[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 107 (Tuesday, June 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4522-S4523]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              MINIMUM WAGE

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, this month, we surpassed the record for 
the longest period in American history without an increase in the 
minimum wage. It has been nearly a decade since minimum wage workers 
last got a raise--literally a decade. Because of inflation, the salary 
of a minimum wage worker today is worth $3,000 less than it was in 
2009. Think about that. It is not like minimum wage workers are making 
a lot of money. A minimum wage worker's salary today is equivalent to 
$3,000 less than it was a decade ago because of inflation.
  President Trump and Republicans in Congress don't have a plan and 
don't even propose to have a plan. In fact, they block any plans the 
rest of us have. They don't have a plan to give millions of workers a 
raise. Why? Because the corporate lobbyists going in and out of the 
office of the Senate majority leader don't want them to.
  We know it is not just minimum wage workers who are losing out on 
money in their pockets because the President and the Members of this 
body always stand on the side of corporate interests, always put their 
thumb on the scale supporting corporations over workers. Look at the 
priorities Democrats fight for every day in this body, and then look at 
what this administration does. It is pretty clear who is on the side of 
American workers.
  Democrats have plans to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. 
President Trump is against it. He wants to do nothing to raise wages.
  Democrats have a plan to strengthen collective bargaining rights to 
give workers more power in the workplace--the PRO Act. President Trump 
nominates judge after judge who puts their thumb on the scale for Wall 
Street over consumers and workers.
  Democrats have a plan to put more money back in the pockets of 114 
million American workers--the Working Families Tax Relief Act. It means 
if you are making $25,000 or $30,000 and if you have children or if you 
don't have children, through the earned-income tax credit, you get more 
money in your pocket. Again, President Trump and the special interest 
Republicans in this town show their hostility to workers by opposing 
it.
  President Trump, though, did sign a tax cut for corporations that led 
to record stock buybacks. The tax cut that President Trump pushed 
through this Senate, with the majority leader doing his groundwork for 
him--the bill he pushed, the tax cut he pushed through the Senate, over 
time, more than 75 percent of that tax cut will go to the richest 1 
percent of the people. Think about that. There was $1\1/2\ trillion in 
tax cuts. Who benefits? Seventy-five percent of the benefits go to the 
richest 1 percent of the people in this country.
  Democrats also have a plan to give American workers more control over 
their lives and their schedules--the Schedules that Work Act, which we 
will be introducing soon.
  We have a plan to protect workers from companies that steal their 
hard-earned money by refusing to pay them for the hours they have 
worked--the Wage Theft Protection Act. Think about how that works. You 
work at a salary. Say you are making $35,000 a year. You are a night 
manager at a fast-food restaurant. The company decides to list you as a 
manager, so you are making a $35,000-a-year salary. The company can 
work you 42, 45, 50 hours a week and pay you not a cent for the hours 
above 40 because you earn that salary and because the company declared 
you manager. I call it wage theft.
  We used to have laws in this country that we enacted many years ago, 
updated with President Ford, President Nixon, and then President Obama, 
but President Trump has said no and scaled that back. His 
administration rolled back rule after rule that protects workers from 
companies that cheat them out of the wages they have earned.
  Again, whose side are you on when you have a President who is hostile 
to workers and who betrays workers while talking a good game but is 
clearly on the side of corporate interests every single time?
  Democrats are united in demanding that any new North America Free 
Trade Agreement--any new NAFTA have strong labor standards so we don't 
end up with another race to the bottom on workers' rights and benefits. 
So far, President Trump hasn't produced a deal that protects workers 
from corporations that want to move to Mexico so they can pay the 
workers less. In fact, the Trump tax cut bill that Senator McConnell--
down the hall--fought for and rammed through this Senate by only a 
couple of votes gave corporations a 21-percent tax rate.
  You shut down the Lordstown GM plant in Youngstown, OH. You are 
paying a 21-percent tax rate. When you move to Mexico, you pay half 
that tax rate. You pay 10.5 percent. That is

[[Page S4523]]

what has happened as the President has failed to renegotiate NAFTA to 
help workers.

