in the case made it harder for minorities to challenge job discrimination. Ironically, that ruling helped generate support for the Civil Rights Act, which restored longstanding protections against job discrimination.

For three years there has been an effort under way to end the unfair exemption against the Wards Cove workers. The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee recently cleared legislation known as the Justice for the Wards Cove Workers Act. Now Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) must quickly bring the bill up for a full vote, before this session ends. The House then would take up the measure.

If the bill is sent to the Senate floor, there are fears of a filibuster by Murkowski, the author of the unconscionable exemption. Championing such an injustice would suggest that the senator from Alaska had forgotten that it is his duty to represent all of his constituents. The Wards Cove workers deserve equal protection under the law.