[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17007-17009]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE GIANT VS. THE MIDGETS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dold). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I was thinking to myself earlier 
today, what happens when you put in a cage fight a giant with a midget?
  Well, the midget will not win the fight. I'm going to tell you that. 
Why?
  He just doesn't carry enough weight to do so. But if you put 30 
midgets in with that giant, then the midgets have a chance.
  Now, they have weight classes in cage fighting, so you're not going 
to find a situation where you have two or three against one. You'll 
just have equal weights. You'll have equally weighted combatants, and 
then they will go at each other, and the best man will win, or woman.
  But we don't have that kind of set up when it comes to relations 
between employers and employees. There are no weight classes. And so 
what generally happens is whoever's paying the workers is usually the 
giant.
  And so giants are in business to make a profit. That's how they 
became big and muscular. But they need those midgets, they need the 
midgets out there, they need the workers to actually produce the goods 
or service that is traded in return for the money, which strengthens 
the giant.
  So in an employment relationship, employer/employee, you've got the 
giant, you've got the midget. Because there are no weight classes in 
that situation, you have an inherent imbalance. Whoever has the most 
money has the most clout. They can give you a job, or they can decide 
that they don't want to hire you. That's not your call. You don't have 
a right to work. You

[[Page 17008]]

can offer yourself out for employment, but you don't have a right to 
work.
  So with no weight classes in this employment relationship, where the 
employer is the giant and the worker is the midget, how do you go about 
making it a fair fight?
  Well, that's where you put the midgets together. You put 30 midgets 
in with the giant, and the midgets then have a chance, collectively. 
And so that is how the situation has unfolded here in America.
  Seventy-five years ago, almost 75 years ago, Congress passed the 
National Labor Relations Act, which helps to protect American workers' 
rights to organize and negotiate the terms of employment with 
corporations. The midgets get a chance to speak with one voice to the 
giant. The midgets collectively have the ability to stand somewhat 
equal to the giant. They have a possibility of winning.
  It's never going to be an employee win everything and employer goes 
down in defeat.

                              {time}  2020

  No. The thing is the workers get together. The midgets get together 
to try to get as strong as they can so that they can then deal with 
that giant in a more productive way. And the giant, wanting to avoid 
the fight, decides to speak eye-to-eye with the midgets--with the 
workers--and work it out to where everybody can win. That's what it's 
all about.
  So the National Labor Relations Act, which protected American 
workers' rights to organize and negotiate the terms of employment, this 
actually leveled the playing field between the giant and the midget. It 
leveled the playing field.
  Now, how was it set up that the collective body of workers could 
stand together and negotiate fair wages and fair employment conditions; 
things like paid holidays, things like health care benefits, things 
like retirement, things like number of days off, things like how much 
do you make, pay? So workers stood together. They had the ability to 
stand together, and they were protected by Federal law in standing 
together to be able to bargain with the mighty giant, the employer, to 
bring about some equity and a balance to that inherently unfair 
relationship. I won't say ``unfair,'' but inherently unbalanced, out-
of-balance relationship.
  So we passed that law. It's been working well almost 75 years. But, 
ladies and gentlemen, in the course of just 7 days, what has happened 
in Michigan is a blow to crush unions, to crush collective bargaining, 
and to crush the power of individual workers to stand together, pool 
their resources so that they can support public policy workers--in 
other words, politicians--so that they could support those politicians 
who support their interests. It's been working that way for almost 75 
years.
  During that time, we went from a Nation where so many people were in 
poverty, lived in poverty, had no benefits, made slave wages, worked 20 
hours a day, and went from that kind of situation into where most 
workers had obtained middle class status, where workers could afford to 
go out and buy the house, buy the two cars, send the kids to college 
and take a vacation and have nice clothes and all of the things that 
middle class people want. That's what the union movement produced for 
America by being in a strong position to be able to demand fairness and 
equity from the employer.
  So the employers, let's say General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, the 
automobile manufacturers, since we're talking about Michigan, they all 
made lots of money and the workers who work for those companies were 
middle class and their children went to college and became lawyers and 
doctors and accountants, and some of them even went back to work in the 
factories. But now, 7 days it took to crush the ability of workers to 
stand together financially. They'll never crush the spirit of the 
workers. But they have used the law with no public hearings, no 
committee action, no regular course of action during the legislative 
session--which is a lame duck legislative session, by the way--no 
regular order, just a sneak attack.
  Thursday morning, the 6th of November, 1 month after the landslide 
election in Michigan and throughout this country that turned back the 
corporate money that was a raid against the Democrats and a raid 
against President Obama, it turned that back. A resounding victory on 
November 6. On December 6, a sneak attack during a lame duck session, 
with no public hearings, no committee action. A sneak attack. They 
announced it that Thursday morning, the 6th, and by 8 p.m., action to 
crush the union laws had passed both houses, house and senate, in 
Michigan. Less than 10 hours it took to bring down 75 years of 
prosperity for all.
  Now, why would anyone want to crush the union? And I'm not calling 
them right-to-work laws because, as I told you earlier, there is no 
right to work. So let's get rid of that misnomer and let's call the 
legislation what it is. It's not right-to-work legislation. It is 
crush-the-union legislation. Who would want to crush the unions? It 
certainly wouldn't be the union members themselves. It must be, by 
process of elimination, the folks that they work for.
  Now, in Michigan, who did they work for? They used to work for GM and 
Ford and Chrysler, but due to all of those hefty bonuses and corporate 
greed that consumed the corporate leaders, they were so busy getting 
those bonuses and million-dollar bonuses, multimillion-dollar bonuses 
and salaries and whatnot, that they took their hand off of the wheel 
and they allowed competition from foreign automakers to overtake their 
competitive position. And so, as a result, they ended up needing a 
bailout.
  Ford didn't need a bailout. They went and borrowed some money. They 
did it the right way. They also did some things to make their business 
more competitive in terms of the products, and so they were able to 
weather the storm without a government bailout. But Chrysler and 
General Motors took money from the people to be able to sustain 
themselves.

