Representative Tim Ryan (OH-17) gives a truly impassioned speech on the floor of the US House against Ohio's anti-worker bill, SB5. The bill is moving forward in Ohio, but it's important that eloquent opposition to it be given prominence. Go below the fold for a full transcript.
Transcript of Rep. Ryan's remarks:
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, a few years back towards the end of my grandfather's life--he was a steelworker for about 40 years--and towards the end of his life, he couldn't drive anymore. I had the pleasure one day of taking him shopping. In Ohio, and where I come from in Niles, shopping is an art form; so we had to go to a certain place for the meat and a certain place for the cheese and a certain place for something that was on sale somewhere else. So I got to spend the day with my grandpa. We had to go and get something, and he said we should go to a certain store.
I said: Well, Grandpa, Giant Eagle is right here. We can just go right here.
He said: We can't go there.
I said: Why not? It's right here.
He said: The meat cutters are on strike and we can't cross the picket line.
He didn't go to Giant Eagle out of respect for the worker, out of respect for the situation that those workers were in at that grocery store.
And the issue that we are talking about in Ohio and in Wisconsin is an issue of respect for the average worker in the United States of America. And for us to somehow try to obscure the issue and blame workers, firefighters who go into burning buildings while we are all running out of them, police officers who we call up when we are in trouble, or teachers who we ask in many instances to spend more time with our kids than we do, somehow push the blame of the major financial meltdown that happened because of Wall Street recklessness, blame the teachers for that and ask them to go out and get rid of their right to stick together and determine what size of classroom, how many kids are in their classroom is ridiculous.
And at the same time, in Ohio, we have the top person who works for the current administration get a $40,000 pay increase from what the last Governor was paying, and the secretaries and the people in the mail room get a cut. And the firefighters and the police and the teachers get a cut.
While all of this is going on in Ohio, they want to cut the estate tax for the wealthiest people who live in the State of Ohio and ask the teacher to make the sacrifice. This is disrespectful and unfair to the workers in the State of Ohio.
If we want to have a 21st century America where we compete with the globe, where we compete as 300 million people, compete with 1.3 billion people in China, over a billion people in India, and we are going to tell our teachers that they can't be treated with respect, how are we going to get good teachers to come into the teaching profession when they are going to be the foil for all of the problems we have in our country?
When we ask them to take our kids who have lice, who haven't eaten today, who are hungry, who have a domestic violence issue in their family--these children all go before our teachers--and we are going to say that they don't have a right to bargain, a right to come together to say what size their class is? We are going to pull their pensions from them? This is not right. This is not right, and we need to get back to where we were when my grandfather was around.
We realize the world is different and we have to compete globally, but the issue is: Are we going to respect work in the United States of America? Are we going to respect the workers in the United States of America? While all these fat cats have gotten off scot free, we turn around and tell the workers in Ohio and Wisconsin and Indiana and the Big 10 Conference: You've got to take the hit.
It is unfair and it is disrespectful and it is not an American value.
Thanks for standing up for Ohio's workers, Rep. Ryan. Your leadership is appreciated!