[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3782-3787]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     A TRIBUTE TO PUBLIC EMPLOYEES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. 
Norton) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to lead a Special Order this evening 
in tribute to public employees everywhere, and especially our Federal 
employees here in the United States, 85 percent of whom do not work in 
Washington. I hope that my colleagues and I will be able to offer some 
little known facts about Federal employees today so that the word 
``Federal employee'' gets a face and you know who it is we're talking 
about.
  Today I introduced a resolution supporting the right of all workers 
to bargain collectively, public and private workers. I'm grateful that 
Representative Donna Edwards cosponsored this resolution with me and 
invite others to cosponsor the resolution. The resolution reminds us of 
what our grandfathers and our forefathers would have told us, that for 
a long time there was a fight waged after it became clear that 
individual workers standing alone have little or no bargaining power 
against some employer that they hope will hire them or in whose employ 
they find themselves. Thus rose, and finally was legalized as the 
National Labor Relations Act, the right of workers to form unions.
  In no free society in the world is the right to bargain collectively 
barred. That right has been under attack for decades, and the decline 
of unions in the United States is directly attributable to the 
difficulty in organizing workers today because the National Labor 
Relations Act is a figment of another century.
  I think we will see in some of the statistics coming out of Wisconsin 
and out of the country at large that the decline of unions today does 
not mean that unions are not prized institutions in our country, and I 
will have some statistics that show that.
  What I think most Americans recognize is that they owe to the 
American trade union movement much that they take for granted today, 
even if you are not a member of a union movement. Unions could have 
been content to bargain at the table for health and safety conditions, 
for a 40-hour week and the rest of it. Instead, they led the country in 
making laws that require a 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, require 
health and safety conditions, require overtime pay, and encourage 
health insurance and pension insurance. Those matters which began at 
the bargaining table now many Americans enjoy, and yet we have seen 
targets especially placed on the backs of public employees.
  I'd like to open by giving you an idea of who a public employee is by 
speaking of a public employee in my own district, the District of 
Columbia. I don't know Anthony Hutchinson, but I've heard about him. He 
is an example of an exceptional Federal employee, I understand. He is a 
husband and a father of two. He lives on Savannah Street in southeast 
Washington. He is a transportation security officer, and he has worked 
at the Ronald Reagan National Airport for the last 6 years. He is also 
a member and shop steward of his union, which in this case happens to 
be

[[Page 3783]]

the National Treasury Employees Union. He has been named the 
Transportation Security Officer of the Year. He has received 
outstanding ratings from his employer. He was once the chair and once 
the vice chair of the Safety Committee. He is on a team that has 
designed ways to keep transportation security officers up to date on 
techniques for identifying weapons and prohibited items through x-ray 
machines. He served on the Emergency Readiness Team--that's a team that 
deploys within 24 hours in the event of an emergency or national 
disaster. Anthony Hutchinson is a Federal employee.
  When you speak of Federal employees, it seems to me we owe them at 
least the courtesy of recognizing them for what they do for the 
American people. But you would not have understood that if you have 
been watching over the last few weeks the episodes in Wisconsin. These 
were shocking. And many I think thought, well, maybe it has come to 
this. Unions aren't very popular and maybe people are ready to bash 
unions in just this way. But look what the polls are showing us.
  The polls show, following Wisconsin, when there have been national 
polls about the standing of public employees and public employee 
unions, that Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public 
employee unions by a huge margin, by a margin of 2-1, 60 percent to 33 
percent. Only a slim majority, just a slim majority of Republicans 
favored taking away bargaining rights. It's as if Americans understand 
a right when they see one.
  Now, bargaining rights are not like the rights of freedom of religion 
or freedom of speech.