                              {time}  2030

  Both corporations were close to being crushed themselves, and the 
workers would have gone down with them. So we did the right thing here 
and we provided funds to bail out GM and Chrysler.
  As a result of that, and as a result of the workers' union getting 
together with the fallen giant to help pick that giant back up, what 
they did was they reached a deal, they cut back on some of the vacation 
days and some of the benefits, they lowered the wages. They did a lot 
to pick the giant up. The giant was awakened and ended up getting back 
on his feet, and now General Motors has become, once again, the number 
one automobile manufacturer in the world. That shows you the American 
spirit, and it was those workers who were instrumental in making it 
happen.
  Where were the auto manufacturers on December 6? Where were they? 
I've seen reports that say that, well, you know, they are just kind of 
staying in the background, but they really don't support this 
legislative effort to crush the unions. They say that we don't really 
need that right now. But there's nobody from the company getting up in 
front of the microphone and saying, ``Don't pass this law. This is 
wrong. Governor, don't sign this law.''
  So in the absence of any manifestations of support for the workers, 
I've got to suspect that General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, are feeling 
pretty good about how things have worked out so far. In the absence of 
somebody telling me different, I've got to believe that they see where 
that level playing field has now been tilted in their favor, and 
despite the fact that the midgets helped them get up when they had 
fallen, now they're going to crush the midgets. That's what it looks 
like to me.
  Especially when I think back on this organization which is known as 
ALEC. ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council. That's ALEC. 
When I look back and think back on the history of that organization, 
and when I ponder who their corporate members

