[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2029-S2030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Equal Pay Day

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today for two 
reasons. Before discussing the nomination at hand--John Ring for the 
National Labor Relations Board--I do want to take a couple of minutes 
to mark Equal Pay Day.
  Today, it takes women more than 3 additional months to make what 
their male colleagues made in 2017. In the 21st century, there is 
absolutely no excuse for the reality that women are still being paid 
less than men for the same work. It is wrong, it is harmful, and it has 
to change.
  What is even more unacceptable is that for women of color, the pay 
gap is even worse. African-American women, working full time, only make 
63 cents for every dollar their White male colleagues make, and on 
average, Latinas earn 54 cents for every dollar their White male 
colleagues make.
  The wage gap doesn't hurt just women; it hurts families and our 
economy. Women are actually the sole or cobreadwinner in two-thirds of 
families with children. Families increasingly rely on women's wages to 
help make ends meet--to buy groceries, pay the bills, or pay for 
childcare.
  In order to help women and all working families get ahead, I am very 
proud to be a sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck 
Fairness Act provides transparency and support for women who are being 
paid less than their male colleagues. It protects women from 
retaliation for discussing salary information with their coworkers, it 
allows women to join together in class action lawsuits, and it 
prohibits employers from seeking salary history, so the cycle of pay 
discrimination cannot continue.
  As President Trump now continues to roll back worker protections and 
prioritize corporate profits over working families' wages, I think it 
is time for Congress to act and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act because 
workers do deserve to be paid fairly, end of story, no matter their 
gender.
  Mr. President, I want to turn to the nomination before the Senate 
today, the nomination of John Ring for the National Labor Relations 
Board.
  First, I have to object to the unprecedented nature in which we are 
jamming this nominee through.
  It is standard practice that Board nominees are always confirmed in 
pairs--one Democrat and one Republican. We do this to keep the Board as 
fair and balanced as possible in hopes that workers have a fair hearing 
when corporations violate their rights or bargain in bad faith, because 
the Board is the only place to which workers can turn to enforce their 
rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Workers cannot sue in 
court. So I must ask, why is this nominee being forced through without 
also filling the Democratic seat that is about to be vacated, 
especially at a time when so many other nominees have been waiting 
significantly longer--some more than 6 months--to be confirmed? I have 
to believe that it is because special corporate interests are putting 
immense pressure on my colleagues across the aisle to confirm someone 
who will advocate for corporations, no matter the cost to workers.
  Right now, the Board's credibility is damaged because another Trump-
appointed Board member, William Emanuel, chose to cast aside his ethics 
pledge and commitment to me by participating in Board actions that 
would directly benefit his former employer. Because of those actions, 
Mr. Emanuel--the Board's independent watchdog--opened an investigation, 
and because there was a clear conflict of interest, the Board was 
forced to vacate the decision that overruled Obama-era worker 
protections.
  With a cloud of ethics controversies surrounding the current Board 
members, it is clear to me why corporations and special interests are 
trying to get Mr. Ring confirmed so quickly. Mr. Ring has spent his 
career as a corporate lawyer representing the interests of companies, 
not workers. He has opposed the Board's reforms that stop companies 
from unnecessarily delaying union elections. He has encouraged the 
Board to undermine long-established rights, including the right for 
workers to have coworker representation in disciplinary interviews. I 
find it difficult to believe he will advocate now for workers, as this 
Board desperately needs to be doing.
  This administration has spent more than a year undermining workers' 
rights and making it easier for corporations to take advantage of them, 
and the Board, under Republican control, has been leading that charge 
by ignoring longstanding practices in a rush to overturn precedents 
that protect workers.
  At a time when corporations in this country and the richest among us 
are getting richer and working families are left behind, it is so 
critical today that the Board be independent and able to advocate for 
workers. Now is not the time to break precedent and vote on a nominee 
without the Democratic pair.
  For all these reasons, I will be voting no on this nominee. I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  (Mr. JOHNSON assumed the Chair.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the 
conclusion of Senator Brown's remarks I be recognized for my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, thank you.
  I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, who has been a great advocate 
for moving this country forward on everything from campaign finance 
rules to labor, to justice, and to keeping our planet as clean as 
possible.
  During his campaign, Candidate Trump made a lot of big promises to 
workers in Ohio and across the country. He told them he would put 
American workers first, but too often the people he has put in charge 
have a record of doing exactly the opposite. That is certainly true of 
the two nominees to the Department of Labor and the National Labor 
Relations Board whom we will consider this week, Patrick Pizzella and 
John Ring.
  Think about this. They have spent their careers working to strip 
workers of their rights, defending corporations that are accused of 
mistreating workers, and trying to undermine collective bargaining 
rights.
  Mr. Pizzella worked for disgraced former lobbyist and convicted 
felon, Jack Abramoff. They worked on the same lobbying team at the law 
firm of Preston Gates, trying to keep workers from being protected by 
Federal labor laws. These are the candidates the President of the 
United States, who talked about empowering workers and being on the 
side of workers, has nominated, one for the Department of Labor and one 
for the National Labor Relations Board. They have been busy through 
their professional careers--and very well paid doing it--trying to keep 
workers from being protected by Federal labor laws.
  I know everyone is entitled to representation, but when you devote 
your life to keeping workers from having collective bargaining, keeping 
workers from working in a safe workplace, and defending companies who 
are accused of mistreating workers, it makes you wonder.
  Mr. Pizzella also previously served at the Department of Labor, but 
his record there gives us no reason to rehire him at the Department of 
Labor. He worked at the Wage and Hour Division. He was supposed to look 
out for workers being cheated by their bosses out of the paychecks they 
had earned.
  All over my State, from Cleveland to Cincinnati, from Ashtabula to 
Lima, from Marietta to Bryan and Toledo, I

