[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 5, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3878-S3879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Labor Day

  Mr. President, yesterday, we celebrated Labor Day--a day when 
Americans come together to honor all of the people who make this 
country work.
  I know the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, 
is one of the strongest supporters not just of Labor Day but of the 
labor movement behind Labor Day.
  Whether you punch a clock, swipe a badge, earn a salary, or make tips 
or whether you are caring for children or aging parents, all work has 
dignity. For too many Americans, we know hard work simply hasn't paid 
off the way that it should. We are working to change that. We are 
making real progress. We are taking historic steps to put workers 
first, to invest in American workers, and to make our economy work for 
every American, not just for CEOs, not just for Wall Street.
  Just last week, the Department of Labor proposed a new rule to make 
millions of workers eligible for overtime pay. We have been working on 
this for years because, if you put in extra hours, you should be paid 
for those extra hours. It will put money in Ohioans' pockets. More than 
100,000 Ohio workers will finally receive overtime pay when they put in 
overtime work. Imagine that they haven't--but they haven't, with the 
way this Congress and former Presidents have let this happen.
  It has been a long time coming, but the fight is not over. We need to 
pass my Restoring Overtime Pay Act to provide workers with financial 
security by ensuring that overtime pay is permanently protected 
regardless of who is in the White House.
  This important step forward comes after we passed the most pro-worker 
infrastructure bill in history with the strongest ``Buy America'' 
provisions in history. It means more opportunities for workers in the 
trades all over Ohio--repairing roads, laying broadband cables, 
replacing lead pipes, rebuilding bridges, fixing water systems. It 
means more work for American factories that are making the goods used 
to build our infrastructure.
  We passed the CHIPS Act to bring our supply chains home and to ensure 
the technology of the future is made in America. It provides Davis-
Bacon protection. That means they get union wages and union benefits 
for the workers who are creating these state-of-the-art factories, like 
the one in Licking County, OH, just east of Columbus.
  We passed the Inflation Reduction Act, with prevailing wage and 
strong ``Buy America'' rules.
  These are big wins for workers--the biggest wins and the most 
frequent wins for workers we have seen in a generation and the biggest 
steps we have taken in decades to create an industrial policy that puts 
our most valuable resources--American workers--first.
  Companies that recognize their workers who drive their success are 
the ones that will lead their industries into the future whether it is 
in Licking County, where Intel entered a project labor agreement with 
the trades--something we insisted on in this body--or outside of 
Toledo, in Fulton County, where Arche Solar is building a solar farm 
with union workers; or in the Mahoning Valley, where Ultium just 
agreed--I was there a few days ago--to raise wages by 25 percent after 
we pushed them to engage with the workers' union.
  I was in Lordstown, talking with those workers in UAW Local 1112. 
There is a lot of history in that building. The pictures and the signs 
on the walls tell the story of the Ohio auto industry, of the decades 
that workers spent building this industry and building the middle class 
in Mahoning Valley. They tell the story of the politicians who sold out 
Ohio workers to corporations that wanted cheap labor. You see the 
``last Chevy Cruze'' sign on the wall as a reminder of what trade 
agreements did to places like Mahoning Valley or to my home in 
Mansfield, OH.
  Workers are resilient. Many of the workers I talked with last week 
worked at the old Chevy Cruze plant. Now they are making the batteries 
that will power the next generation of cars and trucks. They are ready 
to lead the auto industry of the future. They just need fair pay and a 
safe workplace and protections on the job.
  Ultium needs--this is the GM Korea company that was formed into a 
company called Ultium. They need to agree to a fair, permanent union 
contract that will be the gold standard and template for all EV 
contracts. That means honoring the UAW master agreement.
  A union card means higher pay. It means better benefits. It means 
greater retirement security. It means safer workplaces. It means having 
more control over your schedule. It means a middle-class life.
  My wife, at the age of 16, when growing up in the far northeast 
corner of Ohio, in Ashtabula, had an asthma attack. Her dad's union 
card allowed her to have an ambulance take her to the Cleveland Clinic 
for 2 weeks--about an hour's drive. Without that union card, she 
probably would have died. He was a utility worker, and he carried that 
union card for 35 years.
  We shouldn't have to settle for less. Together, we are laying down a 
new marker. The jobs of the future should be good-paying union jobs--
jobs where you build a life and a career and see a future. For too 
long, we haven't had enough of those opportunities.
  Last week, I joined the Building Futures in Columbus for the 
graduation of their seventh class. There is nothing quite like it. They 
are making more training programs, more apprenticeships, more 
opportunities to get people of all ages involved in the trades. Most of 
these were Columbus city school graduates. A few of them had union 
members in their families. A few of them had the kind of opportunities 
that the union card brings. This pre-apprentice program means that, 
upon their graduation from this pre-apprentice program, they will be 
able to become a bricklayer or an insulator or a millwright or an 
electrician or a carpenter or a plumber or a pipefitter or a laborer or 
an operating engineer. It means good-paying, skilled union jobs are 
accessible to everyone and that they look like America.
  Of course, we know what workers are up against when they organize. 
Corporations unleash all of their power to fight their own workers--too 
often, legally. That is why I will never stop fighting, as I know the 
Presiding Officer has in the past, with the Protecting the Right to 
Organize Act. We honor the workers this week who built the country and 
the progress we have made.
  I wear on my lapel a depiction of a canary in the cage. The 
mineworker of 100 years ago, 120 years ago took a canary down to the 
mines. The canary died. The mineworker got out of the mines. He didn't 
have a union, in those days, strong enough or a government that cared 
enough to protect who he really was--almost always a ``he.'' He was on 
his own.

  Look at what we have done since then. This was given to me by a 
steelworker on Workers' Memorial Day. But look at what we have done 
since then. We have passed child labor laws. We have passed collective 
bargaining laws. We have passed Social Security and Medicare and all of 
the kinds of things that have given middle-class workers the 
opportunities we should have as a country.
  This week, we honor and celebrate that proud tradition. We recommit 
to fighting for the dignity of work whether it is the PRO Act, whether 
it is passing the Railway Safety Act, whether it is standing with 
workers at the picket lines. When work has dignity, every American is 
paid the living wage they have earned.
  Just this week, a group of us took on, if you will, in a labor 
dispute, workers who were about to strike, workers who were on the 
picket line--hospital workers. They were mostly low-paid workers not 
offered much from their employer, their big Cleveland hospital. They 
came to an agreement, in part,

[[Page S3879]]

because of public pressure and, in part, because there was a strong 
organized union--organized labor--at the bargaining table. When workers 
have dignity, workers have retirement security and paid leave and power 
over their schedules and their lives.
  When you love this country, you fight for the people who make it 
work. That is what Labor Day is about. That is what organized labor is 
all about.