Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I respect and support Tribal sovereignty. I also support workers' rights to unionize and collective bargaining to improve their workplace and the lives of their families. Those rights must be balanced, but they are not in this bill. Union members have a collective voice to fight for higher wages, better benefits, safer workplaces, fewer injuries, fewer deaths, lower rates of gender-based violence. After Unite Here, a union, found that 58 percent of hotel workers and 77 percent of casino workers in the Chicagoland, where I am from, had been sexually harassed, they won a contract that includes panic buttons to protect workers. Labor rights are fundamental, but under this bill, workers at Tribally-owned businesses, casinos and hotels, construction, and other industries would lose those rights. Remember, three out of four workers employed in Tribal casinos are not Tribal members. Those workers could end up with no way to bargain for fair wages, appeal unfair disciplinary action, or act against sexual harassment. Looking at a similar bill in the last Congress, the International Labour Organization stated: ``It would appear likely that an exclusion of certain workers from the National Labor Relations Act and its mechanisms would give rise to a failure to ensure to these workers their fundamental freedom of association rights absent any assurances that there were Tribal labor laws that provide the same rights to all workers.'' Mr.…”