[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 23, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H4682-H4688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about the Janus v. 
AFSCME Council 31 Supreme Court case and economic inequality.
  The issue of our time is economic inequality and the challenge of the 
middle class being left behind. We know that 81 percent of American 
households between 2005 and 2015 have not had a raise. They have 
actually either had their wages stagnate or decline. This is an issue 
that goes to the core principles of our Nation.
  As every American knows, in 1968, Dr. King marched with sanitation 
workers in Memphis, with AFSCME local 1733. The march was not just 
about racial justice. The march was about economic justice. The march 
was about the freedom of sanitation workers to earn what Dr. King 
called a decent living. It was about the dignity of work. It was about 
the right to join a union.
  They fought against so-called right-to-work legislation. They fought 
for collective bargaining so that people who work hard, who rode on 
trucks and picked up the trash and did hard labor, earn a decent wage.
  Dr. King talked about the importance of economic justice, much as he 
talked about the importance of racial justice.

[[Page H4683]]

  Here are the facts that we know. Unionized African American women 
earn about $21.90 an hour. That is not a bad wage. Nonunion African 
American women earned almost $4 less, on average. That means $4 per 
hour is the difference between unionized and nonunionized work for 
African American women.
  Seventy-two percent of African American women in unions have health 
insurance.
  Guess what? Less than 50 percent of nonunion African American women 
have health insurance.
  Some of us have read the horrific studies about how pregnant African 
American women still face huge issues with infant mortality and 
problems with child labor. Part of it is because they lack health 
insurance. If they have health insurance through a union, that is not 
as much of an issue.
  Latinos who join a union see their median weekly income increase by 
almost 38 percent. They are 41 percent more likely to have employer-
provided health insurance. Caucasian working-class families have seen 
a raise of nearly 20 percent when they are in union jobs compared to 
nonunion jobs.

  Unions are more important now than ever, because the question is: 
When 81 percent of this country hasn't had a raise for the past 15 
years, do we need to have more policies favoring corporations and 
executives or do we need to figure out how we give Americans a raise? 
The one institution that gives Americans a raise is unions.
  We didn't invent this. We know collective bargaining works in other 
nations. We know that cooks in Germany make almost $25 an hour.
  The Danish Ambassador was visiting me today, and I said: How much 
would someone make if they worked at Starbucks in Denmark?
  He said: Almost $20 to $22 an hour. My jaw dropped.
  I said: How is that possible? Is it government prescribed?
  He said: No, it is strong union movements across other countries.
  It is not that they discourage entrepreneurship or innovation. It is 
that they believe that working families should have the dignity to earn 
an honest living; that they can afford rent, that they can afford food, 
that they can afford healthcare, that they can afford a job.
  This is what FDR talked about with the right of a job and healthcare 
and housing; that the positive rights were necessary to truly have 
freedom in democracy.
  Collective action raises the standard of living for everyone. Guess 
what? Henry Ford knew it. It led to economic growth. That is why he 
paid workers more. He said: Someone has got to earn a living to buy the 
cars.
  If we don't have a middle class that can earn, then who is going to 
buy the iPhones, who is going to buy the new cars and the Teslas? Who 
is going to buy and have the money to set up new bank accounts?
  Our economic growth is dependent on the middle class. That is what 
America has gotten and China has never understood. China doesn't care 
about their middle class. They care about the elites.
  We have believed in the middle class from FDR to Dwight Eisenhower. 
We believed that every person in this country is extraordinary; that 
our success is based on ordinary Americans earning enough to buy 
things; that every American matters, not just in our democracy but to 
our economy. It is what makes us different from the Chinese model, and 
it is why unions matter so much. Unions are what allow ordinary 
Americans to get the wages they deserve.
  Union workers are more likely to have healthcare and retirement 
benefits. We know that the decline of the middle class is directly 
correlated to a decline in union membership.

