Thank you, Brother Eric [Dean]. It’s great to be with such a storied and important union. America’s big buildings, our skyscrapers, bridges, factories and other structures are the symbols of who we are as a people. I’m incredibly impressed with the work you do.
I’m also impressed with your organizing spirit. Congratulations on your big wins in Montana and Ontario, and your ongoing internal organizing work. Give yourselves a round of applause!
Sisters and brothers, you and your members set the standard with your contracts. You set the scale with your wages, your workplace safety, your pensions and your health care.
As trade unionists, the men and women of the American labor movement raise the bar across this entire country with our solidarity and activism.
When we stand together, the entire economy improves. Wages go up. Consumers have more money to spend. Employers feel competitive pressure to do better for their workers. That’s the strength of collective bargaining and collective action. We have the power to set off a race to the top.
We raise the bar in politics, too. When we get off the sidelines and onto the front lines, we build momentum for our issues and elect candidates who share our working family values.
And let me tell you something, every time you send an apprentice to knock on doors with a labor canvass, they gain a little more understanding of what it means to be a trade unionist. They get a feel for what it means to be involved and talk to our families and friends and neighbors about the issues we face together.
This year, working people are leading the national debate. We, working people, put the focus on good jobs with strong and growing wages. We’ve made it clear that working people should be sharing in the wealth we help create. We’ve shifted the conversation on trade. Instead of continuing to get run over by corporate trade deals, we’re leading the fight to write new global rules that lift up all working people. We’ve been able to make headway because our agenda is driving our politics, not the other way around.
This year our agenda has influenced and inspired America’s leaders more than any time in the past 50 years. That’s why I believe we need to throw everything we have into politics. Working people are winning the debate. Now it’s time to win the election.
When you go back to your homes after this convention, I want you to reach even higher. We need your mobilization and groundwork. The leaders we elect, from the state house to the White House, will have a tremendous impact on infrastructure spending, on Davis-Bacon, on PLAs and other pocketbook issues for your members. You can make the difference. Working people need it. The labor movement needs it. Your family, neighbors and community needs it.
We know unity. We practice solidarity. Together, we can show America that when we stand together, we cannot be turned aside.
We built the American middle class once, and we’ll do it again.
We build the bridges and the factories. We drive the trucks and carry the loads. From skyscrapers to oil rigs, we do it all. We do what it takes. We answer the call. We wake our country up every single day, and we tuck her into bed at night. We don’t mind hard work. We do it with pride. We won’t be faced down or pushed around, and we will NOT be denied.
I want to thank each and every one of you for your unionism and activism. We've been fighting for decades to put the rules of the economy up for debate so they can be changed.
Our economy isn’t like the weather. It’s man-made, and if it doesn’t work, we can and should fix it.
A few weeks ago, I was in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention. It was truly inspiring. Democrats nominated a ticket that opposes the TPP, is committed to raising wages for working families and understands that when workers are strong, when unions are strong, America is strong.
I’ll have more to say about the Democrats shortly, but I can’t let another moment pass without addressing Donald Trump. Where do I even start?
In just the last month, he dishonored the memory of a fallen hero by criticizing a Gold Star family. He said he always wanted a Purple Heart. He called President Obama the founder of ISIS. He said the best way for working women to deal with sexual harassment is either “be strong” or find another job. He joked about killing his opponent. Then he said he was being sarcastic, but “not that sarcastic.”
Sisters and brothers, these moments reveal Donald Trump for who he really is, not just as a candidate but as a man.
Donald Trump is not only dangerous, he’s dishonest. A recent study showed he tells a whopper every five minutes. Don’t believe a thing he says. He pretends to love our cause, but he’s a fraud.
Trump has spent his career shipping our jobs overseas, failing to pay us for the work we do, devastating our communities and treating us like second-class citizens. Now he wants us to believe he will stand with working people and defend unions when he spent his entire life trying to cheat us and destroy us.
Here’s all you need to know about the Donald. He thinks our wages are too high, and he has stolen our pay time and time again. He said outsourcing creates jobs. He rooted for the housing collapse. He supports right to work 100 percent. And he thinks Carl Icahn—who takes glee in killing our jobs and benefits—would make a good Treasury Secretary. No wonder a business firm says Trump’s business plans would cost our nation 3.5 million jobs. That’s right, 3.5 million jobs. Donald Trump would make America unemployed again.
