[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12993-12994]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, yesterday I was in Cincinnati, OH. 
Terralift has the largest Labor Day gathering in the United States of 
America by 15,000, 20,000, around Coney Island and just southeast of 
Cincinnati, not far from the Ohio River. They have a picnic every year 
celebrating workers, not just organized workers but workers generally.
  I met a woman there by the name of Lillian Brayhound, and Ms. 
Brayhound was wearing a t-shirt that said ``Service Employees 
International Union.'' I asked her where she works, and she said she is 
a custodian in downtown Cincinnati. And I remember that 3 or 4 years 
ago I was at a dinner, and there was a group of workers, all middle-
aged women, mostly minorities, mostly African American, a couple Latino 
women, and they had just signed their first union contract to represent 
the custodians in downtown Cincinnati office buildings.
  I sat down at this table, and I said: What does this new union 
contract mean to you, to the workers there?
  A 50-year-old woman turned to me and she said: This is the first time 
in my life I have ever had a paid week vacation.
  Think about that: This is the first time in my life I have ever had a 
paid week vacation. That was because those workers, each of them 
working separately before for a building owner in a downtown Cincinnati 
office building, had gotten together, had voted to join a union, had 
the right to organize and bargain collectively. They still weren't 
getting rich. They still weren't making more than, I believe, if I 
recall, $10 or $11 an hour. But now they had a bit of a pension, now 
they had health care, and now they had a chance to actually earn a 1-
week vacation, something many, many workers in America don't have the 
opportunity for. And when I hear people say: Well, unions meant 
something in the past, but they have outlived their usefulness, that 
really tells you what that is all about.
  We celebrate that on Labor Day, but we also know the union movement 
is under attack. We look at what has happened in the Ohio Statehouse, 
where legislators in Columbus, most of whom were elected by talking 
about lost jobs

[[Page 12994]]

in large part because of what happened in the Bush administration and 
the 8 years previously, but people who were very unhappy, as they have 
a right to be, as they should be, because of lost jobs, but what they 
have done is, after getting elected, they have gone after collective 
bargaining rights, worker rights. They have attacked voter rights. They 
have attacked in far too many cases women's rights.
  Let's be clear. It is not teachers and firefighters and police 
officers who caused Ohio's budget deficit. It is not teachers and 
firefighters and police officers who caused this financial implosion 
our Nation has. Look at the history. It has been tax cuts for the 
wealthy; it has been reckless spending, overspending on corporate 
welfare, overspending on all kinds of things; it has been regulatory 
sleepwalking that has left our economy in ruins. As a result, we have a 
widening income gap, with wages generally stagnant for the last decade 
for middle-class and working-class voter citizens, wages stagnating or 
declining for most of the workforce but salaries and bonuses going up 
for people who are the most privileged, the bankers and wealthy 
executives and CEOs.
  Robert Reich recently pointed out that the 5 percent of Americans 
with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumption. 
Reich points out that when income is concentrated at the top, the 
middle class doesn't have enough purchasing power to pull themselves 
out of this recession our economy suffers. The wealthiest people can 
only spend so much. If the middle class has their wages stagnant or 
actually decline, there simply isn't the purchasing power we need to 
create the demand to grow our economy. Our economy has been most 
prosperous when the middle class is thriving rather than when we have 
these huge gaps in income.
  Today we have lost the consensus that our Nation's prosperity was 
tied to a thriving middle class, where opportunity was afforded to 
those seeking to join it.
  We used to see that consensus on manufacturing, where an economy 
built wealth and built strong communities for millions of Americans 
around production. You only create wealth by mining, by agriculture--
growing something--and by manufacturing. Yet we have seen what has 
happened to manufacturing jobs in Ohio. Ohio is still the largest 
manufacturing State in the country, below only Texas, twice our size, 
and California, three times our size. We still put out a lot of 
production. There is a lot of productive capacity in Ohio and a lot of 
production. But 30 years ago, 26, 27 percent of our GDP was 
manufacturing and about 10 percent was financial services. Those 
manufacturing jobs created wealth for a lot of middle-class families. 
Kids could go to college, they could buy a home or a car or two in so 
many cases. Today what used to be more than a quarter of our GDP in 
manufacturing and only 10 percent in financial services has flipped so 
today only about 10 percent of our GDP is manufacturing.
  We know what that has done. Yet some of my Senate colleagues do not 
want to extend the payroll tax. In many ways, it seems they will 
essentially will go on strike to prevent the wealthiest in America from 
paying a penny more. I hope that changes now that we are back from the 
August break and we are listening to what voters, what citizens at home 
are talking about.
  Mr. President, let me share a couple of letters from people in Ohio, 
a couple of stories. Then I know Senator Durbin wants to address the 
Senate.
  Last April, I met with workers at Navistar in Springfield, OH, who 
are building next-generation military and commercial vehicles. The 
plant's production is up because a company and a community came 
together, forging compromise between the union and employer to keep 
jobs and increase production. We see it across Ohio. At the other end 
of our State, at Arcelor Mittal's plant--a big steel maker near 
Cleveland--for every 1 person-hour, 1 ton of steel is produced. To my 
understanding, we have never seen that kind of productivity anywhere 
else in the world. They are the most productive steelworkers in the 
world, able to produce 1 ton of steel for 1 man-hour, 1 woman-hour 
invested. We see it at the Lima Tank Plant and at the GE Aviation Plant 
in Evendale. It is a story we see down in Piketon. We see it in towns 
across Ohio, where the ``Made in Ohio'' or ``Made in America'' is 
stamped on everything from airplanes to auto parts.
  I got a letter from David from Akron. He said:

       I am a firefighter/paramedic for the city of Akron. For 11 
     years I have put the safety and well-being of my community 
     above mine.
       I am a proud member of my local union, I am married to a 
     high school English teacher. When I took the job I was told 
     my life expectancy would be 10 years less than that of the 
     average man. As a paramedic I do my job all hours of the 
     night, all days of the week, 24 hours at a time. I miss 
     birthdays, holidays, celebrations and much more. I have never 
     complained until now.
       As our country tries to recover from very hard times, I 
     understand there is a need for reform. It is easy to think 
     about what someone else has and how it is not fair. My wife 
     and I worked hard to get where we are. No one has handed it 
     to us. That is what I love about our country, if you are 
     willing to work for something then you can be successful.

  Public employees are once again asked to make sacrifices.
  He is not arguing he will not make sacrifices. But to attack public 
employees with all that has happened in Ohio, to imply that they are 
not doing their jobs, they are all slackers, is too much for people who 
have given so much of their lives serving the public.
  This last letter I will read is from Anestis from Canton, OH, a 
teacher.

       My father was a teacher in Canton City schools from 1953 to 
     1989. He and my mother raised 6 children, of whom I am the 
     youngest. He taught and coached three sports from the time he 
     received his job until he retired. He went to school on the 
     GI bill after World War II. He could have earned a degree in 
     anything, but he chose teaching because he sincerely wanted 
     to earn a living through the hard, honest work of teaching 
     and helping children.
       Both of my grandparents were Greek immigrants who came to 
     this country in 1913 and 1920 through Ellis Island to escape 
     the suppression in their counties and better their lives. My 
     grandfathers worked in the factories in Canton so their 
     children could have an education and better their lives.
       I have been teaching for 17 years. My father went on strike 
     in the 1970's so we can now have collective bargaining, and I 
     wouldn't be here today [if it were not for that]. Their work 
     ethic and values of fair play helped my parents raise their 
     children on a teacher's salary. If our rights are taken away, 
     I cannot raise my own family--or educate our children.

  Going the next step, a number of teachers and a number of college 
students have told me they are watching some young teachers, they are 
watching some of their classmates who planned to become teachers or 
just started their careers in the classroom and they are having second 
thoughts when they see conservative elected officials attack their 
profession of public schoolteachers or attack the profession of 
firefighters or police officers, all because they have a radical 
political agenda that wants to end the practice of organizing and 
bargaining collectively. It is a disservice to our country. We know we 
have a middle class because large numbers of workers--mostly private 
sector, some public sector--have had the ability under law to organize 
and bargain collectively. That is what built the middle class. It is 
not something we should give up lightly.
  That is what I heard all over Ohio in the last couple of months. I 
assume I will hear it for the next couple of months. It is so important 
to our country that the focus here be on jobs, the focus here be on 
living-wage jobs, the focus here be on giving opportunities so 
Americans can stay in the middle class or have the opportunity to join 
the middle class.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.

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