                              {time}  1730

  Let me give you this staggering statistic: It used to be, in our GDP, 
that 90 percent of GDP went to income, of our GDP. That statistic has 
fallen to the high 50s or low 60s. Most of the loss now goes to 
capital, to automation, to machinery.
  Here is the irony: Corporations, you would think they would invest in 
human capital. You would think they would invest more in the workforce. 
But their incentives are not to do that. The Tax Code incentivizes 
research and development, if they want to open up plants or have 
automation; but they don't incentivize the investment in actual human 
capital so that workers and human beings get more of the GDP and not 
less.
  This decline from 90 percent to 60 percent of income is correlated 
partly with automation but also with the decline of union membership. 
Guess what: The unions are one of the only institutions in this country 
that are investing in worker training, that are investing in improving 
people's human capital.
  I know so many apprenticeship programs in my own district you can go 
in with just a high school degree, no test, no fees required, and 
become an apprentice to become an electrician, to become a drywaller, a 
glazer, a painter. These are tough jobs. They are not easy jobs. Once 
you do the apprenticeship, it doesn't cost you anything. It comes out 
of the fees of journeymen and other union members. You go and develop 
the skills, and the unions invest in you.
  When you talk to these apprentices, they are so proud of the work 
they are doing, proud of the investment that the unions are making in 
them, and they are extraordinary people with an extraordinary work 
ethic. That is the investment that the unions are making in our 
workforce.
  Don't think that it is just about them making sure people get the 
wages they deserve. They are making sure that we have the workers that 
we need in this country to be productive. They are the ones who are 
investing in the human capital in our society and the ones who are 
looking at the investments needed for the future.
  Union apprenticeships are what closed the skills gap. They are the 
ones who are teaching folks about 3D printing. They are the ones who 
are teaching folks the tech skills that are needed as auto repair 
mechanics. They are the ones who are teaching folks the basic ways that 
you now need to operate machines and robots.
  High-quality training in our unions is why American workers are the 
most productive in the world: 6 times more productive than China, 6 
times more productive than India, 1\1/2\ times more productive than 
Germany, 1\1/2\ times more productive than Japan. That is partly 
because of our union efforts and training and because of the grit of 
the American people.
  Now, here is what this Janus case is about. The Janus case is about 
corporate special interests saying unions should no longer have a role 
in collective bargaining, that the work unions do to represent workers 
is no longer important, that every person can go fend for themselves.
  Really? We tried that before the New Deal, during the Lochner era, 
where every person had to go fend for themselves. It was the time that 
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about in ``The Great Gatsby,'' the Gilded 
Age, the largest economic disparities known in American society. It led 
to the greatest stock market crash. It led to the Great Depression. It 
led to huge economic instability in the United States and around the 
world.
  And then we said: This system doesn't work. FDR and Harry Truman and 
Dwight Eisenhower said: Let's build an American middle class with 
unions, to which ordinary Americans can go to get a higher education, 
to get a wage where they can afford a house and they can afford food 
and they can afford to have a decent quality of life.
  Unions are what provided that. Collective bargaining is what allowed 
for that. It balanced the corporate interests. It said: people who do 
work should be rewarded. That is what unions have done.
  I know there are all these complex phrases: fee sharing, right-to-
work, and all of that. But cut through all the noise, and here is the 
basic question: Do you think collective bargaining has a role in 
American society? If you think it does, if you think people should have 
the right to organize and bargain and that there should be some 
counterweight to corporate power, then you should be for AFSCME and the 
union in this Supreme Court case.
  If you think workers are doing fine, working families are doing 
fine--the painters, the firefighters, the mechanics, the teachers, and 
the nurses--that they are all doing great and the real people we need 
to be worried about are

[[Page H4684]]

