On the recordDecember 13, 2012
I want to say a few things about organized labor. I'm old enough, Congressman Johnson, when I was growing up, one person could work in the steel mills on the south side of Chicago, tough job, but you could not only make a decent wage that put you in the middle class; you could buy a car, you could have a little house, modest house, and you could even afford to send your kids to college. You had health care benefits. You had a pension, a private pension. And that was the normal. That was the normal in the United States. You worked hard, often really hard, but you could, you know, make a wage that would afford you a good, middle class life. I think there's a lot of people who think that, well, unions, that is so 20th century. You know, that was yesterday. We don't need them anymore today. But I want to say that if we have a low-wage economy-- you know, some of the companies that are coming back to the United States, you know what they're saying, that the differential in wages between the United States and Bangladesh is insignificant enough that they might as well come back and make their products in the United States.
