Protect America's Workforce Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. NORCROSS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2550, a bill that would restore collective bargaining rights for all Federal employees.

Earlier this year, President Trump launched one of the largest attacks on labor in the history of the United States, on the working people who voted to join a union and have a voice.

President Trump suggests that this is a problem of national security. Quite frankly, it has not been. They cited that there would be strikes. There hasn't been, and it is illegal to strike. In fact, we are looking for workers to help build our military at the very time that the President is trying to beat down those workers.

This is where the real problem is. That executive order stripped Federal workers of their collective bargaining rights.

The suggestion is that they canceled the contracts. We always deal in contracts. A collective bargaining agreement is a contract between the people and the public entity. We do it across the board each and every day.

Less than 24 hours ago, in this very room, we had a chance to immediately restore the collective bargaining rights just for the Department of Defense. They all voted ``no.'' Today, they want to vote ``yes''? A day late and a dollar short is what I am talking about. They could have voted for a fraction of the people yesterday, and it would have become law. Today, they vote for it. You can't have it both ways, Mr. Speaker.

Let me be clear. We want to work together, both sides of the aisle. This is incredibly important. We need to remember that collective bargaining agreements are about a vote by the people. Don't steal the vote.

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