Political Quotes

“I thank Congressman Levin for the courtesy of yielding to me and for organizing this recognition for Richard Trumka. As has been documented here on the floor this evening, he was truly a giant in terms of organized labor, for social justice, his passion, his energy. But I wanted to just note one item that I thought was really remarkable. As I became chair of the Trade Subcommittee on Ways and Means, Mr. Trumka arranged for me to have lunch with him and a half dozen different leaders, with six international union presidents talking about the need to be able to have a worker-centered trade policy. {time} 1745 It was a remarkable exchange of ideas and opinions and commitments to work together. And we took a NAFTA agreement that could not pass on the floor of the House and worked together to be able to have a process that was worthy of support. There was nobody who was more essential to that than Richard Trumka, who was tireless in his efforts to make sure that that legislation moving forward would respect workers' rights, that we would deal with enforcement of labor agreements. They should be worth the paper they were printed on. I'll go to my grave convinced that if we had had that opportunity earlier with the Obama administration, we wouldn't have had some of those concerns, we could have resolved issues of investor-state and worker rights. Rich Trumka was tireless in terms of his determination. He was a tough negotiator. He was fair. He was honest.…”