the corporate executives and the investors and the corporate bankers--
well, if you have that theory, then I suppose you would be for Janus. 
You would say: Let's not have collective bargaining.
  The question is: What is your theory of the case? Are you for workers 
having a greater say and greater wages in this country, or are you for 
corporations having even greater power? That is what this case is 
about.
  I know that our Progressive Caucus stands so firmly in the belief 
that we need to be on the side of the workers. If the Supreme Court 
decides against collective bargaining, it will be one of the worst 
decisions in recent American history, a catastrophe for this court to 
strike a blow to working families across America, to strike a blow to 
the heart and soul of the union movement. We need to strengthen working 
families and unions, not weaken them.
  Before I turn it over to one of the strongest champions for working 
families, I want to thank the leadership of AFSCME--President Saunders, 
Scott Frey--who have done so much to help not just AFSCME members, not 
just honor the tradition of Dr. King, but to help the fight for unions.
  I want to thank Dr. David Madland and Kevin Fox, on my team, for 
their research about the role of unions and the leaders of the NEA: 
Mary Kusler and Marc Egan.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Curtis). The Chair would like to ask the 
gentleman to suspend.
  The Chair would ask occupants of the gallery to cease audible 
conversation. The gentleman from California may proceed.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington 
(Ms. Jayapal), my good friend.
  Pramila Jayapal, before she was even elected to the State Senate, has 
been a tireless advocate for unions, for working families. She 
understands that working families and unions have helped not just 
minority communities, not just women, but all Americans.
  She is our vice chair of the Progressive Caucus. She is one of the 
strongest progressive voices in our Nation. She is on the front lines, 
the picket lines, and has traveled across the country standing in 
solidarity with union members.
  It is a real honor now to yield to my friend and colleague, 
Representative Jayapal.
  Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, it has been a great honor to be able to 
come into Congress with Mr. Khanna and to see the years of work that he 
has done before coming to Congress now turning into critical 
legislation around Yemen, around workers' rights, around progressive 
issues, around healthcare for all.
  How proud I am that I get to serve with the gentleman in this 
Congress, and how proud I am of our Progressive Caucus, which is the 
largest values-based caucus in the House. We are 78 members strong, and 
I believe we are going to hopefully have more members added on.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the reality of what we are talking about is that 
the ideas that we are putting forward are not really progressive ideas; 
they are ideas that serve the interests of working families. Labor 
unions are at the core of that.
  I am proud to come from Washington State. We are one of the most 
labor-dense States in the country. We have one of the highest minimum 
wages in the country. Thanks to the labor movement, we have minimum 
wage that is tied to inflation. We have had that for many years. It is 
part of the reason our minimum wage has been able to rise in Washington 
State. Yes, we are the place of the $15 minimum wage, and I was proud 
to be on that committee to pass the $15 minimum wage in Seattle.
  We are able to show that these policies, like higher minimum wages, 
like paid safe and sick days--we have some of the best paid family 
leave policies in the country. All of that has been brought forward by 
labor unions representing workers.
  When we talk about collective bargaining, what is that? For the 
average person, who may not be as familiar with terminology, really all 
that means is that you get to take the power that comes from having 
more than one individual together to bargain for the things that are 
really going to help your life. That is what collective bargaining is 
about: bringing the power of many to the policies and putting policies 
forward that really help us.
  Mr. Khanna spoke so eloquently about--I think he said--the Danish 
Ambassador visiting. There is a great TEDx talk out there, TEDxOslo. 
The title of it is something like, ``Where in the World Is It Easiest 
to Get Rich?'' It is a fantastic talk that really puts bullets in the 
theory that, in social democracies where you provide healthcare, where 
you have strong labor movements, where you provide free education, 
somehow you don't have the opportunity to do well in those countries.
  In fact, statistics show that, specifically because of a strong labor 
movement in Scandinavian countries and because of the investment in 
education, those two factors combined, everybody does well. It is a 
really simple theory that we are all better off when we are all better 
off, and that is what labor unions have provided to us.
  I am proud to be from a strong labor family. My husband actually 
started off his career as an apprentice, as a bricklayer, and he worked 
his way up working for a number of different unions. He ended up being 
the head of the King County Labor Council, elected by 140,000 workers 
across our county, and was instrumental in helping us to win on many of 
these important issues. That is, I think, what we are talking about 
today.
  So, when we look at the Janus decision, this is a critical issue, an 
issue of critical importance for all Americans. The Supreme Court's 
decision on this case is going to help determine whether or not we 
really have opportunity for all workers, whether or not labor unions 
are able to do the work that they need to do to collectively bargain 
and bring the voices of many workers to bear. Because what happens in, 
particularly, these workplaces, giant corporations: You know that, if 
there is a wrong done to one, it is difficult to bring it forward just 
as one. If you have collective bargaining, you have a structure within 
where those issues can come forward.
  So what Janus is looking at is whether or not American workers have 
the freedom and the right to collectively bargain, which means to fight 
back against the corporations that are expanding income inequality and 
decimating the middle class that, frankly, built this country.

  Let me be clear that I stand strong with labor unions like AFSCME in 
opposing corporate efforts to drag working people to the bottom. Unions 
made our country strong. Unions made our country strong. And Janus has 
the potential to make it harder for working people to join a union.
  Union members are us. They are our teachers, ironworkers, nurses, 
government workers, bricklayers, firefighters, machinists. They are the 
backbone of our communities. Our communities only thrive when we help 
workers to thrive. Janus would do the opposite.
  I want to share a statistic with you. My friend Ro Khanna just gave 
you some incredible statistics. Let me repeat one, which is that 
workers, on average, in 1973 earned $16.74 per hour, adjusted for 
inflation. Since then, our economy has doubled, so we can assume that 
worker salaries have kept up with the pace, right?
  Not so fast. Wrong. Workers today make $17.86 per hour, which is 
nowhere near enough to keep pace with growing income inequality and the 
rising cost of living.
  Here is another statistic that has captured my attention and that I 
now use in every speech: Across this country, 67 percent of Americans 
do not even have $1,000 in their bank account to deal with an 
emergency. Mr. Speaker, 67 percent. It is a remarkable statistic.
  That means that, if you have a leak in your roof, your car breaks 
down, your kid has an emergency or an illness and you have to take off 
from work for a couple of weeks and you don't have paid family leave 
like we do in Washington State thanks to the labor movement, all of 
those things mean that families are no longer thinking about thriving; 
they are thinking about surviving. That decline is directly tied, if 
you look at the research, to the decline in the labor movement and the 
decline in collective bargaining.
  So now we are facing an administration that, despite lofty campaign 
promises, is putting corporations and greed first and workers second.