                              {time}  1740

  But they're right up there on my list of six or seven rights that 
Americans believe, once you get, you are entitled to because you have 
gotten them democratically. You had to go worker by worker. You had to 
organize. And it looks as though there has been a horrific backlash 
from Wisconsin.
  Indeed, now Americans, when asked how they would choose to reduce 
their own State deficits, having watched Wisconsin, say they prefer tax 
increases over benefit cuts for State workers by a margin of 2-to-1. 
That is what Wisconsin has given the country. It has laid bare what a 
frontal attack on a basic right means. And what it means is Americans 
are not for it.
  We saw what happened in Wisconsin overnight, that through the tricks 
of parliamentary maneuvers they were able to, in fact, weaken the 
bargaining rights of Wisconsin workers. There is going to be a price to 
pay in Wisconsin, I believe, and I'm going to point to why.
  The present Governor of Wisconsin came in with a six-point margin of 
victory. His polls show seven points behind now. Forty-five percent 
strongly approve of his performance. The man has only been in office a 
little more than 3 months. Public employees' unions, including 
teachers' unions in Wisconsin, now have favorable, positive ratings, 16 
points higher than Walker's ratings.
  The turnaround in Wisconsin I think tells us where the country is 
headed when they see the overreaching here in Washington and when they 
see the overreaching at the State level.
  The Wisconsin results are just astounding. They fly in the face of 
everything Walker was doing. They are the classic backlash to 
overreach. The State's population now believes that Walker should 
reverse course and raise taxes on those making $150,000 a year. That's 
by a 72 percent to 27 percent margin.
  There you have it. A kind of incubator in one State that I think, 
writ large, tells us where the country stands when it comes to public 
employees.
  Now, the national poll found, not unexpectedly, that 71 percent of 
Democrats opposed weakening collective bargaining rights. But there was 
also almost as strong opposition from Independents--71 percent 
Democrats, 62 percent of Independents. And only a bare margin of 
Republicans were for weakening collective bargaining rights.
  We know that when it came to Walker, there was no doubt what he was 
after, because the unions, seeing that the State was indeed in trouble, 
had a huge deficit, gave him what he desired in savings. And still he 
would not compromise. He held his ground, and in holding his ground, 
appears to have lost his State.
  This is a turning point moment for the country. This is a moment that 
is sorting out those who linger on the extreme from those who have 
fought to find their way to the mainstream. And Wisconsin is a 
harbinger of what overreach will reap here in the House of 
Representatives as polls in Wisconsin show it has already done there.
  Look what we have here. The President already announced a freeze, a 
5-year spending freeze, on Federal employees in the State of the Union. 
They didn't like that. But that seems to have whet the appetite of 
Republicans for more and even more.
  They come to the floor with bills that would furlough Federal workers 
for the 2 weeks, would impose an additional 1-year pay freeze, and cut 
200,000 Federal jobs. There's another bill that would limit the ability 
of Federal workers to bargain collectively.
  The bills just roll out of Republicans--a freeze, a cut in the 
Federal workforce by 15 percent. Don't you think somebody would want to 
look and see who the workers are before coming up with a number like 
that? Cutting agency funding to 2008 levels in 2012, as H.R. 1 does, 
and then to 2006 levels for the next 9 years. That would reduce most 
agency budgets by 40 percent.
  I see that my good friend who has also cosponsored the resolution 
paying tribute to America's public and Federal employees has come to 
the floor, and I am pleased to grant her such time as she may desire.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentlewoman from the District of 
Columbia.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm here today because I'm here on behalf of and with 
the 150,000 Federal workers who live in the Fourth Congressional 
District in Maryland. But in our region, in our metropolitan region, we 
know that there are some 700,000 Federal workers just in the Washington 
metropolitan region who do so much to protect this country, to keep our 
neighborhoods, our communities safe, to keep our food safe, to make 
sure that we know what the weather is; 2.7 to 2.8 million Federal 
workers all around the country and around the globe. That means that 
they're not all here in Washington. So I'm always troubled when I hear 
people who, for the last couple of decades, have just gone on an all-
out attack against the great work of Federal workers.
  And I would say to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, I 
know a little bit of something about Federal workers. I grew up in a 
household with two Federal workers. My mother and my father both worked 
for the Federal Government. In fact, it was working for the Federal 
Government that really helped them become a part of the middle class in 
this country. It was the work that they did as Federal workers that 
saved taxpayers lots of money. It was the work that my father did in 
uniform in this country protecting and honoring all of us by his 
service.
  And so there's such a wide range of the Federal workforce, and yet 
some who want to go after Federal workers--and I say ``go after,'' and 
I mean that very directly--do it without actually knowing what it is 
that Federal workers do.
  Well, I want to tell you about some of the Federal workers in my 
congressional district. They are workers who work at the Food and Drug 
Administration. They're doing some of the most cutting-edge research 
that is out there. They are looking to make sure that our--that the 
food and the drugs that are in our marketplace are safe for children 
and families and consumers.
  I want to talk about the Federal workers at the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration.

