Al Franken, champion of rape victims. Image courtesy of zzzlist.
Dawn Leamon and Jamie Leigh Jones were two ordinary American women who only wanted an honest job for honest pay; they had no way of knowing that they were about to make the worst decision of their lives. Leamon and Jones, two contractors operating in Iraq, were both victims of rape while working overseas. In Jones’ case, she was gang-raped and abandoned in a shipping container by her perpetrators for 24 hours without food or water. But their coworkers were never charged with these heinous crimes, shielded not only by various government entities but also their employers.
With support from the U.S. Treasury and protection from a shield of patriotism, defense contractors have obtained a superman-like gall best demonstrated by their conditions for employment. Several contractors, like Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), require their employees to sign off on submitting to binding private arbitration in disputes with the contractors instead of bringing complaints to public courts. Here is an example, taken from a sample contract, of what such a clause in a KBR contract would look like:
5.6. It is the mutual intention of the parties to have any dispute concerning this Agreement resolved out of court …The parties agree that the resolution of any such dispute through such Plan shall be final and binding.
These “disputes” include allegations of sexual assault—something women like Leamon and Jones probably could not have anticipated. Unfortunately for them, it is also something the Department of Defense did not question. Cases of defense contractors, like Leamon and Jones, being raped by fellow employees in Iraq went unprosecuted by the Justice Department. This inactivity wasn’t challenged until a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in April 2008. At this hearing the Department of Defense claimed they couldn’t prosecute these cases because of the contracts employees had signed (even though their clauses only prevented civil suits). The Committee’s opinion? The DOJ and DOD were essentially wrong, and that someone should do something about these contracts.
A year later, new Senator Al Franken took this cue to propose his first piece of legislation — an amendment to H.R. 3326, the Department of Defense budget for 2010. The amendment curtails defense contractors’ use of arbitration in sexual assault and other disputes:
Sec. 8104. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any existing or new Federal contract if the contractor or a subcontractor at any tier requires that an employee or independent contractor, as a condition of employment, sign a contract that mandates that the employee or independent contractor performing work under the contract or subcontract resolve through arbitration any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention.
The roll call vote on this amendment occurred with little debate on October 6. Franken made his case well enough to sway (if there indeed was any doubt in their minds in the first place) 68 senators to approve. Senator Jefferson Sessions of Alabama, along with 29 other Republican Senators, voiced his disapproval for the amendment. Sen. Sessions offered an explanation for his “nay” vote, arguing:
The amendment would impose the will of Congress on private individuals and companies in a retroactive fashion, invalidating employment contracts without due process of law. It is a political amendment, really at bottom, representing sort of a political attack directed at Halliburton, which is politically a matter of sensitivity… Senator Franken offered this amendment because he apparently does not like the fact there are arbitration agreements in employment contracts.
Sen. Sessions goes on to offer a long explanation of a Supreme Court case on arbitration agreements, quoting Justice Kennedy, and then surmises a very judge-like opinion:
We do not have any allegations that the contracts Senator Franken is trying to invalidate were imposed on employees or that fraud or coercion was involved in creating them. To invalidate these contracts would violate not only the due process rights of employers but the employees as well. Employees could, indeed, benefit from arbitration rather than having to go to Federal court.
I am pretty sure that Dawn Leamon, Jamie Leigh Jones and the hundreds of other women who haven’t received justice for the lewd acts they survived while working in Iraq aren’t “benefit[ing] from arbitration.” They want to be able to sue their employers for not handling their “disputes” properly. It is true that they signed the very contracts that now have them in such a bind, but not only do very few people actually read the contracts, no one could predict all the situations the term “disputes” could possibly apply to, including in this case rape and sexual assault.
Some blogs demonize Senator Sessions and the 29 Senators who also voted against the amendment, saying the lawmakers “in essence voted ‘YES’ to rape.” I can curse Republican Senators as much as the next liberal, but clearly they do not support rape. They simply chose a horrible way to exhibit their disapproval of Senator Franken by opposing a necessary change to unjust employment contracts. Their choice reveals a disturbing trend in Congress of opposition to the rival party trumping all.
