Economic Inequality

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, it has been a great honor to be able to come into Congress with Mr. Khanna and to see the years of work that he has done before coming to Congress now turning into critical legislation around Yemen, around workers' rights, around progressive issues, around healthcare for all.

How proud I am that I get to serve with the gentleman in this Congress, and how proud I am of our Progressive Caucus, which is the largest values-based caucus in the House. We are 78 members strong, and I believe we are going to hopefully have more members added on.

Mr. Speaker, I think the reality of what we are talking about is that the ideas that we are putting forward are not really progressive ideas; they are ideas that serve the interests of working families. Labor unions are at the core of that.

I am proud to come from Washington State. We are one of the most labor-dense States in the country. We have one of the highest minimum wages in the country. Thanks to the labor movement, we have minimum wage that is tied to inflation. We have had that for many years. It is part of the reason our minimum wage has been able to rise in Washington State. Yes, we are the place of the $15 minimum wage, and I was proud to be on that committee to pass the $15 minimum wage in Seattle.

We are able to show that these policies, like higher minimum wages, like paid safe and sick days--we have some of the best paid family leave policies in the country. All of that has been brought forward by labor unions representing workers.

When we talk about collective bargaining, what is that? For the average person, who may not be as familiar with terminology, really all that means is that you get to take the power that comes from having more than one individual together to bargain for the things that are really going to help your life. That is what collective bargaining is about: bringing the power of many to the policies and putting policies forward that really help us.

Mr. Khanna spoke so eloquently about--I think he said--the Danish Ambassador visiting. There is a great TEDx talk out there, TEDxOslo. The title of it is something like, ``Where in the World Is It Easiest to Get Rich?'' It is a fantastic talk that really puts bullets in the theory that, in social democracies where you provide healthcare, where you have strong labor movements, where you provide free education, somehow you don't have the opportunity to do well in those countries.

In fact, statistics show that, specifically because of a strong labor movement in Scandinavian countries and because of the investment in education, those two factors combined, everybody does well. It is a really simple theory that we are all better off when we are all better off, and that is what labor unions have provided to us.

I am proud to be from a strong labor family. My husband actually started off his career as an apprentice, as a bricklayer, and he worked his way up working for a number of different unions. He ended up being the head of the King County Labor Council, elected by 140,000 workers across our county, and was instrumental in helping us to win on many of these important issues. That is, I think, what we are talking about today.

So, when we look at the Janus decision, this is a critical issue, an issue of critical importance for all Americans. The Supreme Court's decision on this case is going to help determine whether or not we really have opportunity for all workers, whether or not labor unions are able to do the work that they need to do to collectively bargain and bring the voices of many workers to bear. Because what happens in, particularly, these workplaces, giant corporations: You know that, if there is a wrong done to one, it is difficult to bring it forward just as one. If you have collective bargaining, you have a structure within where those issues can come forward.

So what Janus is looking at is whether or not American workers have the freedom and the right to collectively bargain, which means to fight back against the corporations that are expanding income inequality and decimating the middle class that, frankly, built this country.

Let me be clear that I stand strong with labor unions like AFSCME in opposing corporate efforts to drag working people to the bottom. Unions made our country strong. Unions made our country strong. And Janus has the potential to make it harder for working people to join a union.

Union members are us. They are our teachers, ironworkers, nurses, government workers, bricklayers, firefighters, machinists. They are the backbone of our communities. Our communities only thrive when we help workers to thrive. Janus would do the opposite.

I want to share a statistic with you. My friend Ro Khanna just gave you some incredible statistics. Let me repeat one, which is that workers, on average, in 1973 earned $16.74 per hour, adjusted for inflation. Since then, our economy has doubled, so we can assume that worker salaries have kept up with the pace, right?

Not so fast. Wrong. Workers today make $17.86 per hour, which is nowhere near enough to keep pace with growing income inequality and the rising cost of living.

Here is another statistic that has captured my attention and that I now use in every speech: Across this country, 67 percent of Americans do not even have $1,000 in their bank account to deal with an emergency. Mr. Speaker, 67 percent. It is a remarkable statistic.

That means that, if you have a leak in your roof, your car breaks down, your kid has an emergency or an illness and you have to take off from work for a couple of weeks and you don't have paid family leave like we do in Washington State thanks to the labor movement, all of those things mean that families are no longer thinking about thriving; they are thinking about surviving. That decline is directly tied, if you look at the research, to the decline in the labor movement and the decline in collective bargaining.

So now we are facing an administration that, despite lofty campaign promises, is putting corporations and greed first and workers second.

Just look at the tax bill that the Republicans just passed. The largest transfer of wealth in the history of the United States going straight to corporations and the 1 percent. That is the reality of all of the research is that the majority of those tax breaks went to the largest corporations, the top 1 percent. It was used for stock buybacks and not for any kinds of increases, permanent increases, for workers.

So unions have been fighting back, and that is why we have to ensure that unions remain in fighting shape because they are fighting for us. Janus is nothing more than a political attack underwritten by corporations, and it will not make our economy stronger. It further rigs the economy against workers, and it is, frankly, a disgrace and a slap in the face to the union legacy that has helped our country grow.

We need to be working to make it easier and not harder for workers to join unions, to collectively bargain for fair wages, safe working conditions, and healthcare. And before I yield back, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friends in labor, the brothers and sisters who have been fighting for working Americans, winning worker safety protections, sick leave, the 40-hour workweek. Don't forget about the 40-hour workweek brought to you by your labor unions throughout our country's history.

It is not hyperbole to say that we simply would not be where we are without unions. And instead of trying to tear them apart by pushing so- called right-to-work laws--I don't even like to say the phrase, because it isn't right to work. The reality is that we should have the right to have workers collectively bargain and organize.

But by filing these harmful lawsuits like Janus, we are hurting workers across the country. We should be working to educate and to engage a new generation of union workers and leaders, and if history is any indication, our country will be better off when we are all better off. We are all better off when we have unions that represent the voices of working people and can actually build that power, organize together to take on that corporate power, which, frankly, has a lot of money behind it but isn't looking out for the best interest of our workers. With that, I thank Mr. Khanna for his tremendous leadership.

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