In an event on Facebook Live, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler had a conversation with five working people about the importance of the American Rescue Plan. Secretary-Treasurer Shuler delivered the following closing remarks as prepared:
MaryAnne, Miren, Tom, Norma and Tevita: We appreciate you so much. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. And thank you for the work you do.
Through the worst public health crisis in a century, through the worst economy since the Great Depression—with no leadership from the last administration—working people stepped up.
We elected the most pro-worker administration since FDR. And we worked closely with Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Schumer and pro-labor stalwarts to deliver a rescue plan that's going to help all of us.
With economic impact payments, tens of billions to facilitate vaccination.
And child care tax credits, funding for schools and states and anti-poverty programs.
The labor movement organized and mobilized on pension relief for decades to make sure, as we always say, that promises made are promises kept. The American Rescue Plan finally delivers.
That’s America’s Rescue Plan. What’s next is America’s Recovery Plan.
And the foundation is the Protecting the Right to Organize Act—PRO Act for short.
We need it to remove barriers to organizing, so we can turn low-wage jobs into good, union careers.
We need it to restore our rights to stand together with co-workers and negotiate better pay, safety and more.
The PRO Act would empower the 60 million people who say they want to join a union to do so without fear of retaliation or getting fired.
You see, this isn’t just about union members. This bill will help workers from every sector, in every state, including essential frontline workers living on poverty wages.
As it is, more than half of workers in the U.S. are threatened with job loss if they vote for workplace representation.
One in five are fired.
And yet, despite all this, in Bessemer, Alabama thousands of workers at the Amazon warehouse are voting to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Right now.
We stand with them in solidarity.
But it just shouldn’t take an act of heroism to join a union. No one should have to risk their job to stand together with their co-workers.
So everyone watching, do me a favor? Call your senators. Tell them to pass the PRO Act. And let’s keep calling until they do.
Thank you.