Thank you, Brother Rick [Blocker], for your warm words of introduction. I want to thank you, also, for bringing me to Detroit, to this great American city. It’s good to be back. But I want to offer my biggest thanks to all of you, for your generosity and for being here this evening. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of mobilizing and a lot of organizing, and with your help that’s what we’re going to do.
You know, the political dial in Michigan, and all across America, has moved so far to the right, that it’s almost off the chart.
Think for a minute about what your failure of a governor Rick Snyder stands for. Go through the list in your head. And think about what it means to working people, to have a failed governor, what it means not just in Michigan but all across our nation.
Gov. Snyder stands for pushing every worker to the bottom, to a place with no unions, no prevailing wage, no decent funding for public education, no federal student loans, no retirement security or Medicaid, no voting rights, no job safety protections, no gender equity and no food safety standards. That is his vision, a corporate welfare state paid for by you and me and beholden to no one.
Think about the damage Gov. Snyder has done to all of us. Think of the attacks on pensions that have intensified from New Jersey and Maine to Alaska and all across this country. Think of what the Michigan governor’s race means for the agenda of the anti-worker right-wing. I’m serious. Gov. Snyder is leading the way for a destructive new brand of Tea Party governors. He’s leading the way when he takes authority from local leaders and turns it over to bureaucrats who are only accountable to wealthy investors. He’s leading the way when he lies to Michigan about passing right to work, when he slashes funding for public education and when he, each and every day, runs the state not for the good of the people but for his billionaire backers.
He raised your taxes by $1.4 billion, on parents, retirees and working families, and then he cut education by a billion dollars, all to give billions in tax cuts to rich CEOs and wealthy corporations. What did you get from those higher taxes?
Did you get jobs? No. Michigan has the fifth highest unemployment rate in the nation, and Michigan is 49th in job creation.
Did you get better schools? No. Classes are overcrowded and 52 school districts are bleeding money.
Better roads? Not even close. These roads are a mess.
This is why Rick Snyder is a failure. But none of this is like the weather. It won’t just clear up in a few days. Politics is a matter of choice, not chance. This is the economy Rick Snyder created. We have to clear it up. We can change it. Brothers and sisters, we’ll change it by getting rid of your failed governor. Gov. Snyder has rigged every game for the richest of the rich, and he wants the cold, hard edge of the marketplace to run the world. If you’re too young, too old, too sick, too poor, too anything, it’s just tough luck.
This isn’t about partisanship. Not every Democrat is a champion of working families. Nor is every Republican an enemy. But these days, too many Republicans are right-wing extremists. These politicians don’t govern, they dictate. And they keep cramming the right-wing agenda down our throat.
And here’s the thing. These failed politicians, like Gov. Snyder, they know their values are not majority values, and that’s why they scheme to shrink our democracy, to cut back our ability to exercise our rights as Americans. That’s what the voter ID laws do. That’s what gerrymandering does. Their goal is simple, to rob Michigan’s people of fair representation. That’s un-American. And it’s plain wrong.
Sisters and brothers, this isn’t business as usual. We’re seeing radical change coming fast. But we’re doing something about it. You are, this evening. We’re doing three things.
Number one: We’re strengthening our unions. Number two: We’re strengthening our political program, so we can elect leaders who will stand with us, and then, number three, hold them accountable, so we can all stand united for a better life.
It’s our job to make America work, because we are the workers of America, from the hotels to the high schools, we lay the foundations, teach the classes and make the cars. We build the roads. We do what it takes, no matter the cost. We wake our country up every single day, and we tuck her into bed at night. This is our time. We’re taking our country back, to work for the people who work!
All throughout our communities, collective action is on the rise. Populism is on the rise, and it isn’t growing along a partisan divide. It’s about values, not political parties.
Collective action once again has grown as a topic in the national conversation, and people are taking action, from the fast food workers demanding $15 an hour and a union to Walmart workers taking on the richest family and the largest private employer in the world. Working people want results, and that includes some self-described Tea Party Republicans.
You’re raising your voices here in Detroit, and it’s being heard. You’re saying it’s time to stop targeting regular working people to give more money to the rich and powerful. You’re saying, water for our families is more important than billions for a wealthy investor. We need balance, brothers and sisters.
Three out of every four voters think we should raise the minimum wage. Nearly 70% of working class registered Republican voters say, “It shouldn’t be this hard to support a family.” More than 80% of all workers think America should stop shipping jobs overseas and support American manufacturing.
This is all part of a new kind of populism, growing from our discontent, and not easy to define, yet it is very real, and it is reshaping America, and it gives us, over the next 41 days until Election Day, a prime opportunity to shape that change.
You see, working people are united by the circumstances of our lives, and by the vision we share, and the values we share.
And so it is up to you and me, to each of us, to connect with the workers who share our values, but who don’t yet see how our interests intersect.
We are perfectly positioned to unite a massive movement, to raise wages and to lift up our communities. We have an opportunity to show every elected leader, from the White House on down, that those who stand proudly with working families, will win in November. It’s that simple.
Imagine the strength we could have. It’s closer than you think. We can raise wages. We can win a day when the gap between the rich and the rest of us, starts to shrink.
We are starting the powerful cycle of progress, sisters and brothers. This is how we end the downward slide and start to rise. Power and hope are growing. We’re on the right path. We’re moving forward, and we’ve got to keep going. We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.
We’ll stand together, to raise wages. We’ll march together, for a better life! For working families! For good pay! For a strong governor! For Michigan’s future!
From where we stand, we can see the cycle of fairness and justice and progress. Let’s get to it. The billionaires may be against us, but Michigan is on our side.
This isn’t about horse race politics. Don’t let poll numbers lift your spirits too high, or push them too low. It’s time for us to build power for working families. That’s what we’re doing. You see, by campaigning for Mark Schauer for governor, we can advance working people and end the political career of Rick Snyder. Mark Schauer will be a great leader for Michigan, and he’s doing his part. He’s running neck-and-neck. We can push him across the finish line, and that’s exactly what we’ll do!
Detroit is ready, brothers and sisters! Michigan is ready! You make the difference. We’ll connect with more working-class voters, to get more working families to the polls, to build power and elect as many of the best leaders as we can, not just in Michigan, but in every corner of America.
We’re changing lives—not small changes but big changes. We’re scrambling and reaching for a little more hope. We have a vision. And we’re making it real, because all of us pitch in, that’s shared responsibility, shared sacrifice.
So get off your seat and on your feet, sisters and brothers. We’ll stand together, and win together! That’s how unionism works! That’s why the best way to a better tomorrow is still and always will be a union contract! We stand together! We’ll work for it. We’ll fight for it. Together. And we’re gonna win together!
Thank you! God bless you!