Keith Ellison: “The fact is that this Employee Free Choice Act actually provides more opportunity, more choice, not less. It is critical…”

“The fact is that this Employee Free Choice Act actually provides more opportunity, more choice, not less. It is critical to understand that. Again, I want to recognize good employers who work cooperatively with their unions, but I also don't want to turn my eyes to the fact that there has been intimidation, but by and large, not on behalf of the union. In fact, I have a whole stack of horror stories that go along with workers trying to organize. But I wanted to just talk a little bit, before we begin to wind up, about how important the Employee Free Choice Act is for working-class and middle-class prosperity. I want to start out my comments just by pointing out that over the last 6 years of this administration we have seen poverty increase by about 1 million people every year. Right now we have got about 39 million Americans who live below what the government calls the poverty line, 39 million. That is a lot of people, and that is unacceptable in America. Now, you might say we are not talking about poor folks, we are talking about workers. Well, let me tell you what a worker is. A worker is a person who works hard every day and makes a decent salary. Let me tell you what a poor person is, a worker who lost their job and hasn't gotten their paychecks for a little while. So the ranks of the poor and the ranks of the working and middle class are tied together.”