[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 130 (Tuesday, September 6, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5328-S5329]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ECONOMY
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, yesterday I was in Cincinnati, OH.
Terralift has the largest Labor Day gathering in the United States of
America by 15,000, 20,000, around Coney Island and just southeast of
Cincinnati, not far from the Ohio River. They have a picnic every year
celebrating workers, not just organized workers but workers generally.
I met a woman there by the name of Lillian Brayhound, and Ms.
Brayhound was wearing a t-shirt that said ``Service Employees
International Union.'' I asked her where she works, and she said she is
a custodian in downtown Cincinnati. And I remember that 3 or 4 years
ago I was at a dinner, and there was a group of workers, all middle-
aged women, mostly minorities, mostly African American, a couple Latino
women, and they had just signed their first union contract to represent
the custodians in downtown Cincinnati office buildings.
I sat down at this table, and I said: What does this new union
contract mean to you, to the workers there?
A 50-year-old woman turned to me and she said: This is the first time
in my life I have ever had a paid week vacation.
Think about that: This is the first time in my life I have ever had a
paid week vacation. That was because those workers, each of them
working separately before for a building owner in a downtown Cincinnati
office building, had gotten together, had voted to join a union, had
the right to organize and bargain collectively. They still weren't
getting rich. They still weren't making more than, I believe, if I
recall, $10 or $11 an hour. But now they had a bit of a pension, now
they had health care, and now they had a chance to actually earn a 1-
week vacation, something many, many workers in America don't have the
opportunity for. And when I hear people say: Well, unions meant
something in the past, but they have outlived their usefulness, that
really tells you what that is all about.
We celebrate that on Labor Day, but we also know the union movement
is under attack. We look at what has happened in the Ohio Statehouse,
where legislators in Columbus, most of whom were elected by talking
about lost jobs in large part because of what happened in the Bush
administration and the 8 years previously, but people who were very
unhappy, as they have a right to be, as they should be, because of lost
jobs, but what they have done is, after getting elected, they have gone
after collective bargaining rights, worker rights. They have attacked
voter rights. They have attacked in far too many cases women's rights.
Let's be clear. It is not teachers and firefighters and police
officers who caused Ohio's budget deficit. It is not teachers and
firefighters and police officers who caused this financial implosion
our Nation has. Look at the history. It has been tax cuts for the
wealthy; it has been reckless spending, overspending on corporate
welfare, overspending on all kinds of things; it has been regulatory
sleepwalking that has left our economy in ruins. As a result, we have a
widening income gap, with wages generally stagnant for the last decade
for middle-class and working-class voter citizens, wages stagnating or
declining for most of the workforce but salaries and bonuses going up
for people who are the most privileged, the bankers and wealthy
executives and CEOs.
Robert Reich recently pointed out that the 5 percent of Americans
with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumption.
Reich points out that when income is concentrated at the top, the
middle class doesn't have enough purchasing power to pull themselves
out of this recession our economy suffers. The wealthiest people can
only spend so much. If the middle class has their wages stagnant or
actually decline, there simply isn't the purchasing power we need to
create the demand to grow our economy. Our economy has been most
prosperous when the middle class is thriving rather than when we have
these huge gaps in income.
Today we have lost the consensus that our Nation's prosperity was
tied to a thriving middle class, where opportunity was afforded to
those seeking to join it.
We used to see that consensus on manufacturing, where an economy
built wealth and built strong communities for millions of Americans
around production. You only create wealth by mining, by agriculture--
growing something--and by manufacturing. Yet we
[[Page S5329]]
have seen what has happened to manufacturing jobs in Ohio. Ohio is
still the largest manufacturing State in the country, below only Texas,
twice our size, and California, three times our size. We still put out
a lot of production. There is a lot of productive capacity in Ohio and
a lot of production. But 30 years ago, 26, 27 percent of our GDP was
manufacturing and about 10 percent was financial services. Those
manufacturing jobs created wealth for a lot of middle-class families.
Kids could go to college, they could buy a home or a car or two in so
many cases. Today what used to be more than a quarter of our GDP in
manufacturing and only 10 percent in financial services has flipped so
today only about 10 percent of our GDP is manufacturing.
