[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16622-16623]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here to speak for a few minutes in 
support of the Employee Free Choice Act, which the Senate will be 
voting on, we hope, this week. I listened to Senator Schumer talk about 
evening the playing field in the area of energy, where the oil 
companies have long dominated, and now it is time to give some 
renewable companies a chance so we can actually have an even playing 
field for energy, and so we can stop depending on these foreign oil 
companies and stop spending $200,000 a minute on foreign oil. I am here 
today to talk about evening the playing field in another way, and that 
is with the Employee Free Choice Act.
  I support this act because I believe we need to level the playing 
field for working people in this country, and this bill will do that by 
protecting the workers and by creating a fair and a smooth process for 
organizers.
  It is getting harder and harder for working families in America to 
get by. Millions of workers have been left behind in this economy. With 
only a very small number of people doing incredibly well, millions of 
workers have been left behind. They are struggling to make ends meet 
with stagnant wages and declining benefits.
  I see this in my State. I go to small towns, and about 100 people 
will show up in a cafe, and I think, why are all these people here? I 
realize that when the cost of college has gone up 100 percent in 10 
years, as it has in our State, when you are a middle-class person and 
you can hardly make it day to day, you feel it first. When you have gas 
at $3 a gallon, you feel it in your pocketbook. When health care costs 
go up 100 percent, as they have in our State, you feel it first when 
you are a middle-class person. That is what we are seeing all over this 
country.
  Unions help all workers, not just those that are in a union. Unions 
helped build this country and have lifted millions of Americans out of 
poverty. As we go forward as a nation, unions will continue to be the 
friend of working men and women everywhere.
  But for too many workers, forming unions at their workplace simply is 
not an option. Approximately 60 million workers--that is 60 million--
say they want to join a union right now, and the reasons why are clear: 
Union workers earn 30 percent more than nonunion workers; union workers 
are 62 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage; 
and union workers are 400 percent more likely to have access to pension 
plans.
  For millions of workers, access to fair wages and decent benefits is 
being denied because the current process for forming unions has become 
flawed. In my State, we are lucky to have some great companies and 
honest employers that, to a large extent, treat their workers with the 
respect and dignity they deserve. But there are those companies across 
this country that don't play by the rules, where workers considering 
unionization face intimidation and termination from employers.
  According to national labor data, workers are illegally fired in one-
quarter of all union organizing campaigns, including one in five active 
union supporters. When workers are systematically denied rights to fair 
wages and benefits, we all lose, and we need to take action.
  In my last job, I was a county attorney in the largest county in 
Minnesota. For 8 years, I managed an office of nearly 400 unionized 
employees. I always believed they should be treated with the same level 
of respect they showed the people we represented, the victims of crime, 
the people who needed someone there to stand up for them. This bill 
creates that kind of respect.
  This bill will create a process that will be fair and will even the 
playing field. This bill will help workers. The Employee Free Choice 
Act places the decision to form a union where it belongs--it places it 
in the hands of America's workers.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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