Political Quotes

“Madam Chairwoman, the real motives are revealed in the rhetoric. This is an attack on unions themselves. The way that our labor relations have been organized since the 1930s when the Wagner Act was passed is that private-sector labor relations are governed by Federal law. Everything about our National Labor Relations Act and the way workers can form unions in the private sector and the rules for how elections happen, all these things are Federal. This carve-out for States to be able to try to starve workers' organizations by allowing this free-riding to go on is something that happened over President Truman's veto, and, yes, we have been against it for the last 70 years. The proof is in the pudding. The right-to- freeload States have lower incomes; they have lower percentages of workers who have benefits; and they have shorter life expectancy. Over and over, the statistics show that workers and families are better off. The old saw about letting people keep their hard-earned money, unions are something that workers form voluntarily to advance their interests. Union members make more money than nonunion members. They make a great investment by coming together and bargaining together to form a union. Our labor relations are set up for workers to make a democratic choice as a group in a workplace about whether or not to form a union.…”