[[Page 17009]]

have been, I'm brought to the realization that those auto manufacturers 
are longtime members of ALEC.
  Now, what is ALEC? ALEC is an organization that brings public 
officials, mainly State legislators, together for quarterly meetings at 
luxurious locations throughout the country. About 80 percent of the 
State legislators in America belong to ALEC. They pay dues. It used to 
be $50 a year. Now I understand it's $100. You pay dues, $100. The 
citizens actually pay the dues for the politicians. That comes out of 
the State treasury. They join ALEC and they go to the quarterly 
meetings and they participate in the legislative efforts of that 
organization, which also includes, in addition to legislators, 
corporations, big business, some small businesses, but it's basically 
an organization of big business. They wished that they could pay only a 
hundred dollars. They might pay $25,000 or more for a year as a member 
of ALEC.
  You've got corporate members, you've got legislators who are members, 
you've got individuals and you've got corporations. You've got midgets 
against giants, who are not against giants but with giants in ALEC. And 
the giants take real good care of the midgets, as long as the midgets 
do what the giants want them to do.
  So, what am I talking about? At these quarterly events, the 
legislators are invited, as well as the representatives of the 
corporate interests. They come together. They talk about the concerns 
of the business community. The business community has the legislators 
there who make the laws. So they talk to those legislators. They're 
being wined and dined the whole time. And you're able as a legislator 
to join a committee of ALEC. That committee could be the public safety 
committee. It could be the committee that deals with voting issues. It 
could be the criminal justice committee.
  Now, why would ALEC be involved in criminal justice? Well, you have 
private prisons. The private prison industry is booming. They are 
members of ALEC. They get those captive legislators to introduce bills 
or legislation, such as, let's say, let's target the undocumented 
immigrants. Let's target them. Let's create some State laws, and 
Federal laws, also, to make it convenient, make it attractive for law 
enforcement to go in there and bring those folks to the private 
detention center and house them down there and pay them government 
money, $70, $80 a bed.
  Why would ALEC have a committee dealing with voting rights? Well, to 
produce legislation that makes it more difficult for people who support 
the opposition, makes it easy to deny those folks their right to vote. 
And so you have those voter suppression laws. They came out of ALEC.

                              {time}  2040

  Then you have the commercial committee, let's call it, of ALEC. They 
produce legislation such as crush-the-union legislation, also misnamed 
right-to-work legislation. It is not right-to-work, it is crush-the-
union.
  So the bill, or the bills, that have been passed out of the Michigan 
assembly in both their house and senate are products of ALEC, the 
American Legislative Exchange Council, almost word for word. I 
challenge anyone to go look on the Internet, look at, if you will, go 
look up prwatch, PR, Paul Robert, prwatch, W-A-T-C-H.org, prwatch.org.
  Go there and put in the letters A-L-E-C in their search button. Go 
there and find out about ALEC. Find out. Go look at the draft 
legislation that was produced by the corporations who are members of 
ALEC which then, after wining and dining the legislators, the 
legislators then went back home and introduced that legislation which 
benefits the very corporations that wined and dined them and gave them 
the legislation.
  And guess what? Those corporations, pursuant to Citizens United, can 
participate in the campaign process. They can do electioneering. They 
can influence elections. They can give money to organizations that 
support candidates. And so it's an ugly lobbying situation when you put 
corporations with legislators in a wining-and-dining setting with added 
benefit of campaign contributions. They can't lose. That's what ALEC is 
all about is putting legislators with businesses. And then those 
legislators, who tend to be Republican, then carry out the wishes of 
the big business.
  Who suffers? The middle class. So just 30 days after, the middle 
class, the people, rue the day we still have ALEC and the corporations 
that fund it out there trying to destroy the middle class by crushing 
the union.
  How do they crush the union? Because they know that the union doesn't 
have a situation like ALEC where you are putting the legislator with 
the corporation or the corporate interests. You're putting them 
together, you're wining and dining the legislators, and then you are 
also pushing your legislation on them; and as an added bonus, you're 
giving them campaign contributions so that they can get reelected. You 
got it going on.
  Unions don't have that kind of set up. There is no ALEC of unions. 
But unions do participate in the political process. They get behind 
candidates who support working people.
  I see my time has come to an end, and I would love to discuss this 
more. In fact, I believe that I will because this time last year I was 
on the floor for an hour talking about the Koch brothers. I want so 
much to be able to bring the Koch brothers into this discussion to see 
how Sheldon Adelson and Karl Rove come into this equation going all the 
way back to the Lewis Powell memo. So we will be back. We will talk 
about those things as soon as possible. Thank you very much.

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