  Let me give you an example. Let me give a real quick story. After 
NAFTA passed, 5 months later, I went to the Mexican border with a 
friend. I went across the border and visited a Mexican auto plant. That 
auto plant looked just like an auto plant in Cleveland or just like an 
auto plant in Cincinnati and just like the Jeep plant in Toledo.
  There was one difference. The workers were working hard. The floors 
were clean. The technology was up-to-date. There was one difference 
between the auto plant in Mexico and the auto plant in Toledo. The 
difference was the Mexican auto plant didn't have a parking lot because 
the workers who work there can't afford to buy the cars they make.
  Yet President Trump's renegotiation of NAFTA left those workers' 
wages out so the workers will continue to be far, far underpaid in 
Mexico, will have weaker environmental laws--especially with the Trump 
tax plan--encouraging more American companies to move to Mexico.
  On another issue so important to so many in this country, especially 
elderly people, Democrats have a plan to lower the price of 
prescription drugs. One news outlet said it combines just about every 
policy idea that drug lobbyists hate. Yet President Trump and Members 
of this Senate, all with good healthcare paid for by taxpayers--don't 
ever forget that. All of us who represent people in this country have 
good healthcare paid for by taxpayers. They are all trying to take away 
the protections for Americans with preexisting conditions.
  Let me go back to the overtime issue for a minute. Three years ago, I 
stood in Columbus to announce the Obama administration was going to 
raise the salary threshold to earn overtime pay and make millions of 
more workers eligible. That would have meant 4 million Americans and 
130,000 Ohioans were going to get a raise. As I explained earlier, when 
you make $35,000 or $40,000 and are paid a salary, they call you 
management. So when you work more than 40 hours, you don't get paid a 
nickel for any time you work over 40 hours. So what President Obama's 
rule did was give a raise to 130,000 Ohioans, 4 million workers, but 
workers didn't get that raise because attorneys general--far-right and 
extremely conservative attorneys general--around the country first sued 
to stop it, and then when President Trump won the election, he came up 
with a new rule that leaves most of those workers behind.
  We are talking about people making $38,000 or $40,000 a year--middle 
managers at banks, restaurants, and grocery stores. They are often 
required to work 60 to 70 hours a week without getting a cent of 
overtime. It is an American value and what we stand for as a nation. It 
is how we should govern, through the eyes of workers, through the 
dignity of work. If people work 50 or 60 hours--obviously, Senators and 
bank presidents and CEO's and doctors and lawyers shouldn't get paid 
overtime, but people making $35,000 or $40,000, if you work more than 
40 hours a week, you should get overtime. That is what we used to do in 
this country, but we don't do it all the time now because of President 
Trump's opposition.
  Democrats have a bill to fix this, the Restoring Overtime Pay Act, 
that would allow 4.6 million Americans to be newly eligible for 
overtime pay.
  The President clearly doesn't understand how somebody living on 
$35,000 or $40,000 a year--what that person's challenges are. The 
President thinks it is fine to leave those workers behind. So much for 
fighting for American workers. That was his campaign promise. He would 
put them back to work. He would have good manufacturing wages for them. 
He would pay them. He would make sure they made good wages. It is all 
part of Donald Trump's phony populism. He divides to distract from the 
fact that his administration looks like a Wall Street retreat.
  True populism is never racist; it is never anti-Semitic. True 
populists don't pass tax cuts for rich people and leave out workers 
with children. Populists don't choose Wall Street over consumers. 
Populists don't choose corporations over workers. Populists don't 
choose health insurance companies over sick people.
  It all comes down to whose side you are on. Are you going to fight 
for the dignity of work or are you going to fight for the privilege of 
the wealthy?
  The President promised to fight for American workers. He breaks that 
promise every day. He has broken that promise for more than 2 years. If 
you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work. I 
wish President Trump would remember that.
  I yield the floor.

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