                              {time}  1750

  Today in the Washington region, and up and down the east coast, we 
have

[[Page 3784]]

actually had flood warnings for communities, including communities 
around the District of Columbia metropolitan area, that are under flood 
warnings and watches today. It's Federal workers who actually helped us 
to analyze the data coming from the satellite that was put up into our 
atmosphere by Federal workers that help us understand what's happening 
in our environment with our climate and our weather.
  It's the Federal workers at NASA who took the charge that President 
Kennedy gave to them to explore space, to discover that new frontier, 
who have been at the cutting edge of all kinds of research that benefit 
us in every capacity. I like to say to people it was actually a Federal 
worker and the Federal workforce that figured out through technology 
and experimentation that they could create materials that would lead to 
the creation of air bags and seat belts in our space program. And those 
are the same air bags that I know saved my life one time when I was in 
a car accident, and have saved many lives all across this country. 
Well, that's the product of what happens when you make an investment in 
our Federal workforce.
  It's a Federal worker who works at Andrews Air Force Base in my 
congressional district looking out for the protection of the President 
and for diplomats who fly in and out of Andrews, making sure that we 
safeguard the protected space in this capital region, making sure that 
we have an Air Force and personnel who are deployed to as far away 
places as Afghanistan and Iraq looking out for improvised explosive 
devices, training some of our great other servicemembers, those German 
shepherds and other service dogs that we see. It's the Federal 
workforce that's doing those things.
  So I am often shocked, Mr. Speaker, when I hear people targeting the 
Federal workforce. Let's just be clear, Federal workers have actually 
absorbed and been willing to absorb and to take, not liking it, as the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia points out, a freeze that's 
been placed on their wages, but they continue to serve. It's the 
Federal worker, Mr. Speaker, who makes sure that that Social Security 
check and that disability claim and those veterans services are 
provided not just in the Fourth Congressional District in Maryland, but 
all across this country.
  So when I think about the range of things that Federal workers do 
that no one else does, it's really extraordinary. People try to 
compare, the gentlewoman knows this, try to compare wages and salaries 
to wages and salaries in the private sector; but it's not a direct 
match. I mean, imagine, if you would, that we could get away in the 
private sector with paying a top-notch engineering researcher $100,000 
to work for us. But that's what happens in the Federal Government, even 
though those salaries may be significantly higher than that.
  Ms. NORTON. The gentlewoman is making a very important and much 
misunderstood point with these comparisons between apples and bananas. 
Half of the Federal workforce, I learned, work in the nine highest 
paying occupation groups: judges, engineers, scientists, nuclear plant 
inspectors. That's half of the Federal workers. Less than a third of 
private sector workers work in these same nine top-drawer occupations. 
So when you hear these comparisons, you are not comparing comparable 
workforces. The private sector has categories we don't even have here 
like cooks and manufacturing workers.
  So these comparisons that you speak of, I say to the gentlelady, 
could not be more important to distinguish. We are talking about the 
highest level workforce in the United States of America. And I will say 
to the gentlelady, I learned as well that there are far fewer of them 
than when I was a child. In 1953, there was one Federal worker for 
every 78 residents. Today, there is one for every 147. How did you go 
from one Federal worker for every 78 residents to one for every 147 
residents? Productivity. This is a knowledge workforce. It is a 
workforce to die for.