Donald Trump is profoundly unfit to be president. That’s why on November 8, 2016, working people are going to turn the tables, and fire him.
Thankfully, the Democratic side has been a much different story. The primary contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton moved America in the right direction. The Democratic platform yielded the strongest, most progressive and most unifying vision in a generation. And Hillary Clinton is rising to meet the challenges of tomorrow with a strong agenda of shared prosperity.
Hillary is tough. She is smart. She is prepared. And she listens. When she accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention, when she talked about “love of country and the selfless passion to build something better for all who follow,” it was clear she heard our call. And didn’t she choose a great running mate? I heard Tim Kaine was here yesterday. Tim has always stood with us. In fact, he is working with the Virginia labor movement to defeat a ballot initiative that would make right-to-work part of the state constitution. Tim understands we should be expanding workers’ rights, not taking them away.
Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are ready to rewrite the economic rules by reforming or killing corporate trade deals and saying no to the TPP. They have an aggressive plan to rein in Wall Street. They will make the largest investment in infrastructure, public education, workforce development and manufacturing since World War II—to the tune of 10 million new jobs!
And finally, this is the icing on the cake, Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine know that the single greatest tool for economic mobility and a growing middle class is collective bargaining. They will protect and expand the freedom of every worker in America to join or form a union.
Let me tell you something, brothers and sisters: America is tilting toward unionism. This is our chance. This is our moment. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other. We won’t back up or back down. We’ll stand tall. We’ll register. We’ll vote, and we’ll win!
My friends, I want to tell you something personal. Two weeks ago, I welcomed my first grandchild into the world. My son Rich and his wife had a beautiful baby boy. Becoming a grandfather is a reminder that this movement is not just about us, it’s about building a stronger America for generations to come.
It seems like yesterday I was in my backyard with Rich when he was just three or four years old. His grandfather had gotten him one of those battery operated jeeps. He and his buddy Chad were driving around in the backyard.
I was out there too—talking on the phone about what else—the union. Rich must have overheard me because he drove up and said: “Dad what’s a union?”
So I told him to try to push his jeep up the hill. He strained and struggled and eventually got stuck. Then I told his friend Chad to give him a hand. Working together, they were able to do it. I looked right at my son and said: “That’s a union.”
Today, working people are climbing up our own hill. Wages are still too low. Benefits are still too few. Retirement security isn’t secure enough. And the economic rules remain skewed toward the wealthy few.
But we have the power to change that.
In the end, this is more than just an election. It's about where our country is going. It's about what kind of nation we're going to be, an America that says you are mine and I am yours, or one that governs by dividing and fanning fears.
By standing together, and defining American values for the ages, we’ll defeat the misguided, petty and unnecessary politics of division and disunity. And we’ll send a message to every Republican who made the rise of Trump possible: change course or face extinction.
America’s labor movement is unleashing the most comprehensive and sophisticated electoral program in our history.
We need your help. Talk to your members. Send out your apprentice teams. Ask them to volunteer and turn out at the polls. I want to see union members vote at unprecedented levels. If you haven’t done it already, talk to your central labor council. Name a coordinator for each worksite, so our team has someone to communicate with.
When your membership gets involved in the ground campaign, nothing can stop us. When working people speak the truth about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we will move the needle. The choice is clear. You know what it takes. Keep leading the way. Keep blazing a trail forward.
So it’s time for us to stand up strong, brothers and sisters. It’s time to mobilize and organize. This electoral season is all about raising wages. We’ll hit the worksites. We’ll talk to members. We’ll walk the streets and knock the doors. This is what a unified labor movement does. This is what it looks like when working people stand together, union strong!
And after the ballots are counted and the elections have been won, we’ll be in a better position to organize in the workplace, and win strong contracts and better pay.
We’ll fix what’s broken in our country. Together, we will create a better tomorrow. We’ll have to work for it, sisters and brothers. Together. Each of us. With solidarity. Where your picket line is my picket line and my picket line is your picket line. Ironworkers with UFCW. Steel with Autoworkers. Painters and Electricians. All of us together. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm in arm. All day. Every day. Voting. Fighting. Winning. Together. To bring out the best in each other and ourselves. To bring out the best in America. To build the nation we can have and must have and will have!
Thank you! And God bless you!