[[Page H4685]]

  


                              {time}  1745

  Just look at the tax bill that the Republicans just passed. The 
largest transfer of wealth in the history of the United States going 
straight to corporations and the 1 percent. That is the reality of all 
of the research is that the majority of those tax breaks went to the 
largest corporations, the top 1 percent. It was used for stock buybacks 
and not for any kinds of increases, permanent increases, for workers.
  So unions have been fighting back, and that is why we have to ensure 
that unions remain in fighting shape because they are fighting for us. 
Janus is nothing more than a political attack underwritten by 
corporations, and it will not make our economy stronger. It further 
rigs the economy against workers, and it is, frankly, a disgrace and a 
slap in the face to the union legacy that has helped our country grow.
  We need to be working to make it easier and not harder for workers to 
join unions, to collectively bargain for fair wages, safe working 
conditions, and healthcare. And before I yield back, Mr. Speaker, I 
want to thank my friends in labor, the brothers and sisters who have 
been fighting for working Americans, winning worker safety protections, 
sick leave, the 40-hour workweek. Don't forget about the 40-hour 
workweek brought to you by your labor unions throughout our country's 
history.
  It is not hyperbole to say that we simply would not be where we are 
without unions. And instead of trying to tear them apart by pushing so-
called right-to-work laws--I don't even like to say the phrase, because 
it isn't right to work. The reality is that we should have the right to 
have workers collectively bargain and organize.
  But by filing these harmful lawsuits like Janus, we are hurting 
workers across the country. We should be working to educate and to 
engage a new generation of union workers and leaders, and if history is 
any indication, our country will be better off when we are all better 
off. We are all better off when we have unions that represent the 
voices of working people and can actually build that power, organize 
together to take on that corporate power, which, frankly, has a lot of 
money behind it but isn't looking out for the best interest of our 
workers. With that, I thank Mr. Khanna for his tremendous leadership.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Jayapal for infusing 
the Progressive Caucus with a new vision, new energy, and, really, 
making it the strongest caucus in Congress and sharing some of those 
facts. I didn't know that 67 percent of Americans live on just $1,000--
can't afford $1,000 emergency expenditure. So I think talking about 
these facts and what this case means to real Americans is important. I 
thank her for being here.
  It is now my real honor to give the floor to someone who really built 
the Progressive Caucus. You know, the Progressive Caucus used to be a 
social club where people chatted, before Keith Ellison took over and 
said: You know, we have got to do more than just talk. We have got to 
actually act on our values.
  If you talk to anyone in this Congress, they will tell you that he 
took a group of 15, 20 Members that used to get together and has turned 
that caucus, through his leadership, into the largest caucus on the 
Democratic side, the most effective caucus, and one that has a bold 
agenda.
  Keith has been an organizer his whole life. He understands the 
importance of working families and believes in these issues from his 
heart, and he has been a truly effective leader for the caucus in the 
House.
  It is my honor now to yield to Representative Keith Ellison.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ro Khanna for organizing this 
today and holding this particular Special Order about Janus v. AFSCME. 
But, actually, the larger question is: What kind of shape will America 
be in if the Supreme Court makes the wrong decision?
  We envision, in the Progressive Caucus, an America in which parents 
can dream about their kids being able to go to college. We believe that 
you ought to be able to put food on the table. You ought to be able to 
get a good job and earn a decent pay and have a voice on your job. You 
ought to be able to turn on the water faucet and drink the water. You 
ought to be able to drive down the road without busting the axle on 
your car. You ought to be able to have safe affordable transit to get 
to where you have got to go.
  We don't think this is too much to ask. This is something that other 
countries in the world have. We think you ought to be able to go to the 
doctor if you are sick. Now, the guarantor of all those things for so 
many years has been people coming together and organizing themselves 
into a group that argued and negotiated with their employer for a fair 
wage. They negotiated with their employer, and they said: Look, you 
know, you want us to supply labor? We will do it. You have got to pay 
us right. You have got to make sure the benefits package is right. You 
have got to make sure that this thing is making sense, not just for 
you, but for us, too.
  And, for many years, employers who didn't want to see strikes and 
didn't want to see labor shutdowns, and wanted to stop the turnover 
that you would see, and wanted to make sure that there was labor peace, 
came to an agreement, and said: Okay, we will work with you.
  And between World War II and right up until about 1970, even a little 
beyond, that bargain helped create the world's greatest middle class. 
It wasn't easy to get a cohesive union movement. In fact, there was a 
time in American history where being in a union was a criminal offense. 
They called the Pinkertons in. They beat you down. There is a lot of 
labor blood that has been spilled in this country in order to have a 
labor movement, but we have got one.
  And by 1957, a year that had racism and segregation, sexism and 
homophobia, had one thing going, and that was about 35 percent of all 
Americans were in a union, and about 35 percent more were paid as if 
they were. So the unions were setting the wage scale, and they helped 
create an American middle class, which really is what we think of when 
we think of America at its best economically.

