[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 143 (Wednesday, September 7, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4466-S4467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Labor Day

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, earlier this week, we celebrated Labor 
Day, a day when Americans come together to honor the people who make 
this country work.
  Whether you punch a clock, whether you swipe a badge, whether you 
earn a salary, whether you make tips, whether you are caring for 
children or an

[[Page S4467]]

aging parent, all labor has dignity. When work has dignity, hard work 
pays off for everyone, no matter who you are, where you live, what kind 
of work you do. Yet we know that for so many Americans, their work 
simply doesn't pay off like it should.
  Look at what has happened in Minnesota, Ohio, and Rhode Island--and I 
know Senator Grassley is coming out--and in Iowa. Look what has 
happened over the last 30, 40 years. Executive salaries have soared. 
CEO pay is up 1,300 percent since 1978--1,300 percent. Corporate 
profits have risen. Stock prices are up. Workers are more productive 
than ever before. But for decades--for decades--wages barely budged for 
most Americans. Their purchasing power has largely been flat for some 
five decades because Wall Street rewards corporations that raise prices 
without raising paychecks. Wall Street rewards stock buybacks. Wall 
Street rewards union busting. Wall Street really rewards shipping jobs 
overseas. Wall Street rewards automating jobs. Wall Street rewards 
outsourcing full-time, in-house work to contractors.
  Wall Street analysts actually downgrade stock prices when American 
companies invest in American workers, in American production. If a 
company owns a new factory in Ohio, Wall Street might often downgrade 
its stock. If that same company instead buys back its own stock, 
sending 40 percent of the returns to foreign investors, Wall Street 
rewards it.
  We work to change that. For the first time in far too long, we have a 
government on the side of workers. We have a dues-paying union member 
as Labor Secretary.
  Contrast this Labor Secretary--a laborers' union activist who carried 
a union card before he came; I think he still does as Secretary of 
Labor--contrast that with the Trump Secretary of Labor, who worked for 
one of the major world leaders in union busting and who made millions 
of dollars a year by busting unions.
  We took on Big Oil--I am sorry. We have a National Labor Relations 
Board actually looking out for workers and willing to go after union 
busting. We passed the most pro-worker infrastructure bill ever, the 
strongest ``buy American'' provisions ever in a piece of legislation. 
We have taken historic steps to put workers first, to invest in 
American workers, to make our economy work for every American, not just 
CEOs and not just Wall Street.

  That is what you came to the Senate from Minnesota for, and that is 
what Senator Whitehouse came from Rhode Island for--to make these 
fights.
  We passed the CHIPS Act to bring our supply chains home, to bring 
down prices for American families, and to create thousands--tens of 
thousands of good-paying union jobs in Ohio and across the country.
  This groundbreaking that President Biden and I and Congressman Ryan 
and others are going to do this Friday in Licking County, OH, will 
mean, at a minimum, 5,000 good-paid, union, building trades jobs--
carpenters, electricians, pipefitters, laborers, ultimately 
millwrights, so many others--at least 5,000 over the next 2 or 3 years 
that will last at least for 10 years.
  Passing the CHIPS Act brings our supply chains home to bring down 
prices for American families. We passed the Inflation Reduction Act, 
taking on three of the most powerful special interests in Washington. 
We took on the big drug companies, Big Pharma, to bring down drug 
prices. We took on Big Oil to lower energy prices and create jobs, 
union jobs, in the industries of the future. We took on Wall Street, 
finally taxing stock buybacks that reward CEOs and executives at the 
expense--always at the expense--of workers and jobs.
  These are big wins for workers--together, the biggest steps we have 
taken in decades to create an industrial policy that puts our most 
valuable resource--American workers--first. It counters the business 
model where corporations hopscotch the globe in search of lower wages 
and lower wages and lower wages.
  From the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction 
Act, we have laid down a new marker. The technology of the future, from 
semiconductors to batteries, to electric vehicles, will be developed in 
America, made in America by American workers.
  It hasn't been easy. Our work is far from finished, but I am 
optimistic. I see more momentum behind the labor movement than at any 
time in my career. All over the country, more and more workers are 
seeing that unions are the best way to have a voice, from Starbucks to 
Amazon. Seventy percent of Americans--I don't ever remember it being 
that high--70 percent of Americans approve of unions; for sure, the 
highest level of support in 50 years.
  More people than ever want to join a union. They know that carrying a 
union card means higher wages. It means better benefits. It means 
better working conditions. It means more control--particularly for 
young families or families taking care of an aging parent--more control 
over your schedule.
  We know what workers are up against when they organize. Corporations 
unleash all their power to fight their own workers--too often, 
illegally. It is why I will never stop fighting to pass the PRO Act to 
finally level the playing field between workers and corporations in 
union organizing.
  This week, we honor the workers who built this country. We recommit 
ourselves to the fights ahead because when work has dignity, every 
American is paid the living wage they have earned. When workers have 
dignity, all workers can afford childcare and healthcare and housing. 
When workers have dignity, American workers have retirement security 
and paid leave and power over their schedules and their lives--because 
when you love this country, you fight every day for the people who make 
it work. That is what the labor movement has done for a century; it is 
what I will continue to do.