Marcy Kaptur: “I want to compliment and thank the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dave Bonior] for being so vigilant and having these…”

“I want to compliment and thank the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dave Bonior] for being so vigilant and having these special orders to help educate our Members and the American people to what is happening with trade agreements, jobs and wages in this country. I am honored to join the gentleman from New York [Mr. Major Owens], my classmate from the class of 1988, and also the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Dennis Kucinich] who we are so pleased to have here, and my good friend, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Bernie Sanders] who has been our partner in these efforts over the years. I think, as the gentleman from Michigan has said, we have made headway with the American people, though we still have not made sufficient headway here in Washington, but it is improving. We are making progress. I just wanted to present a couple of pictures here that I took myself on a trip that we took to Mexico to point out what is really at issue here. We are talking about the ratcheting down of wages and working conditions in our country. This is one of the companies, it is called Gigante Verde in Mexico, but it is Green Giant as we know it here in this country, a company that moved lots of jobs out of California. We are talking about the wage issue. If Members look down here, they moved to Irapuato from Watsonville, CA; hundreds of jobs lost in California, where the workers earn $7.61 an hour in California. It is a State that has a pretty high-living standard. It is expensive.”