National Transgender Day of Remembrance

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for all the work that he has done on behalf of his constituents, the people of Chicago, and really the people of the entire country.

I know this is the gentleman's second event today alone on behalf of workers, and I thank the gentleman for his outspoken representation on behalf of people who need a voice in Congress. I think we heard earlier tonight there are about 200-plus lawyers in this body. A majority of Congress are millionaires. Not to say that if you are a millionaire, you can't empathize with working people, but it is another thing to come from a background like I do.

I had a union specialty printing shop, a small shop for nearly three decades, a member of International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, IUPAT, for nearly three decades.

I can tell you the benefits that have happened for my family and the people I work with by having good, union-supporting wages and good, union-supporting benefits and why that matters so much.

The problem we have right now in this country and the problem that we have across so many States is an organized effort going after working people by going after their ability to have a voice in their workplaces by having unions. We have watched attacks across the country, including in my home State of Wisconsin, where States have gone to a so-called right-to-work law. What that is often referred to as a ``right-to-work- for-less'' law because when you get these laws often, on average, people lose over 3 percent in pay in States that do this. But we have watched those laws happen across the country.

Federally, under the Trump administration, we have watched laws that make it harder for working people who win the legal right to form a union, through a union election. They run into all kinds of stumbling blocks. All too often, there is no legal recourse against an employer who violates the rules or stacks the deck against people and doesn't allow that vote to actually form that union.

That is the real problem that we are facing. That is what we are talking about tonight with the PRO Act. That is what we are trying to address in Congress.

What I think is so very important to raise is the reason people want to have a union is because it will help not only their family but their communities by lifting up everyone. When you have a union job, you are more likely to get more pay and better benefits than people who are not in union jobs.

That is why the public support is so strong right now for unions with 64 percent support for unions, one of the highest percents we have seen in this country. And 67 percent of people 18 to 34, millennials, even more than the population as a whole, see this as a way to have a voice in their workplace.

Here are some of the things they support: expanding union rights, banning right-to-work-for-less laws, ensuring a first contract for new unions--if you vote for a union, you should be able to get a contract for your union-- making so-called independent contractors employees, and protections for workers on strike.

All of those things I just mentioned are included in the PRO Act. All those things could be possible for workers across the country.

We know that when we have had the least amount of income inequality in our country, back in the 1950s, is when we had the greatest representation of people in unions. Now that we have got one of the smallest amounts of people--about 11 percent, nationwide, in public and private employee unions--we have the greatest gap in income that we have had in this country.

There is no surprise there is a lot of pushback from not only people on the other side of the aisle, but from the United States Chamber of Commerce, which is not your local business in your chamber of commerce, but it is the big businesses in this country that don't want to take care of their workers. Instead, they want to send all the profits up to their shareholders, so very few get a lot and everyone else gets the crumbs that are left over.

Just to give you an idea of some of the actions we see by these companies: 75 percent of private-sector employers hire outside consultants to run antiunion campaigns when workers try to form a union; 63 percent force their employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear antiunion propaganda; and over half of employers threaten workers in these meetings, they threaten their jobs.

You have a one-in-five chance, if you are a union organizer, of losing your job because, right now, you can get away with it with this administration and how they enforce our labor laws.

But here is the reality. If you don't have a union in your company right now, this is what you get when you have a union:

Health insurance: 75 percent of people in a union participate in job- provided health insurance versus about 48 percent nationwide;

Pensions: 70 percent of people versus 13 percent nationwide;

Paid sick leave: 91 percent of people who are in a union have paid sick leave, and the median weekly earnings are $207 more a week. That is $11,000 a year more if you are a member of a union, in a similar job, than if you are not.

That is the real reason we see the attacks on working people trying to have a voice in their workplaces, and that is why we see people not trying to lift this bill.

This is so important that, in this Congress, we take this bill up in the House of Representatives and we pass this bill and we give, finally, an edge to help push a little more assistance to workers who want to have a say in the workplace than what employers have had because of this administration, because of States that have passed bad laws, that make it harder, again, to have a say in your workplace.

This is an important piece of legislation. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has made this issue a priority. We are going to make sure there will be a vote this session in Congress. We are going to try to make the Senate take this up as well.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Chicago. His help on this and so many issues has been so very important. We are going to do everything we can to get this done this session.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source