Witness Statements for Hearing on the National Assault on Workers' Rights
Below you will find the excepts from statements for witnesses at today's House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing on the the national assault on worker's rights (names link to the full statements). For more on the event and witnesses click here:
“Governor Walker has out-rightly defied the labor laws currently still in place by not meeting with the State labor unions once he was elected. He instead spent the first 30 days in office passing tax cuts in excess of 150 million dollars to big corporations. It is no secret that he has put Wisconsin up for sale. Then he blames the entire state’s economic problem on public servants. Clearly he has another agenda.”
--Janice Bobholz, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, the information systems coordinator and a deputy sheriff at the Dodge County Sheriff’s Department.
"This year, in particular, we are seeing what must be acknowledged as a full-scale campaign to dismantle the very foundations of America’s social and moral progress over the last century. Major anti-labor legislation has been introduced in at least thirty-seven states so far this session, and in twenty-three states more than one such piece of legislation is in play."
-- Tim Judson, Workers Rights Policy Specialist at the Progressive States Network
“...I am very concerned about what is happening in our country under the guise of solving budget problems. Politicians in my home state of Ohio and many other states are making proposals for so-called ‘budget repairs’ that are really a toolkit for not only shattering our fragile economic recovery, but for putting our public safety at risk, too.”
-- Tom Guyer, a parole officer, registered Republican and self-indentified Kasich voter from Wellington, Ohio
“I certainly understand the need for government to get a handle on its finances. But being fiscally responsible does not mean that it has to come at the expense of standards that protect American workers and strengthen the U.S. construction industry.”
-- Ryan Fagg, electrician, Plainfield, Indiana
“Undermining collective bargaining does not create jobs or reduce deficits. It hurts our students. The simple fact is that teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.”
-- Courtney Johnson, teacher, Columbus (OH) City Schools
“As your public servants and as your fellow taxpayers…we are here to plead with you not to let anyone destroy what remains of the working class, and we pledge that we will work side by side with you to reweave the sturdy economic fabric of Ohio and our great country.”
-- Lynn Radcliffe, employee of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District
"As the economy begins to improve, the key to a broadly shared recovery is a strong and vital labor movement. Destroying public sector unions decimates labor more broadly and squeezes the middle class. It widens the gap between a growing economy and American families’ share of those gains. And, it undermines the democratic values we pride ourselves on. We need to strengthen – not weaken unions – as America’s most important counterbalance to the corporate influence that led to financial deregulation, Wall Street scandal, and our current fiscal crisis."
-- Harley Shaiken, Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in the Graduate School of Education and is a member of the Department of Geography at University of California, Berkeley.
"No less than the role of the public sector and the end-game of who benefits from our nation’s economic growth is what’s at stake in the battle over collective bargaining. America’s middle class has seen decades of hollowing out, but the attack on collective bargaining could be the proverbial “last straw” for the viability of the middle class and for the prosperity that is has brought our nation."
--Heather Boushey, senior economist, Center for American Progress
“I firmly believe that workers rights built our nation’s middle class in the last century and made the United States the greatest economic power in the history of the world. In these fights over workers’ rights, our economic future is at stake. Indeed, the character of our country is at stake.”
-- U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), co-chair of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and senior Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee.
Middle class Americans families are under a two-pronged attack from the new House majority’s proposed budget cuts and some Republican governors trying to limit the bargaining rights of public sector employees. I stand with our hard-working families, who are fighting back against these misguided cuts and blatant union-busting—and particularly women, who represent the majority of our public sector employees. The future of America is at stake not just in Washington. What is going on in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and other states across the nation is just as important for our economy, for job creation, and our future.”
--U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), co-chair of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and senior Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee.