[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 187 (Wednesday, November 15, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H9259-H9260]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                A TRUE STORY FROM SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to tell you a true story from 
Scranton, Pennsylvania.
  When Matty Loftus got out of the Army in 1970, he went to work for 
the TV tube plant in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, just north of Scranton. At 
the time, it was owned by RCA and later became Thompson Consumer 
Electronics.
  Matty Loftus was 19 years old, and this was a great job, 
manufacturing picture tubes where a lot of great people worked, as many 
as 1,600 men and women. The pay was good; the benefits were excellent. 
They were union jobs, and the picture tubes they put together were so 
good, this company was able to sell them to Sony in Japan.
  The people working at this plant were a community. They had wonderful 
company picnics. They had a softball league. They organized holiday 
parties for the kids and fishing derbies. Matty Loftus worked there for 
30 years. He was able to raise four children on his salary alone.
  Chuck Lampman is the same age as Matty Loftus, and they are friends. 
Chuck went to work for the RCA plant in 1972 when he was 21. He started 
in production, and he loved that job, too. He says: We were making the 
Cadillac of American televisions. By the year 2000, we were already 
starting to make the first generation of flat screen TV panels.
  Around that time, Thompson won a worldwide award for making the best 
27-inch TVs in the world, and everybody at the plant was so proud. 
Chuck says: That wasn't just a job; that was a way of life.
  John O'Hearn got out of high school in 1975. He got a job at the TV 
plant right away. He worked production at first, but then he got bumped 
up into the machine shop. He made lifelong friends at that factory.
  In 1994, NAFTA went into effect. Matty, Chuck, and John, they knew 
about it, but they didn't think too much about it. John remembers 
people in the machine shop who were interested in politics arguing over 
the effects of NAFTA.

[[Page H9260]]

  Through the nineties, these men and women were working the factory 
24/7 in three shifts, putting out over 2 million picture tubes a year. 
They used to say: They will never close us down. We make this company 
too much money.
  And then it came, May of 2001. Management called everybody into the 
plant and gave them the news. The plant was closing in August, 3 months 
from then, because they were moving to Mexico.
  People were shocked. Nobody saw this coming. They tried to negotiate 
with the company, and Matty and Chuck remember the answer. It was: Are 
you willing to take a $13-an-hour pay cut and work for $3.25 an hour?
  Matty remembers the pride that these people had at the plant working 
the last few months, the pride that they did their jobs with. There was 
no vandalism. There were no work stoppages, no slowdowns. They finished 
out their jobs showing the pride in the work that they had had for a 
generation. He remembers the tears on that last day and how people 
passed out lists of names and phone numbers so they could all stay in 
touch.
  Chuck remembers on the last day how that trophy for the best 27-inch 
TV tube was still in the company lobby.
  All three of them remember the aftermath. They remember the divorces. 
They remember the suicides.
  Matty still had two daughters in public school. He went through his 
family savings, and he had to cash in some of his retirement money, 
take the penalty. Now he works as a security guard making $10 an hour. 
He is 66, and he can't afford to retire.

  Chuck was out of work for years, and eventually he found a job making 
half the money. He is also 66, and he can't retire.
  John can't forget having to tell his daughter, Lindsey, in May 2001 
he was losing his job. She was in tears. She was graduating high school 
the next month. She wanted to go to college.
  When Chuck found out the current Republican tax plan is to drop 
corporate tax to 20 percent for companies doing business in America but 
to 10 percent for American companies doing business overseas, this is 
what he said: Haven't we lost enough already under NAFTA? Now you are 
going to reward companies for shipping more jobs overseas?
  Mr. Speaker, this tax bill will ship more jobs overseas. This bill 
stinks, and I won't vote for it.

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