[[Page S2030]]

hear stories of workers who simply couldn't fight back when their 
employers would occasionally cheat them out of a paycheck or overtime 
or misclassify them. We know most employers don't do that, but we know 
it happens with some regularity in communities all over my State and 
all over our country. That is why it is so important to have someone at 
the Department of Labor who looks out for the worker who doesn't often 
have a strong voice, as opposed to always siding with the employer on 
every issue.
  Instead, an independent review by the Government Accountability 
Office found that when he was in his Department, the Wage and Hour 
Division was ineffective and actually discouraged workers from lodging 
complaints to get their hard-earned money back. So when a worker felt 
that he or she was cheated in the workplace, when Mr. Pizzella was in 
the Wage and Hour Division, those workers were reluctant to lodge 
complaints to get their money back because the Department of Labor was 
not on their side in those days.
  This is the man who wants to be Deputy Secretary of Labor. He would 
be the second highest ranking official in charge of looking out for 
working men and women. His record indicates he would be more interested 
in looking out for corporations that want to take advantage of their 
workers. Isn't there enough of that in this country without the 
government siding with the richest, most privileged people in the 
country, the large corporations in the country against workers who 
simply don't have much of a voice? We are going to put government on 
the side of those corporations against those workers.
  John Ring's nomination to the NLRB may be even worse. He has been 
nominated to be on the National Labor Relations Board. He is supposed 
to be a neutral arbiter between workers and management. He has spent 
his career representing employers. He has attacked the agency he is 
seeking to join. So much is at stake with this nomination. It will 
likely result in a 3-to-2 anti-worker and anti-labor majority on a 
board that has enormous influence over American workers. It will mean 
big advances in the decades-long campaign to chip away at workers' 
power in the workplace.
  We need someone in both of these jobs--Mr. Pizzella at the Department 
of Labor and Mr. Ring at the NLRB--who wakes up every day thinking: How 
do I help American workers? How do I help American workers have a safer 
workplace? How do I help American workers get paid fairly? How do we 
make sure companies do the right thing as they treat their workers? 
That is what they should wake up every day thinking. Instead, President 
Trump has nominated and is hiring two people who have spent their 
careers trying to push those workers down. What these folks don't seem 
to understand is that it is not corporations that drive the economy; it 
is workers.
  There is a problem in this institution. The leaders in this 
institution--the majority leader down the hall, Senator McConnell--
think you grow the economy from the top down. They think you give the 
richest people in the country tax cuts, you give the largest 
corporations in the country tax breaks, and it will trickle down and 
help workers.
  No, that is not how you grow the economy. You grow the economy from 
the middle out. That is why we had greater job growth with President 
Obama after the auto rescue in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 
2016. More jobs were created in almost every one of those years than in 
2017--President Trump's first year in office.
  If work isn't valued, if corporations shortchange workers with the 
help of lawyers like Mr. Ring and Mr. Pizzella, then Americans can't 
earn their way to a better life for their families, no matter how hard 
they work.
  In my hometown of Mansfield or where Connie and I live in Cleveland 
or in Cranston, RI--Senator Whitehouse's hometown, where my daughter 
and son-in-law and two grandchildren live--how many times do I hear 
people in these communities say: You know, I am working harder than 
ever, and I have less to show for it.
  President Trump is going to put two lawyers in key places in the 
Federal Government who are going to stack the deck even more against 
those workers. The last thing we need is more people serving in 
Washington who don't value work and who don't respect the Americans who 
do it.

  I urge my colleagues to listen a little more to the Americans we 
serve. As President Lincoln said: Go out and get your public opinion 
bath. Listen to workers--not just employers, not just lawyers, not just 
to country clubs. Go to where workers hang out. Listen a little more to 
the workers we serve and a little less to big corporations, which it 
seems these days are trying to squeeze every last penny out of their 
workers.
  Mr. President, reject these nominations.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.