  I yield to the gentlelady from Maryland.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentlelady, because I think it's 
really important for us to understand really who is the Federal worker. 
You know, what is it that they do? And as the gentlelady has pointed 
out, our food is safe because of Federal workers. The drugs that we 
take, whether they come over the counter or they're prescription drugs, 
they're safe because of a Federal worker. When that prediction is 
coming through for severe weather that hits the middle of our country 
in the most oppressive way, it's a Federal worker who analyzes that 
data and works really hard and really quickly to get that information 
out to the public.
  Federal workers also work in some of the most dangerous fields, in 
addition to being some of the most skilled fields in this country. You 
mentioned the work, the gentlelady did, the work of our nuclear 
scientists that Federal workers do, in our laboratories all across this 
country, not just in Washington, D.C., in States like Colorado and 
California and New Mexico, some of the highest level of scientific work 
that's going on in the country.
  So we have a skilled Federal workforce. And, you know, I was really 
shocked about this story that we have heard evolving in Wisconsin and 
the struggle of Wisconsin workers for collective bargaining rights that 
indeed on the committee on which we serve in Transportation, just a 
couple of weeks ago we were looking at an authorization for the Federal 
Aviation Administration. In that authorization we actually passed 
legislation through our committee that would say that if you didn't 
show up for a union vote, maybe you were sick, maybe you didn't want to 
vote, for whatever reason, your not showing up would be counted as a 
``no'' vote.
  Can you imagine if any of us actually conducted elections like that? 
All those folks who decided to stay home for whatever reason would be 
counted as ``no'' votes? I daresay there would be a lot of Members of 
this Congress who would not be Members of this Congress under those 
kinds of rules. Yet those are the kinds of rules that are being 
promoted by the Republican majority through our continuing resolution, 
through our authorization that really go at the heart of taking the 
feet out from under the Federal workforce.
  Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlelady, and I hope she will remain with 
us, because the gentlelady is pointing out distinctions that the public 
is largely unaware of. Some of these job categories that my friend from 
Maryland points to ought to be instructive: rocket scientists, VA 
nurse, park ranger, cancer researcher, prison guards.
  It's interesting that the cooks in the Bureau of Prisons are probably 
paid more than the cooks in the private sector because they have 
supervision of prisoners, who also work in the kitchen. How do you 
measure that? You don't do it by throwing out a bunch of statistics, 
public versus private, and believe that that tells the whole story.
  Now we are very pleased to be joined by the gentlewoman from Hawaii, 
our new Member from Hawaii, and I am pleased to grant her 5 minutes.
  Ms. HIRONO. Thank you. Relatively new Member. I am really glad to 
join the two of you in honoring and acknowledging the work of our 
Federal workers. Ms. Edwards and I sit on the same Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee; and, yes, it was quite revealing to talk 
about the kinds of changes some people were proposing to the FAA bill 
that would have totally changed the way you count votes. It is a way to 
count votes that doesn't happen in any other arena.
  Certainly, if we had to count votes where all the people who were 
registered to vote didn't vote would be counted as a ``no'' vote, I 
would say that most of us here, including our friends on the other side 
of the aisle, would not be here.
  That's very telling to me, the kind of perspective that's reflected, 
any kind of an effort that goes after government employees. And today 
we are here to talk about the thousands and thousands of Federal 
employees who are doing the job every single day to keep our government 
going.

