[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 161 (Thursday, December 13, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7999-S8000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to rise to express my deep sadness 
about the events in Michigan. Denied the chance to participate in their 
own government, Michigan workers have been the victims of backroom 
political trickery, and they have lost much in a short period of time. 
It is also a sad day, however, for our entire country because Michigan 
is only the latest battleground in a much larger war on workers' 
rights. If we lose this great battle, the casualty will be the American 
middle class.
  I have always said and believe that strong unions are the foundation 
of a strong middle class. When union membership was at its peak in this 
country, we all grew together. The middle class grew and prospered. 
Everyone, from the richest CEO to the minimum wage worker, benefited 
from our Nation's prosperity when labor union organization was at its 
peak.
  Michigan's economy has always been a shining example of that shared 
prosperity, where an autoworker who put in a hard day's work could earn 
enough not only to buy one of the cars he made but to buy a house, send 
his kids to college, take a nice vacation, have a good retirement, and 
live the American dream.
  As unions have declined in this country, the middle class has 
suffered. Those at the top earn more and more, while ordinary working 
people are seeing the American dream slip out of their reach.
  It is not just union workers who are losing ground because unions 
don't only benefit their members. They benefit each and every American 
worker, regardless of whether one has ever held a union card. It is 
unions that fought for all the things we sort of take for granted. It 
is unions that fought for the 40-hour work week, a fair minimum wage, 
laws against discrimination, and laws that keep workers safe on the 
job. It is unions that are fighting today for Medicare, Social 
Security, job training, and other programs that help working families 
succeed.
  I think it is important to go back to, truly the founding father, if 
you will, of the American labor movement, Samuel Gompers. He was asked 
once, ``What does labor want?'' Here is what he said:

       What does labor want?
       We want more school houses and less jails; more books and 
     less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and 
     less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of 
     the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.

  That was Samuel Gompers, and he went on to say:

       Where trade unions are most firmly organized, these are the 
     rights of the people most respected.

