Political Quotes

“The importance of us taking a stand on this cannot be repeated enough, because I remember when I was first starting my career, back in the city of Cleveland, and as all politicians do, I went through a crowd and shook hands, and I remember some of the older men in particular who worked in the assembly lines. I would shake hands, but occasionally someone would come up and they would be missing fingers or part of their hand was gone or part of an arm was gone, or maybe they lost sight of an eye because a piece of steel went into it or something at work. We realized in this country over a period of decades that it was important to maintain certain safe working conditions and America helped set world standards for that. We were the ones, because of the standards we set, which gave workers everywhere a chance to be better protected on the job and, therefore, also help industry become more efficient because they were not losing the services of workers who were performing needed work and did not want to interrupt it through injury. So through a whole series of laws, occupational safety acts and through acts that dealt with safety in the workplace and environmental laws, we were able to guarantee that workers would have a little bit of protection on the job. Now, what happens if we do not keep that standard up there, that standard starts to slip? Then we are back to the days where people are not safe in the workplace.”