[[Page 3785]]



                              {time}  1800

  Who do we think keeps government going but our workers? We need to 
acknowledge that and honor them.
  When you go to the Social Security office, for example, as I have, 
and when you see the Federal employees processing the paperwork, that 
needs to happen so that our seniors can get the benefits that they've 
worked hard for and that they deserve. When you go to an unemployment 
line, you see State workers. This is what I mean. Government employees 
are there, doing the jobs they need to do to enable our working people 
and middle class families and everyone else in our country to get the 
kinds of services that we pay for.
  They're being scapegoated as though they're the ones who are 
responsible for this economic crisis. Some people refer to it now as 
the ``Great Recession,'' with a capital ``G'' and a capital ``R,'' as 
opposed to the Great Depression. So many of the stories that we hear 
are about people just struggling to make ends meet, including our 
Federal employees. They're like the rest of us. Of course there are 
faces to all of these Federal employees. In fact, let me just tell you 
about some of the Federal employees who have been acknowledged in my 
State for the exemplary work that they're doing.
  For example, I want to talk about Sergeant Michael Schellenbach, who 
is a combat camera officer in charge of the Kaneohe Marine Corps Base 
in Hawaii. He won a Federal Leader of the Year award. He provided 
unparalleled customer service to prepare marines for Operations Iraqi 
and Enduring Freedom.
  Warren Au won the 2010 Federal Employee of the Year award for 
professional, administrative and technical professions. Warren works in 
the Naval Facilities Engineering Command as an electrical engineer on 
the Far East planning team. He developed and implemented an electronic 
data-gathering tool to produce an updated facilities plan. The tool is 
now required at all Navy and Marine Corps installations, and it has 
greatly increased productivity and efficiency, saving taxpayers--that's 
all of us--a lot of money.
  Bill Pursley was a 2008 Federal Mentor of the Year. He works for the 
Transportation Security Administration at Maui County Airports. Under 
Bill's guidance and leadership, over dozens of officers have been 
promoted to lead, supervisor and master positions. Bill's very calm and 
convincing demeanor has earned him the respect of airport employees and 
leaders, and he has had a significant impact on keeping us safe.
  These are just a few of the 4.6 million Federal workers and retirees 
in every State in our country who have not only provided services to us 
over the years and who have earned their retirements, but they're 
continuing to, as we have referred to in so many of our committees, 
step up to do more with less. They have been doing that for years now, 
and I am proud of them. I am proud of the Federal workers in Hawaii.
  Ms. NORTON. If the gentlewoman would yield, I think it's very 
interesting that we have on the floor Members from, perhaps, the most 
dense part of the Federal workforce, all the way to Hawaii. Eighty-five 
percent of Federal workers does not work in the Washington region. Ms. 
Edwards and I feel fortunate to live in the National Capital Region, 
but we by no means regard ourselves as representative of Federal 
workers. Every Member has Federal workers in her district. So, when 
you're bashing Federal employees, you'd better watch yourselves because 
you're bashing your own constituents.
  Does the gentlelady from Maryland want to speak to that issue?
  Ms. EDWARDS. I do.
  Too often we hear: Let's cut Washington. We don't care if the Federal 
Government shuts down because it's just a bunch of Federal employees. 
In fact, only 1 quarter of Federal employees works in the Three-State 
Region that comprises the Washington Metropolitan Region. The other 75 