  The union movement didn't just stop at labor issues. It went further 
than that. It was the UAW that helped fund the March on Washington. The 
march for jobs and justice was funded by organized labor. It was labor 
that stood with those sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, when 
they were on strike and Martin Luther King came down to march with 
them. It was AFSCME--AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, 
and Municipal Employees--who had the back of those workers in Memphis. 
And when we lost the great Martin Luther King just about 50 years ago, 
AFSCME was by the side of those workers. And those workers literally 
won that strike, and many of them are still around to talk about it 
today.
  These folks made it so that in 1968 you had a rate of poverty that 
was much lower than it is today. You had CEOs that made about 20 times 
more than their average worker. Today, that is 339 to 1, and that is 
just the median. In fact, you have companies like Mattel that make 
almost 5,000 times--the CEO makes 5,000 times the average worker. 
McDonald's, the CEO makes 3,100 times the average worker. Kohl's, the 
CEO makes 1,200 times the average worker.
  But in 1968, with its strong union movement, we had an emerging civil 
rights movement. We had a minimum wage that was probably in the 
neighborhood, as has been mentioned, that was livable at the time, if 
you compare it to inflation. You had a rate of poverty where fewer 
people were in poverty. You had a ratio between workers and CEO which 
was much more rational.
  And something interesting happened beginning in the 1970s; there came 
an organized concerted attack on labor. And people will tell you that 
in 1980, after Ronald Reagan was elected, he went out on the campaign 
trail saying that he was for working people, but shortly after he got 
in office, he dismissed the air traffic controllers.
  When he broke that strike and he broke those workers, it set working 
people in this country on a trajectory, which brings us to where we are 
now, which is stagnating wages for literally three, four decades. The 
CEOs have done great. And if you ask Donald Trump, he will tell you: 
Oh, yeah, you know, the stock market is booming out of control. We are 
doing fine.

[[Page H4686]]

  But, you know, in this America, our America, this largesse is not 
shared by most people. My colleague, Pramila Jayapal, mentioned earlier 
that about 67 percent of Americans would not know what to do if they 
were hit with a $1,000 bill. They don't have it. But there are even 
other statistics that are as jarring, as equally upsetting. Other 
statistics would show just how difficult it is for Americans to pay 
their bills.
  Now, I know we are talking about Janus today. I am getting there. But 
there is a recent story that I want to share with you, and we can 
submit it for the Record, and the title of this story, Mr. Speaker, is 
``More Than 40 Percent of Americans Can't Pay Their Bills.'' That is 
the name of the story, and it says: ``Donald Trump thinks the economy 
is doing great--way, way better than under Obama. Actually, Obama 
created more jobs on his way out the door than Trump has so far.
  ``But that's besides the point.''
  The story says, based on this research, the conclusion of the 
research: ``43 percent of us struggle to pay our bills, and 34 percent 
are suffering `material hardships,' including `running out of food, not 
being able to afford a place to live, or lacking the money to seek 
medical treatment.' ''
  The truth is, Mr. Speaker, is that we live in a Nation that is 
lurching toward plutocracy. We live in a Nation that is lurching toward 
oligopoly and oligarchs, because the people who make the hamburgers, 
they don't benefit in the profits of the company. The CEO does that. 
The people who make the clothes and work for Kohl's and work their job, 
they don't benefit. They just get survival wages, and the executives 
take it all home for themselves.
  Part of the reason is a conservative philosophy which says that 
companies should not have to pay any taxes. They shouldn't have to 
abide by any regulations. They should be allowed to slam labor cost to 
the ground, if they can, and then the CEO should be able to walk away 
with all the money. And then the theory goes that they will use that 
money to invest in plant and equipment, and then everybody will be 
better off. But that never happens.
  That Republican philosophy, that conservative philosophy, is 
absolutely and utterly bankrupt. It doesn't work. It is not true. And, 
yet, we keep on doing it over and over again. But part of this 
philosophy is the union busting. And they have been on a 40-year 
trajectory of trying to break the union.
  I mentioned PATCO a little while ago, when Reagan broke PATCO. That 
sent a shockwave that reverberated even until the moment we are in now, 
and it is culminating in this attack on Janus.
  Let me tell you, they have been trolling around for a worker, a 
public employee, to try to break Janus--break public employees for 
years. A few years ago, right before the Supreme Court Justice Antonin 
Scalia passed, there was a case before the Supreme Court called the 
Frederick case. And in that case, it is exactly like the Janus case. 
Why are they similar? Because right-wing law firms are trolling the 
country looking for any public employee to try to attack the union and 
attack fair share. That is what they have been doing.
  They have been going around: Will you take the case? Can we represent 
you? Can we represent you? And they finally found somebody, this guy, 
Janus. And he makes the outrageous claim that he--who benefits from 
collective bargaining and who the union expends money to make sure he 
has a decent contract--he is saying: Oh, this is unfair. My free speech 
rights are going into this union, and I don't want that to happen.
  Well, they are not, actually. All they are doing is assessing a 
reasonable fee that is associated with the cost of negotiating on his 
behalf to have a better wage. But he says: No, I want to be able to 
benefit from the work that the union does, but I don't want to pay 
anything. It is quite ridiculous. But that is the case that is in the 
Supreme Court right now.
  You know, you want to know what is in the First Amendment? The right 
to freedom of assembly. The right to freedom of assembly is in the 
Constitution. And if some workers want to assemble together and 
negotiate for better wages and better benefits with their employer, I 
believe they have a constitutional right to do so.