  Historically, we know that is true. Perhaps, most important now, 
America's labor unions are the last remaining voice strong enough to 
speak out for those who are not rich and not powerful. That is why they 
are under attack. Unions are under attack because they are one of the 
few remaining groups strong enough to stand up to the powerful, the 
very wealthy interests that want to run our country and ship our jobs 
overseas.
  Last Thursday, Governor Snyder of Michigan called a press conference 
with the Republican leaders in the Michigan House and Senate and 
announced their plans to force through a change in Michigan laws for 
the so-called right-to-work law.
  By the end of that same day, Republicans had introduced and passed 
right-to-work bills. There was no real debate. There were no hearings. 
To make matters worse, they manipulated the process to prevent the 
voters in Michigan from ever reviewing their actions. Why do I say 
that? Because Michigan law allows voter referendums on most laws but 
has an exception for appropriations bills. So the Republicans in the 
legislature attach their antilabor provisions to an appropriations bill 
to deny voters in Michigan the chance to even be heard on it.
  But here is the key thing about the American people, when we are 
fighting for our families and our children's future, we will not be 
bullied, nor will we be silenced. This week's events in Michigan 
illustrate this so powerfully. Ordinary working people with bills to 
pay, kids to feed, and worries on their minds are taking time out of 
their busy lives to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to say enough 
is enough.
  This is not, again, just about organized labor. There are huge stakes 
for the middle class in the ongoing Republican assault on the right of 
American workers to organize and bargain collectively. There is a very 
direct connection between this war on unions and the harsh reality that 
American workers' incomes have effectively stagnated and even declined 
in recent decades, even as corporate profits have skyrocketed.
  In an important column earlier this week, the Nobel Prize-winning 
economist, Paul Krugman, points out that even as the economy has 
struggled, corporate profits are at an alltime high. Moreover, as 
Professor Krugman points out, ``profits have surged as a share of 
national income, while wages and labor compensation are down. The pie 
isn't growing the way it should--but capital is doing fine by grabbing 
an ever-larger slice, at labor's expense.''
  As this chart shows, corporate profits have been rising rapidly for a 
decade in dollar terms, but wages have been stagnant, barely keeping up 
with inflation over time. In dollar terms, total wages have been 
increasing slightly, but that is because of inflation and the size of 
the workforce. A growing number of workers are dividing up their share 
of the pie. But corporate profits have been skyrocketing, almost 
tripling over a decade. Therefore, the worker's share gets smaller and 
smaller.
  This is what this second chart shows. It is kind of a little 
confusing, so I will explain it. If we look at a longer period of time 
in terms of the gross domestic product, what we see is that from the 
1950s till 2000, wages and corporate profits moved back and forth 
relative to each other. But since the 1980s, we see a picture of 
corporate profits increasing and exploding over the last decade. At the 
same time, wages and salaries have been on a steady downward slope as 
the economy has grown. As I said, this pattern has accelerated 
dramatically over the past decade.
  So let's take a look and try to make some sense out of this chart. 
Here are wages as a percent of the gross domestic product. If we look 
back at the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, up to about 1980, we will see that 
labor's share was right around 50 percent, give or take a little bit--
right around 50 percent of GDP--and corporate profits basically kept in 
line with its share. Beginning in 1980, wages--the red line--started 
going down and corporate profits started their huge climb. But for the 
recession, where they took a dip, we can see the huge increase now in 
corporate profits as a percent of GDP has more than doubled from its 
low point in the recession of a decade ago. It has reached its highest 
point in over 70 years. Wages have fallen down to below 44 percent of 
GDP.
  So as a percent, we can see that corporate profits have skyrocketed 
but not wages, and this is what is happening: More and more of the pie 
is going to corporate profits, and less and less is going to wages. 
That is the squeeze that is going on. If we look at unions and trade 
unions during this same period of time, we see, beginning right in 
here--beginning early in the 1980s, right in here--the huge attack on 
organized labor, the eroding of labor's rights in many ways, and so 
wages started going down.
  These are not just wages of union people. These are wages of all 
working people--all working people. That is why I say it is not just 
union members who have benefited from the strength of organized labor; 
everyone in the

[[Page S8000]]