percent of Federal employees works someplace else.
  I love this idea of exploring what it is that Federal employees do 
because I'm often fascinated by the many jobs that they do which 
provide so many important resources for us:
  Meteorologists. Well, could we do without meteorologists? Ask the 
people in California and in these other earthquake zones. In the 
gentlelady's home State of Hawaii, we need meteorologists in that 
sector. Aerospace engineers, who are exploring these 21st century new 
technologies and horizons that are not here on this Earth, who are 
looking at things like climate and planetary science, they don't make a 
lot of money. They may have Ph.Ds. An aerospace engineer with a Ph.D., 
who works for the Federal Government, probably makes about $70,000. 
Imagine if you translated that skill level into the private sector.
  So I thank the gentlelady for reminding us of the fact that Federal 
workers span the spectrum of job skills, and they're in every single 
State and in every congressional district in this country.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have 
remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 25 minutes remaining.
  Ms. HIRONO. Will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. NORTON. I am glad to yield to the gentlewoman from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Thank you.
  When we think about the kinds of resources in our country that 
everyone enjoys, think about our national parks. What a tremendous 
resource for all of us, and so many families go to all of our national 
parks. Guess who is there to make sure that families, individuals--all 
of us--have a lovely time? Who is protecting our endangered species, 
these national parks? We have a lot of national parks in Hawaii. In 
fact, you may have seen the pictures recently of one of them. We have 
the continuing eruption of Kilauea on the Island of Hawaii, which is 
part of my district.
  So there are just so many areas in which we could not do without the 
commitment of our Federal employees. Truly, I feel as though they're 
getting picked on for basically political reasons, and it's 
unjustifiable to do that and to scapegoat our workers in that way.
  Ms. NORTON. They deserve just the opposite.
  Ms. HIRONO. Yes.
  Ms. NORTON. Far from scapegoating, it seems to me we ought to stand 
up and salute Federal employees for what they're doing for this country 
now.
  Ms. HIRONO. You mentioned Ms. Edwards and about exploration and about 
meteorologists. Well, the astronaut program, that's a Federal program. 
We had a wonderful astronaut from Hawaii, Ellison Onizuka, who 
tragically lost his life in the Challenger disaster.
  This is part of what we need to do to educate all of us and the young 
people and our students. In fact, I was visited by a group of students 
in my district yesterday. They were here with the Close Up program, and 
were here to learn about the Federal Government and what keeps the 
Federal Government going. It's not just us. It's all those 4.6 million 
people out there who are helping.
  Ms. NORTON. Ms. Edwards, you are probably also aware that we hear 
about the best and the brightest. The Federal workforce, now with many 
baby boomers, is eligible to retire, and there is absolute panic about 
whether or not we will ever see a workforce as good as the workforce we 
got in the post-Kennedy period. These were people who came fresh with 
all of the notions of the Kennedy era that public service was a 
wonderful thing, and they made their careers in the Federal service. 
Ninety percent of them could retire in the next 10 years. Now the whole 
world is open to them. They could go to the high-tech companies. They 
could go to Hawaii. They could go to California.
  Will we be able to attract the best and the brightest right when we 
most need them--in an era when the country needs, on this side as well 
as on the military side, the very best talent we can find?