                              {time}  1800

  What I don't think you have a constitutional right to do is to be a 
freeloader, which is what Janus is arguing. He is saying: I want to be 
able to benefit from what the union negotiates on my behalf, but I 
don't want to pay anything.
  He doesn't have to pay into the fund that goes to political stuff. He 
doesn't have to pay for that. That issue has been decided. It is not 
required under the law that he help fund candidates or issues that he 
doesn't want to support. But it is fair, and it is right, and it is 
reasonable, and the Supreme Court has found in the past that an 
assessment on employees for the cost of representation is fair and 
constitutional. Now, this is a case called the Abood case where this 
was found to be constitutional. What they want to do is flip Abood and 
say: No, you can now be a freeloader.
  Let me just say to my good friend from California, our law has been 
favoring the employer over the worker for years now. Here is the law 
right now. If you are an employer and you fire a worker because they 
are trying to organize a union, that is not legal to do. But guess 
what? That worker can file, but they can't file a private lawsuit; they 
have to file under the National Labor Relations Act. They can't get 
punitive and treble damages. They can't do discovery. They just have to 
go through the NLRB process, which takes quite a long time, according 
to most workers who go through it. And when they do go through it, all 
they can ever get is back pay, minus whatever they earned after they 
were fired illegally.
  This is a very small price to pay for people who are exercising what 
I believe is a constitutional right to freedom of assembly and freedom 
of expression. But why shouldn't you fire them because, hey, it is the 
worst of the cost of doing business for some employers who don't want a 
union?
  Another example of how unfair the situation is an employer can tell 
the workers: You better be in the cafeteria tomorrow because there is a 
union drive, and I want to threaten you and scare you and tell you all 
the reasons why it is a bad idea.
  This is called captive audience.
  Can the union go into the same plant and say, ``Well, now we want to 
give you our side of why you do need a union''?
  They cannot do it. It is not fair. It is like having an election, 
where the rights of the workers will be determined by the election, and 
yet only one side gets to be able to go and argue in the negative.
  By the way, if the employer said, ``Come to the meeting, we are going 
to tell you why you do need a union,'' that would be an unfair labor 
practice.
  It is crazy, really. But it is the kind of world that a guy like Neil 
Gorsuch thinks would be a good one. This is the guy who was, in my 
view, illegally put on the Supreme Court of the United States--
illegally.
  The Constitution says that the sitting President gets to offer a 
replacement for a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Barack Obama did that, 
and the head of the Senate Republicans, who was in the majority, said: 
We will not hear anybody.
  Do you know what? The role of the Senate is to give advice and 
consent. They can say, ``We think that this guy is not qualified''; 
they can say that this guy has a judicial temperament that is not 
proper; they can criticize that nominee any way they want to. But one 
thing they cannot do is say: We simply will not discharge our 
constitutional responsibility. But that is what they did do because 
nobody can make them do otherwise.
  They did it because they could do it, but it was wrong. It was 
actually immoral, and it was an abuse of their responsibility as 
Members of the United States Senate. But they didn't care. They want 
power--raw, naked power. That is what they did, and somehow they got 
away with it because they got Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. This 
is the guy who was a deciding vote in a case that, I believe, is a 
foreshadowing of what we are going to see in Janus.
  Just the other day, a case called Murphy Oil was decided--Monday. 
Neil Gorsuch cast a deciding vote in a Supreme Court decision that 
ruled, for

