Political Quotes

“Madam President, today we mark Workers Memorial Day, when we honor and remember workers who have laid down their lives on the job. I have worn on my lapel since I was in the House, a pin depicting a canary in a bird cage given to me at a Workers Memorial Day rally in Lorain, OH, in the late 1990s. This pin depicts a canary going down in the mine. It suggests the mine worker taking a canary down in the mines. If the canary died from lack of oxygen or from toxic gas, the mine worker got out of the mines. He had no union strong enough to protect him and no government that cared enough to protect him in those days. To me, this pin represents the role of government to support the middle class and those who aspire to the middle class. It represents the progress we have made and the society we continue to fight for every day here. We know the story. Coal miners took the canary down into the mines. Throughout the 20th century, we have worked to change that. We passed workers safety laws and overtime pay. We banned child labor. We passed clean air and safe drinking water laws. We enacted Social Security and Medicare and workers' rights and women's rights and civil rights. But despite that progress over the last year, too many workers have felt a whole lot like those miners. They have felt like they are on their own.…”