We know what that has done. Yet some of my Senate colleagues do not
want to extend the payroll tax. In many ways, it seems they will
essentially will go on strike to prevent the wealthiest in America from
paying a penny more. I hope that changes now that we are back from the
August break and we are listening to what voters, what citizens at home
are talking about.
Mr. President, let me share a couple of letters from people in Ohio,
a couple of stories. Then I know Senator Durbin wants to address the
Senate.
Last April, I met with workers at Navistar in Springfield, OH, who
are building next-generation military and commercial vehicles. The
plant's production is up because a company and a community came
together, forging compromise between the union and employer to keep
jobs and increase production. We see it across Ohio. At the other end
of our State, at Arcelor Mittal's plant--a big steel maker near
Cleveland--for every 1 person-hour, 1 ton of steel is produced. To my
understanding, we have never seen that kind of productivity anywhere
else in the world. They are the most productive steelworkers in the
world, able to produce 1 ton of steel for 1 man-hour, 1 woman-hour
invested. We see it at the Lima Tank Plant and at the GE Aviation Plant
in Evendale. It is a story we see down in Piketon. We see it in towns
across Ohio, where the ``Made in Ohio'' or ``Made in America'' is
stamped on everything from airplanes to auto parts.
I got a letter from David from Akron. He said:
I am a firefighter/paramedic for the city of Akron. For 11
years I have put the safety and well-being of my community
above mine.
I am a proud member of my local union, I am married to a
high school English teacher. When I took the job I was told
my life expectancy would be 10 years less than that of the
average man. As a paramedic I do my job all hours of the
night, all days of the week, 24 hours at a time. I miss
birthdays, holidays, celebrations and much more. I have never
complained until now.
As our country tries to recover from very hard times, I
understand there is a need for reform. It is easy to think
about what someone else has and how it is not fair. My wife
and I worked hard to get where we are. No one has handed it
to us. That is what I love about our country, if you are
willing to work for something then you can be successful.
Public employees are once again asked to make sacrifices.
He is not arguing he will not make sacrifices. But to attack public
employees with all that has happened in Ohio, to imply that they are
not doing their jobs, they are all slackers, is too much for people who
have given so much of their lives serving the public.
This last letter I will read is from Anestis from Canton, OH, a
teacher.
My father was a teacher in Canton City schools from 1953 to
1989. He and my mother raised 6 children, of whom I am the
youngest. He taught and coached three sports from the time he
received his job until he retired. He went to school on the
GI bill after World War II. He could have earned a degree in
anything, but he chose teaching because he sincerely wanted
to earn a living through the hard, honest work of teaching
and helping children.
Both of my grandparents were Greek immigrants who came to
this country in 1913 and 1920 through Ellis Island to escape
the suppression in their counties and better their lives. My
grandfathers worked in the factories in Canton so their
children could have an education and better their lives.
I have been teaching for 17 years. My father went on strike
in the 1970's so we can now have collective bargaining, and I
wouldn't be here today [if it were not for that]. Their work
ethic and values of fair play helped my parents raise their
children on a teacher's salary. If our rights are taken away,
I cannot raise my own family--or educate our children.
Going the next step, a number of teachers and a number of college
students have told me they are watching some young teachers, they are
watching some of their classmates who planned to become teachers or
just started their careers in the classroom and they are having second
thoughts when they see conservative elected officials attack their
profession of public schoolteachers or attack the profession of
firefighters or police officers, all because they have a radical
political agenda that wants to end the practice of organizing and
bargaining collectively. It is a disservice to our country. We know we
have a middle class because large numbers of workers--mostly private
sector, some public sector--have had the ability under law to organize
and bargain collectively. That is what built the middle class. It is
not something we should give up lightly.
That is what I heard all over Ohio in the last couple of months. I
assume I will hear it for the next couple of months. It is so important
to our country that the focus here be on jobs, the focus here be on
living-wage jobs, the focus here be on giving opportunities so
Americans can stay in the middle class or have the opportunity to join
the middle class.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
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