Political Quotes

“The central point is, what kind of message does it send when we tell hard-working, middle-class Americans, you have to be more responsible with your finances than the companies you work for? They are allowed to be irresponsible with their finances and we give them a pass when they have bad management decisions, but you do not have a pass when confronting difficulties outside of your control. We need to reform our Bankruptcy Code so corporations keep their promises and meet their obligations to their workers. I remain hopeful our companies want to do the right thing for workers. Doing so should not be a choice, it should be a mandate. Senator Rockefeller and I have proposed two amendments to ensure this. I strongly urge my colleagues' support. One will increase the required payments of wages and employee benefit plans to $15,000 per individual from the current level of $4,925. It requires companies that emerge from bankruptcy to immediately pay each retiree who lost health benefits an amount of cash equal to what a retiree would be expected to have to pay for COBRA coverage for 18 months. The second amendment prevents bankruptcy courts from dismissing companies' Coal Act obligations to pay their workers the benefits they were promised.”