[[Page 3786]]



                              {time}  1810

  Ms. EDWARDS. The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia raises yet 
another really interesting point and it is that not only could they go 
anyplace in the United States, but the world is their oyster. We know 
that our best and brightest are not just being recruited from State to 
State outside of the Federal workforce, they are being recruited 
outside of the United States, because we know that we have the talent 
here, and what better place to absorb that talent in public service 
than in service in the Federal sector.
  I am just so proud. I think about the time that I met a scientist, a 
researcher over at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. 
Let me tell you what they do at NIST.
  Any piece of the electronic equipment that you might have, and maybe 
it's in your doctor's office, and it's an MRI machine, or maybe it is 
something, a piece of your home equipment in your home, or maybe it's 
the iron, or it's the toaster, or it's the microwave, the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology sets a standard for industry for 
those products and tests those to meet standards. It means that no 
matter where you go, no matter what store you shop in, that that 
equipment is calibrated in the same way. Now, you may not think that 
matters for a toaster, but it surely matters for an MRI machine.
  Those are the kinds of jobs that our Federal employees do. Those are 
jobs that you really can't translate into the private sector but that 
are so necessary to safeguard the public.
  Ms. NORTON. That's such an important point about translating them. 
Unlike what the Federal Government is required to do, the people who 
have been throwing around the comparisons don't do what the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics does. Now, this is very, very difficult work.
  When the Bureau of Labor Statistics compares workers in the public 
and private sector, they have to, for example, look beyond the title of 
budget analyst. In the Federal Government, they may be dealing with a 
budget analyst who has oversight over multimillion-dollar agency 
budgets.
  In the private sector, that may be somebody who is sitting in an 
office pushing papers, is qualified, but nowhere near the same kind of 
responsibility. What the Bureau of Labor Statistics does, and only the 
government can do this, because only the government has the resources, 
is to literally get into the weeds so that when you see the government 
statistics, those are the statistics to be trusted.
  I have got to ask my good friend to help me as well on one of the 
great distortions, and that is on Federal benefits.
  I think most Americans don't know that Federal employees pay for 30 
percent of the cost of their health care. If you get dental and vision, 
you pay 100 percent.
  If you have group life insurance, the employee pays 66 percent of the 
premium and the full cost of any additional coverage, and if you have, 
and many employees now have, Federal long-term care, 100 percent.
  The Federal Government, yes, is a decent employer. It is by no means 
an overly generous employer. Just compare that to Fortune 1000, Fortune 
500 employers and see if these employees who pay 30 percent of their 
health care premium are coddled. I don't think so.
  Another issue that is often raised is contractors. One of the most 
astounding things about the Federal workforce, and some things should 
be done by contracting out, but there are more contracted, contracted 
Federal employees than there are Federal employees. When you are 
attacking Federal employees, you are attacking people who work in the 
agencies, who work, as my two colleagues have spoken in detail, work as 
a park ranger, who work as a rocket scientist.
  But the invisible workforce is the contracting workforce. At the 
Department of Homeland Security, for example, we have 188,000 employees 
but there are 200,000 contracting employees working for the Agency. So 
if the public really wants to know where the money goes, they shouldn't 
be targeting the employee who stands up, has USA written across their 
chest, is proud to work for the Federal Government. They should look at 
the entire workforce, which turns out to be many, many contracted 
workers.
  It's interesting to know that the President is cutting the number of 
contracted workers and expects to save $40 billion annually by, in 
fact, bringing that work in-house, so that we know who is performing 
it, we can measure them. We can get rid of the work we don't need. You 
contract the work out, it's gone, and it gets a life of its own.
  Ms. EDWARDS. Well, I think that you raise such an amazing point for 
the American people on two points, one about Federal benefits. There is 
this wide assumption across the country that Federal workers don't 
contribute to their own health and life insurance and their dental 
insurance, and it's just not true. So I think it's really born for us 
to debunk that right now.
  As you say, the Federal Government is a decent employer, but it is by 
no means the best employer when it comes to providing benefits, as some 
of those Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 companies that you point to. 
Nonetheless, it's the Federal worker who contributes to her own 
benefit, contributes to her pension, contributes to her health 
insurance, contributes for her family members across the board.
  The gentlewoman also makes an important distinction for us to know 
that, in fact, the Federal workforce, because they sometimes work 
alongside contract employees who are paid different rates, who have 
different benefits, but are in some cases doing very, very similar kind 
of work. I applaud the Obama administration for trying to get a handle 
on what is uniquely government work and shouldn't be contracted out 
because we need much greater oversight.
  I know, I mentioned earlier to the gentlewoman that I come from a 
family of Federal workers. I want to tell you about one of those 
workers, because I bet if anybody goes back, they would say that my 
mother saved the Federal Government a boatload of money.
  She was a steward of the taxpayer. She worked in the Department of 
Defense doing military housing, overseeing contracts. She would tell 
you in a minute if a contractor was violating a contract. She would 
tell you in a minute if they were overspending where they didn't need 
to overspend, and she would save the taxpayer money because she viewed 
herself as a steward of the taxpayer as a public servant.
  I know that my mother is not alone. She is joined by millions of 
Federal workers all across this country who take pride in the work that 
they do for the taxpayer, the work that they do in service to this 
Nation, whether it's processing Social Security disability claims, or 
it is making sure that our veterans get appropriate medical and mental 
health attention, or whether it's making sure that our airways are safe 
and clear, that our planes are landing and taking off safely, 
protecting us in our parks.
  After all, if someone gets lost, a child gets lost in a park, it's a 
Federal worker that goes to find that child and reunite him or her with 
their parents. The Federal workforce is varied, it's diverse, it's 
efficient. It's becoming more efficient every day. Federal workers are 
really contributing to the lifeblood of this country.
  So I think for those who want to get about the business of cutting 
spending where it's appropriate, let's do that responsibly. But let's 
not make the Federal worker the scapegoat for budget-cutting and for 
ending deficit spending. Let's continue a strong and vigorous Federal 
workforce that really is working to the best benefit of the taxpayer.
  Ms. NORTON. This is such an important point. I would say to my friend 
from Maryland because, remember in Wisconsin, the public employees 
said, look, we will do our share. Yet the Governor insisted upon going 
at collective bargaining. Anyone who thinks public employees are not 
willing to do their share does not understand how unions operate.