[[Page H4687]]

the first time, that bosses can forbid their workers from joining 
together in class action lawsuits to challenge violations of the 
Federal labor laws. This is an outrageous usurpation.
  Bringing a complaint against your boss or your company is expensive 
and risky, especially for workers who have no safety net. Congresswoman 
Jayapal just got through telling you how stressed to the wall American 
workers are, and yet those workers, who don't have much money, are now 
told that they cannot come together in a class action suit to challenge 
violations of Federal labor law. They have to pursue these claims 
individually. They don't have a chance. The bargaining position power 
is absolutely unequal, and yet that is what we got.
  Decisions like this are why Mitch McConnell and Republicans have 
engaged in the historic obstruction to block President Obama from 
filling the Supreme Court vacancy for nearly a year. They wanted an 
ideologue like Neil Gorsuch to tip antiworker cases like this.
  So what is going to happen in Janus? I hate to admit it, but even I, 
who consider myself quite optimistic, believe that: Look, they put Neil 
Gorsuch on the Supreme Court to destroy public employee bargaining; 
that is why he is there. I have no illusions about what is about to 
happen. But it is just like other unjust Supreme Court decisions that 
have happened, along the lines of Shelby County, which destroyed the 
Voting Rights Act, or along the lines of Citizens United, which 
basically said that corporations can dump massive amounts of money into 
elections.
  Who has a massive amount of money? You know. America's corporate 
elites.
  And then it goes all the way back to unjust decisions like the 
Lochner case or even Dred Scott.
  History will look very dimly on this moment in time. I believe that 
when you crush decency and fairness to earth, it does rise. And I 
believe that workers of this country, if they are prohibited by the law 
and the Supreme Court from being treated fairly, they are just going to 
start going on strike all over the place, just like the teachers just 
showed us that they would. They are just going to start going on 
strike, and we will just settle it out in the street. This is 
unfortunate.