middle class has benefited from it. Throughout most of the 20th century 
labor unions led the push for higher wages, for pensions, health care 
benefits, and safer working conditions. The gains won by unionized 
workers served to lift wages, benefits, and working conditions for 
nonunionized workers as well. Millions of middle-class Americans who 
never thought about joining a union have received very considerable 
benefits from the labor movement.
  I always ask people: How did we get the 40-hour workweek, time-and-a-
half overtime, paid vacations, worker safety? This didn't happen 
because management voluntarily gave it. People struggled for this. They 
fought for this, marched for this, and many got beat up, lost their 
jobs and their livelihoods fighting just for a 40-hour workweek or for 
time-and-a-half overtime or paid vacations. Yet it has benefited the 
entire middle class of America. That is why I say when the Republicans 
are doing an open assault on organized labor, they are assaulting the 
middle class of America. They are dragging down the middle class of 
America.
  As the war on unions has succeeded in dramatically shrinking the 
share that is unionized, this has reduced the ability of most workers 
across the entire economy to negotiate increases in wages and salaries. 
The result is the growing imbalance--skyrocketing corporate profits at 
a time when personal income is stagnant or declining. The fruits of the 
expanding economy have accrued overwhelmingly to corporations, their 
executives, executive pay, and shareholders, leaving workers behind.
  Despite skyrocketing profits, and despite the fact that corporations 
and shareholders have taken the lion's share of income from the growing 
GDP, corporations are still demanding lower rates of taxation and huge 
additional advantages regarding corporate taxes. So corporations get 
more and more of the GDP at the same time they say: We don't want to 
pay any more taxes; we want to pay less taxes. Corporations paid an 
average effective rate of just 7.9 percent in 2011--7.9 percent. Now, 
wasn't it Mr. Romney, the Republican nominee, who said corporations are 
people too? Well, I bet a lot of people in this country would like to 
pay 7.9 percent of their income in taxes. But the corporations are 
still not satisfied. They want even lower rates, even as the middle 
class and the poor are asked to make major sacrifices--major 
sacrifices--as we address the so-called fiscal cliff and the real 
deficit that we do have.
  Very high income Americans get most of their income from capital 
gains and dividends. The tax on that type of income is now 15 percent--
the lowest percentage since the 1930s. I repeat: Since the 1930s, the 
lowest percentage on capital gains and dividends is right now, at 15 
percent. But until 2003, dividends were taxed at the same rate as 
regular income. Now dividends are getting the same very generous 
treatment as capital gains, while regular income rates are now 35 
percent.
  So just think about that: It wasn't until 2003 when we said, OK, 
capital gains, dividends, 15 percent. Before dividends were always the 
same rate as regular income. So who gets that? The wealthy. Average 
working people don't have significant dividends or capital gains.
  Republicans claim that economic calamity will occur if those rates go 
up. But let's look at recent history. When the 1993 tax bill passed, 
every Republican here voted no. Many Senate Republicans predicted 
economic calamity if it passed. I was here. I remember those debates. 
You can look it up in the Record. However, in the 5 years after the 
passage of the Clinton tax bill in 1993, 14 million jobs were created. 
Contrasting that, in the 5 years after the 2001 tax bill passed--that 
lowered the regular rate to 35 percent--only 4 million jobs were 
created.
  Now, I am not saying raising taxes creates jobs, but raising tax 
rates does not kill jobs either. As we address the fiscal cliff, 
corporations and high-income individuals can afford to pay a greater, 
fairer share of Federal revenue. In recent years, they have seen their 
incomes grow by huge sums. It would be grossly unfair to shift the 
burden to the middle class, which has already been deprived of its fair 
share of the growing economic pie in recent decades.
  Mr. President, people in Washington are obsessing about what they 
call the fiscal cliff. Well, we do indeed face fiscal challenges in the 
future. But I am more concerned about the crisis of America's middle 
class--a middle class confronted by stagnant or declining wages, with 
jobs being shifted overseas and with traditional benefits, such as 
pensions and health insurance, being taken away.
  There is no doubt the debate over collective bargaining rights will 
continue--in Michigan and across the country--for months, probably 
years to come. While there is little I can do standing in the Senate to 
directly help the people of Michigan today, I wanted to come to the 
floor to tell them a lot of us stand with them, and we will stand with 
them tomorrow. A great injustice is being committed in the State of 
Michigan--again, not just against union members but against the middle 
class.
  I think we have to recognize what is happening in this country: an 
assault on union workers, on collective bargaining, and the assaults we 
have seen by my Republican friends on the National Labor Relations 
Board, the National Mediation Board--anything to take away from workers 
their right to bargain collectively.
  When you are a minimum-wage worker or just above, and you are working 
at Walmart, how much power do you think you have against the Walton 
family or their corporate executive? What, are they the second or third 
richest family in the world now? Do you think you have some bargaining 
power? You don't have anything. But if you are unionized, and you have 
all of the union members with you, now you can bargain. Now you get on 
a more even keel with wages and capital to make sure wages and capital 
don't get too far out of kilter.
  That is simply what has happened. Too much of our GDP in the last 30 
years has gone to capital and not enough to labor. When that happens, 
middle-class America suffers. When middle-class America suffers, we all 
suffer because we know from history, from our American experiment, the 
American economy grows best from the middle out, not from the top down.
  So, again, Mr. President, I feel sorry for those workers who were 
caught off guard in Michigan. I feel sorry for the middle class in 
Michigan--those whose rights are being undermined. But we stand 
steadfast in our support for the rights of working people and for the 
inherent--the inherent--right of people to be able to join together to 
form an association or a trade union and to bargain collectively for 
their wages, hours, and conditions of employment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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