On the recordMarch 10, 2011
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. If you have a workforce that needs to be downsized, if you have a workforce 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.