  Wouldn't it be much better to have fair bargaining and come to the 
table and negotiate decent wages and benefits? Of course it would be.
  Those teachers didn't want to go on strike. They wanted to be in the 
classroom teaching those kids.
  But whether it is Arizona, North Carolina, or Oklahoma, these people, 
who dedicated their lives to young people, had to go out on the trail, 
go out on the strike line, just so that they could get a decent 
situation for those kids and themselves. Those teachers said: These 
kids' learning environment is our work environment. Both are bad. So we 
have to strike. We have been given no alternative but to do so.
  So they did, and they got some justice out of it.
  This is what the likes of Neil Gorsuch and Janus v. AFSCME are 
pushing the American labor picture towards. It is too bad, but I have 
great faith in the American worker. They will not take this lying down, 
and we will be on the picket line with them.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Ellison for those 
words and for explaining so simply and powerfully what is at stake with 
the Janus case and why the constitutional right is actually with the 
unions, as he put it, to assemble and not to freeload when someone is 
getting a benefit. I thank him for his leadership and fight on this.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to make one other point before yielding to my 
friend. One of the contemporary examples of the need for collective 
bargaining is seen with CWA in their struggle with American Airlines 
when passenger service agents aren't making a living wage. I don't 
understand it. I pay so much for these American Airline tickets that I 
wonder who the money is going to.
  Would any American think that the passenger service agents aren't 
getting a fair wage, given what we are paying in airline tickets?
  Yet the truth is many of those workers aren't getting a fair wage, 
particularly those who are working for Envoy Air and those who are 
working with Piedmont Airlines.
  There are many Members of this House--81 of us--who believe that 
American Airlines needs to do the right thing and pay a living wage and 
CWA's ability to bargain, to ask for a fair wage for what all of us pay 
when we pay for tickets, to ask that the workers benefit from that as 
well. That is what is at stake in this Janus case: Can CWA organize and 
get a fair wage so that workers benefit?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Soto), a good 
friend, who is in my freshman class and who is a great leader on so 
many issues--on issues of technology and the future of work--so that he 
can speak out on this important Janus decision. He has come out to 
Silicon Valley. But what I respect about him is he has his values in 
fighting for working families, for the middle class, for people who 
have been left out. Those are the issues he is most passionate about.
  Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Khanna for all of the good work 
that he is doing. I know he is changing the world in California. There 
are going to be so many labor issues to come from that that I can't 
even dream of right now. But I rest assured knowing that someone of his 
savviness of knowing technology will help us make sure that we are 
protecting working families going into the future.
  I also share his concern and believe that American Airlines should be 
paying living wages to the folks who are working for them and certainly 
stand with CWA on that issue.
  Today, we are talking about Janus v. AFSCME. Mr. Janus is a man who 
wants to get something for nothing, a man who wants to get the benefit 
of collective bargaining without having to pay for it, and he is asking 
the Supreme Court to dismantle unions in the process of that, all 
because he doesn't agree with some political messaging of the union, in 
this case, AFSCME.
  I would like to take a moment to take this logic to its end. Perhaps 
every shareholder should be able to object to Fortune 500 companies 
about political messaging they disagree with. Every single one of them: 
1 share; 1 million shares. Perhaps every employee should have the right 
to object to their Fortune 500 company employers' political messaging 
if they disagree. But, of course, that is not what is happening because 
this is a concerted attack on America's unions, leaving corporate dark 
money to reign unchecked in our political process. Ultimately, it is an 
attack on the middle class.
  Imagine our country without a strong middle class. Imagine a country 
with just the haves and the have-nots. There are plenty across this 
globe. There are plenty that aren't making a big difference in this 
world because when you have the rich control all capital, all political 
power, that is when they control us, and we don't have the innovation. 
We don't have the incentive. We don't have the progress that is so 
critical to capitalism, which I think is being missed on this. If you 
don't have a fair market, you can't have successful capitalism, and 
part of a fair market includes having a strong voice for our middle 
class, for our working folks, through our unions.
  It is no surprise that a rise to greatness in this country was tied 
to the rise of the middle class. Think about it: GIs returning home 
from World War II, fanning out to the suburbs. Even before that, around 
World War I and before that, when you had all of these major milestones 
that we talked about--a 40-day workweek, overtime, child labor laws, 
OSHA, so many things that happened, antitrust, that created the modern 
economy--and we surged and prosperity reigned through most corners of 
the United States.
  So I want to just take a moment--and I appreciate Mr. Khanna for 
bringing this forward--to urge the Supreme Court to do the right thing: 
to protect the right to collectively bargain from being dragged down by 
nonunion free riders just because they disagree with the political 
message.
  Or, in the alternative, allow every employee, every shareholder, to 
object to corporate political speech they disagree with. Let's keep it 
fair on all sides then. If I have one share and I am a part-time 
employee of a major Fortune 500 company and I disagree, I should be 
able to object, just like this man wants to be able to object. 
Corporations aren't people; people are people.

[[Page H4688]]

  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna) for 
the opportunity to be able to stand with him on behalf of America's 
working families.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Soto for his analogy 
that the rules for our corporate shareholders shouldn't be different 
than the rules for workers. We need fairness. We certainly shouldn't be 
privileging shareholders. I appreciate the gentleman's advocacy for 
working families and speaking out today.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to close with some simple points. People often 
say that workers have a negative view of unions or don't want unions to 
be representing them, but here are the facts: Gallup Poll research 
shows that 60 percent of Americans have a favorable view of labor 
unions, and that number has been going up as more and more Americans 
see that their wages have been going down. More and more Americans are 
saying they need the unions to level the playing field.
  When we look at AFSCME and what AFSCME stands for, what Janus is 
saying that he doesn't want representing him, I think about the trip I 
took with Representative  John Lewis down to Memphis a few months ago. 
We went to Mason Temple. In Mason Temple, we heard over the loud 
speaker Dr. King's voice as he spoke about seeing the promised land.
  As that booming voice came over the loud speakers in that temple, 
there on stage was a man in his 80s who was a sanitation worker at the 
time that Dr. King marched in Memphis, and he talked about how he still 
was owed money for his fair work. At the age of 80, Memphis still 
hadn't paid him.
  That person, that man, he didn't shirk from work. He was working 
still in his 80s. He believed in the dignity of work. He talked about 
young people needing to believe in the dignity of work. He just wanted 
to have a fair shot at being paid for that work.
  That was AFSCME. That is what AFSCME stands for in this country. That 
is what is at stake in this Supreme Court fight. Do we stand for the 
values that Dr. King marched for, and do we stand for the labor union 
in this Nation?


                             General Leave

  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, thank you for your graciousness in giving us 
this hour and moderating this debate.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________