                              {time}  1820

  If you have a workforce that needs to be downsized, if you have a 
workforce

[[Page 3787]]

that needs to give up some of what it has for a period of time, the 
best way to deal with that workforce is through an agent that the 
workers trust. If the employer has no agent and simply goes in and does 
it, that becomes a deflating, morale-sapping exercise. Unions are very 
sophisticated. Unions operate within our capitalist system. They know 
when there's money on the table and when there's not. Unions are said 
to have been the major agent in creating the American middle class.
  What do we mean by that? After all, there were businesses, automobile 
companies and managers. What we mean by it is that when that money was 
coming, when that revenue was coming to business, it was sitting across 
from a union who said, workers help produce this product, the revenue 
from this product should be shared with workers. Out of that came the 
great American middle class. That is why an automobile worker, for 
example, who didn't have a college education, could get a pension and 
could support a family.
  And unions did this, yes, across the bargaining table; but in doing 
it for their own members, they spread it through the society, because 
then competitors had to meet the union wage. And so what happened was 
you got a great American middle class that you did not have before the 
unionization of American workers. And they deserve credit for that. 
Unions deserve credit for that. They don't deserve to be bashed.
  I have to say to my good friend, I was never so gratified to read 
what the polls show us. And I indicated some of those figures when we 
began this special hour that 2-1, Americans oppose weakening the 
bargaining rights of public employees. After all that has happened in 
Wisconsin, instead of their reaping the whirlwind for it, American 
people understand what it means to take away a precious right, even a 
right some of them don't enjoy. And so they say they would rather have 
their taxes raised than to even weaken--weaken the collective 
bargaining rights of workers.
  If that is not a lesson for the other side of this Chamber, which is 
overreaching in 1,000 different ways, nothing is. It is a bellwether of 
what is to come.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentlelady and my friend because I 
think what you've done is you've brought the connection from the public 
sector worker in Wisconsin and throughout our States to the Federal 
workforce and to the private sector workforce.
  I think what we've seen over these last couple of decades, and I 
think it is evidenced in the poll and the support that all workers are 
showing for the workers in Wisconsin and for the idea of collective 
bargaining rights, is that we all recognize as workers whether you're 
in the public sector or the private sector, whether it's State or 
municipal government or it's the Federal Government, that, in fact, 
it's that organizing and the ability to organize and the ability to 
bargain that has helped so many of us to achieve a place in the middle 
class. And I think that there is an understandable fear of losing that 
given what's transpired over the years.
  In fact, you look at wages in the private sector, and private sector 
wages have, in fact, remained stagnant for about the last decade. And 
so you can understand that a private sector worker is actually feeling 
that strain, but they understand the position of the public sector 
workers, of the Federal workers. And so we're all united as workers 
together to make sure that we can lift all of us into the middle class.
  And I think the Federal workforce is particularly important because 
the Federal workforce then becomes sort of a bellwether for what can 
happen in other sectors in our workforce. Thank you for bringing that 
full circle.
  Ms. NORTON. I want to thank the gentlelady for coming down. You make 
a very important point about the stagnation of the American standard of 
living. It correlates with the stagnation of the American labor 
movement. The stagnation of the American labor movement has everything 
to do with the difficulty under the National Labor Relations Act of 
organizing a union today.
  When unions were first legalized in the 1930s, they were encouraged. 
Today, it is very difficult under the existing statute to organize a 
union; and I'm amazed that unions are still alive and kicking. But I 
must say what we've seen from Wisconsin is a national reawakening of 
the American trade union movement. I think unions are going to be able 
to organize in ways they would never have been able to organize without 
Wisconsin. Thank you, Governor Walker.
  As I close this hour, I want to particularly thank my two friends 
from Hawaii and from Maryland for coming down to share this special 
hour with us. We think the least we can do is to, every once in a 
while, say to Federal employees and to public employees, we appreciate 
what you're doing.
  President Obama perhaps said it best. I don't think it does any good, 
he said, when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their 
rights are infringed upon. We need to attract the best and the 
brightest to public service. These times demand it.
  Again, I thank the gentlelady for coming forward.

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