UAW NLRB Election at Cattanooga Volkswagen Plany
Floor Speech
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Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the Progressive Caucus. The Progressive Caucus wants to discuss with the American public issues that are important, that are timely, and that should be happening in this current Congress.
Tonight we are here to talk about a number of issues, one being the very important need to raise the minimum wage in this country.
Before we start that dialogue, we also want to talk about another issue that has happened just recently in this country and that has a little bit to do with my background growing up.
I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kenosha, Wisconsin, was a company town. We had one very large employer, American Motors Company. We made Pacers and Gremlins and a bunch of cars that maybe were unique for their time and may be collectable now, but certainly stood out in history. But American Motors did something really amazing for the community I grew up in. We were able to grow up in a strong, middle class community. People had family-supporting wages. And the reason they had family-supporting wages is not only because of American Motors Company and later Renault and Chrysler, but also because of the United Autoworkers Union, a union that worked very collaboratively with the companies that were there in Kenosha and made sure that not only did people get a good, fair wage to support their families, but also they worked hard and they made sure those companies were profitable and delivered a very good quality product for the American people.
So, that was my experience growing up. My neighbors, my family, my friends all wound up having someone in their family working with American Motors Company or a company that fed into that, and we had good wages and people had a good chance to grow up in a middle class environment.
Unfortunately, all too often we see these attacks across the country on unions making it harder and harder for people who work for a company to have a voice in their company. What happened just 2 weeks ago was there was a union election at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They had an election that was conducted by the National Labor Relations Board where workers were deciding whether or not they were going to have a voice, collective voice in their workplace. They were deciding whether or not they were going to unionize and join the United Auto Workers.
There were two extraordinary things about this election: First, the company was neutral. The company had made the decision to stay out of the choice because, after all, this was a decision to be made by the workers. We have seen time and time again how employers can easily interfere with this choice by workers. After all, they write your paycheck; they can decide whether or not you get that promotion; they can fire you. So an employer can wield an immense and powerful influence over the workers who are trying to make a decision whether or not they want to unionize, and they can wield that power lawfully and sometimes they wield it unlawfully. In this case, the employer of Volkswagen said: You know what? This is the workers' decision. Let's leave it up to them.
That doesn't happen very often in this country. For that reason, the employer chose to embrace the notion that its employees had the freedom to choose. That happened in Chattanooga.
There is a second extraordinary thing that happened in this election, and that is, despite the fact that the employer was neutral, a free and fair election was still rendered impossible because of interference and threats from outside parties. What we saw here was unprecedented, and the shameful actions by outside parties interfered in a private decision by some 1,300 workers on whether or not they would organize for a better life.
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Mr. POCAN. I thank my friend from California.
What you said is worth repeating. Volkswagen put out a formal denial of the claim, making clear that there was absolutely no link between the vote and the placement of the SUV facility in Chattanooga, yet this elected official went out and did it again. He moved to discredit the company, astonishingly suggesting that the company was using old talking points, suggesting that he had the company's new secret talking points.
What happened here wasn't someone just expressing their view. What happened here was someone communicating a promise of benefits if workers voted one way, backed up by some mystery assurance. What happened here was someone communicating a thinly veiled threat that jobs would be lost if the workers voted another way, again backed up by some mysterious assurance.
The National Labor Relations Act is our Nation's premiere worker rights law. Like many of our civil rights laws, many heroic Americans in the last couple of generations gave their lives to secure the right to freely associate, to take considerate action to improve their lot collectively, to bargain collectively for better wages and better job security, for health care, for fair wages, and for a safe workplace.
These workers were all brave, and they did not give in to thugs and battles. This National Labor Relations Act outlaws bribes and threats in the midst of union elections. It does so for a reason. Those acts are not speech; they are more than speech. They render a free and fair election impossible.
In the case of UAW and Volkswagen in Chattanooga, since voting was already underway when the acts were committed, there was no opportunity to cure them. The votes were cast, and after 3 days the election was over. After an election, there are now three nonunionized Volkswagen plants in the world: one in Russia, one in China, and one in Chattanooga.
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Mr. POCAN. Thank you.
While we definitely want to make sure we are talking about all the issues that are important to this country, and minimum wage is one that we want to also talk about tonight, we wanted to take this time just to highlight what happened, this travesty two weeks ago, and we hope that this will be cured.
Outside officials, regardless of their perspective, shouldn't be involved in the election, but we want to make sure we are highlighting what happened, because that election was not fair.
Thank you very much, gentleman from California, for all your many years of service on this.
At this point, we would like to also discuss tonight something that is very important. The Democrats, this week, took on what sometimes is considered a very unique measure in this House, it is called a discharge petition, because we have been fighting for over a year to try to raise the minimum wage in this country.
There is a bill introduced by the gentleman from California and Senator Harkin from Iowa that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 within 3 years.
If we had kept up with inflation since 1968, the minimum wage right now would be something like $10.60.
Instead, we are at $7.25, and people can't get by. You certainly can't be in the middle class on that wage, and certainly it makes it hard to aspire to be in the middle class on that minimum wage.
We need to do everything we can to help lift that rising tide for everyone who gets that minimum wage because 16.5 million people will immediately get a pay increase, and another 8 million people will very likely get an increase because they are at that margin already and their wage will be lifted already.
These aren't numbers coming from the Democrats. These are numbers coming from the Congressional Budget Office, our nonpartisan entity that provides us facts and figures.
By giving the Nation a boost in the minimum wage, we help the economy, we help those who are in the middle class and aspiring to be in the middle class, and we can make this country a lot better for everyone trying to get by.
At this point I would like to yield to one of my colleagues from the State of Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright), one of my freshman colleagues who has also been the president of our freshman class.
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Mr. POCAN. So what you just said, talking about the buying power, putting that much money back into the economy, you know, I look at it this way. If you are someone who is making minimum wage and you get your wage increased to about $10.10, that extra money is not going to go into a savings account for something in the future. You are probably going to be buying things right now. You are going to buy a sofa maybe.
The average CEO now makes 354 times what the average worker makes. Back in the late eighties it was about a 40-1 ratio. Now it is 354 times.
When we put money into an average low-wage worker, that money goes immediately into the economy. They can buy a sofa.
But when the gains that we have had in this country have gone, largely, to the top executives, the top 1 percent, the top 1 and 2 percent, how many sofas can you buy at that rate? How does that affect the economy?
Do you have any idea how many sofas you think you could buy if you are a CEO to try to keep up with and help stimulate the economy?
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