Byron Dorgan: “let me stand up and say a word on behalf of chicken pluckers. I had no idea that was the debate. But they will never get…”

“let me stand up and say a word on behalf of chicken pluckers. I had no idea that was the debate. But they will never get $15 an hour as long as we bring in cheap labor through the back door to pluck chickens. I am more interested in the issue of manufacturing. I am interested in people who got up this morning and packed a lunch pail and they are going to have to shower after work because they work hard and they sweat and they do not get paid very much. They have waited for 9 years for an increased minimum wage; it has not come. They are worried about whether they are going to be there. They are worried whether they are going to be called into a meeting someday and be told: Your job is gone. We are either moving your job to China or we are bringing in someone from the back door to take your job at much lower pay. That is what workers face now. No one in this Chamber will face it. Nobody. We all get up and put on a white shirt and a blue suit. We come here and talk. No one is going to lose their job. None of it is going to be outsourced, and no one who comes through the back door is going to jeopardize a job in this Chamber. It is not going to happen on an editorial board in a newspaper. It is just the folks this morning who got up and had an aspiration of going to their job and working hard and providing for their families. They are the ones who are wondering: What is my future? Now, let me make a very important point.…”