[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 51 (Wednesday, May 3, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H2087-H2088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  LOCKOUT AT MERIDIAN AUTOMOTIVE PLANT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I first of all commend my colleagues, 
Linda Sanchez of California, Mr. Lynch, Mr. Strickland, for continuing 
the fight for free trade in this country, fighting for jobs, fighting 
to protect American jobs and protect American communities. There are 
not nearly enough voices in this Chamber for fair trade policies, and I 
thank them for their courage and their outspokenness.
  Two nights ago, I stood on Route 32 in Jackson, Ohio, a small 
community in southeast Ohio, with more than a dozen workers outside a 
plant where many of them had worked for more than two decades. Husbands 
stood with wives; mothers and fathers joined the group. Some people 
brought their children. Generations of steelworkers from southern Ohio 
gathered to talk about their community and to talk about their family 
values and to talk about change.
  That night, we talked about their families and the children they have 
raised on a steelworker's union salary. We talked about the retirement 
security they helped invest in over the years and always assumed would 
be safe with the company that they thought they could trust, and we 
talked about the uncertain future they now face as they stood by the 
side of the road outside of the plant.

[[Page H2088]]

  The workers at the Meridian Automotive Plant in Jackson, Ohio, are 
not standing there tonight on Route 32 because they are on strike. They 
did not walk off the job.
  Despite being the most productive Meridian workers in three 
countries, in any of their plants in the U.S., in Michigan and Ohio and 
North Carolina and Mexico, these Ohio workers have been locked out of 
their jobs, abandoned by flawed trade policy, betrayed by their 
management, whom they trusted, and victimized by failed leadership in 
Washington, some of whom they have voted for.
  After NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, a dozen years 
ago opened the door to cheap labor in Mexico, corporations like 
Meridian shipped jobs to countries where they could cheat foreign 
workers of good health benefits and a retirement plan, and now they 
want to lower labor standards in Ohio.
  Meridian has tossed hardworking Ohioans on to the street literally 
along the road on Route 32 in Jackson to deny them health care and 
retirement plans that they have been investing in for decades.
  The CEO of Meridian lives in a $2 million mansion. His most 
productive workers in his company stand alongside of Route 32.
  Current U.S. trade policy rewards the outsourcing of Ohio jobs, 
encourages the exploitation of workers overseas and promotes the 
profiting of CEOs on the backs of workers and small businesses 
throughout our country.
  For too long, they have been told American jobs must fall victim to 
the necessary evils of globalization. We have been led to believe that 
our future is not in our hands. I do not buy that, and those workers 
alongside the road in Jackson, Ohio, do not buy that.
  That night, the workers and I talked about family values and the 
merits of hard work. We talked about their children. Some are in 
college. Some are about to go to college. Most thought they could go to 
college before the lockout. Some may not be able to go now.
  We talked about a steelworker's mother who had worked for years, who 
was part of the bargaining committee for the steelworkers, had deferred 
income so they would have a comfortable retirement, and that retirement 
is about to be taken away.
  We noted the parade of honking horns in support of the workers and 
the proof that the community in Ohio actually means something.
  They told me that people in the community brought food, brought water 
and, most importantly, brought with them encouragement for the locked 
out workers that wanted to be inside the plant working.
  That night, we talked about change. We talked about changing economic 
policies that allow management to pit worker against worker. We talked 
about changing trade policy that sells out our values for CEO mansions 
and private planes.
  We talked about the Exxon CEO who makes $18,000 an hour. These locked 
out workers have to figure out how to get anywhere on $3 a gallon of 
gas. We talked about a drug company executive whose stock plummeted 40 
percent since he was CEO but who took an $80 million package out the 
door with him.
  We agreed that it is time to change the future of Ohio by fighting 
for workers and families. It is time that an honest day's work in this 
country means a good day's pay. It is time to invest again in American 
workers and American small businesses and American communities. It is 
time to fight for family values.

                          ____________________