Burgess Owens: “I think this poignantly demonstrates the situation that America's workers are facing today, even those people who had…”

“I think this poignantly demonstrates the situation that America's workers are facing today, even those people who had white-collar jobs, who thought that they were secure. I have a constituent who was employed by IBM, who thought that that was a contract for life employment, and now, of course, finds himself among those others who have been downsized, dispossessed of their dignity, while corporate CEO's, of course, make salaries that even our athletes, our star athletes, begin to blush at. Last year the heads of about 30 major corporations made 212 times more in compensation than the average American worker. And as we saw in the newspaper yesterday with Mr. Allen, the chairman of AT&T, he said that he really was not prepared to talk about his salary. But, of course, what about those 43,000 who were downsized. What do they face? The fate that they face is jobs at half the pay, sometimes. If they are lucky, it is at half the pay of what they were formerly making.”