Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana Workers Testify That Ending Workers’ Rights Harms Working People and Middle Class

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Workers told House Democrats at a hearing today that the Republican assault on their rights occurring in several states and Washington, D.C. would do serious damage to America’s middle class and the fragile economic recovery. 

 

“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,” said 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. “In these fights over workers’ rights, our economic future is at stake. Indeed, the character of our country is at stake.”

 

“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,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D-Conn.), co-chair of the committee. “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.”

With labor battles heating up across the country, both public and private sector workers from Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana testified before the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on how the elimination of their rights would affect their families and communities. 

 

“I am very concerned about what is happening in our country under the guise of solving budget problems,” said Tom Guyer, a parole officer from Wellington, Ohio. “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.”

 

“To take those rights away from workers stops the middle class from moving forward or upward in the workforce and prevents them from securing safety in the workplace and security for their families,” said Janice Bobholz an information systems coordinator and Deputy Sheriff of the Dodge County (Wisconsin) Sheriff's Department. “Governor Walker and his supporters are going to destroy the future of our children, ruin the economy of Wisconsin, endanger our elderly and less fortunate, and destroy communities and lives of hard working people.”

 

Ryan Fagg, an electrician for a private contractor from Plainfield, Indiana, said that attacks have been occurring on private sector workers’ rights in his home state, including efforts to prohibit project labor agreements.  

 

“I certainly understand the need for government to get a handle on its finances,” said Fagg. “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.”

 

Experts testified that ending public service worker rights would not only fail to solve states’ fiscal issues, but also have a larger negative impact on all middle class workers regardless whether they belong to a union or not.    

 

“While the onset of the Great Recession triggered the current fiscal problems, decades of cutting corporate tax rates and irresponsibly slashing taxes for the wealthiest have disastrously undermined the ability of governments at all levels to provide the services that their constituents want and need,” said University of California professor Harley Shaiken. “Now the same political leaders who have fiscally undermined government are trying to use the mess they have created to attack public sector unions.”