Speech | Civil Rights

Trumka to Metal Trades: Inequality is Not Inevitable

Las Vegas, Nev.

Good morning, sisters and brothers. Thank you, Brother Jimmy (Hart) for that introduction. I appreciate your friendship and your leadership. It is great to be here in Las Vegas.

The Metal Trades has a proud history. Since you were first chartered in 1908, you have been lifting workers up. You are a champion of good, high-paying jobs with great benefits and safe workplaces. You help bring the American Dream to families and communities across the nation. From shipyards to power plants, you are proof of what’s possible when working people stand together for a better life.

Today, that better life is under attack. The corporate right-wing wants to ship our jobs overseas. They want to lower our wages. They want to take away our health care and pensions. They want to deny us a voice on the job, destroy our unions and keep all the profits we helped create.

For too long, this type of greed has been encouraged in America. Through bad trade deals and trickle down tax policies. Through outsourcing and other corporate schemes. Through free market fanaticism that rewards wealth over work. That’s why we had a Great Recession where Main Street was forced to bailout Wall Street. That’s why wages are flat even though worker productivity is through the roof. That’s why we are falling behind the rest of the world on education, infrastructure and innovation.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Inequality is not inevitable. It is a choice. The economy is nothing more than a set of rules written by the men and women we elect. Those rules determine winners and losers. For the last several decades, working people have been on the wrong end of that equation. You know it and I know it.

It is time for a new set of rules. We want rules that ensure wages are high and rising, and inequality is shrinking. We want rules that make it easier to organize and bargain collectively. We want stronger rules on Wall Street and fairer rules for the working poor, immigrants, women and people of color.

Give us these rules, and we’ll give you a new era of shared prosperity where all working people can get ahead.

There’s a new, brighter day in front of us. A union resurgence. All we have to do is reach out and grab it.

Our labor movement built the American middle class once, and we’ll do it again. We know unity. We practice solidarity. When we stand together, we cannot be turned aside.

We generate the power and build the ships. We protect America and make it go. We serve our country with pride. We do what it takes. We answer the call. We won’t be faced down or pushed around, and we will not be denied.

Now listen, we’ve got an election in 33 days. Momentum is on our side. A new economic report shows that workers won a pay increase of over 5 percent in 2015, the first raise since 2007. That same year, 5 million workers went to the bargaining table, the most in recent memory. This is not a coincidence. When we organize, when we bargain collectively, when we stand strong, wages go up, not just for union members, but workers across the board.

We’re having that same impact in politics. Working people are shaping the debate like never before. We’ve put wage stagnation and inequality front and center, and that’s where we intend to keep them. Just look at the first question in last week’s presidential debate. It was about raising wages. That’s our agenda!

We’ve also put the brakes on the job-killing, no good Trans-Pacific Partnership. Nearly everybody thought the TPP was a done deal. It had the support of the president, Congressional leaders and an army of special interests. But the Wall Street and Washington elite underestimated our strength. And I promise you, if that bad deal comes up for a vote after the election, we’ll kill it once and for all.

As a labor movement, we are putting our agenda before our politics. We are leading with the issues. When we stand up for working people, and not any political party, candidates will stop taking us for granted, and we can better hold our elected leaders accountable.

Sisters and brothers, the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—it isn’t a choice at all. Did you watch that debate last week? I don’t even know where to start.

Donald Trump is completely unfit to be president. He crumbled under the lights of a 90-minute debate. Can you imagine him in the Oval Office or God forbid, the Situation Room?

Clinton is better in every objective measure. Clinton is reliable. Trump is not. Clinton is prepared. Trump is not. Clinton is civil. Trump is anything but. Clinton has a track record of fighting for workers. Trump has a track record of ripping workers off.

If you want to know where Donald Trump really stands, ask the brave men and women at Trump Hotel here in Las Vegas. First, Trump paid a union-busting firm hundreds of thousands of dollars to discourage workers from organizing. The workers won anyway. Then, Trump refused to recognize the union. He dragged his feet. He filed an appeal. He did everything except bargain a first contract. It is time for Donald Trump to get off of Twitter and come to the bargaining table.

Are we really surprised that Trump is refusing to negotiate a fair deal? Remember, he says wages are too high. Just think about that for a second. Maybe that’s why he has continually stiffed plumbers and painters and dishwashers. He thinks we’ve already made too much money. This is from a man who has never struggled, and actually brags about not paying his taxes. Trump has never had to worry about keeping the lights on. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have to choose between food and medicine. He doesn’t understand the pain of telling a child you cannot afford to send them to camp, much less college. People lost their homes, jobs and life savings because of his greed. And he has the audacity to say wages are too high? I say no. We say no. And in 33 days, all of America will say no.

Now, I know there’s some skepticism about Hillary Clinton. She’s been scrutinized and poked and prodded for the better part of 40 years. But when you peel back the layers, you’ll find a public servant that has always looked out for working people.

Hillary will make the largest investment in infrastructure, workforce development and manufacturing since World War II—to the tune of over 10 million new jobs. She has a detailed plan to educate and train workers for careers of the future, boosting our competitiveness in the global marketplace. And when it comes to workers’ rights, she knows the single greatest tool for economic mobility and a growing middle class is collective bargaining.

Hillary Clinton is the right candidate at the right time. Our nation is rediscovering unionism. This is our chance. This is our moment. We won’t back up or back down. We’ll stand tall. We’ll mobilize. We’ll organize. We’ll register. We’ll vote. We’re winning the debate. Now it’s time to win the election!

The next 33 days are about where our country is going. The contrast and the stakes are enormous.

So the labor movement has unleashed the most comprehensive and sophisticated electoral program in our history. We need your help. Engage your members. Send out your release staff. I want the union vote to reach unprecedented levels.

We recently got results back from an internal poll of union members in five key states. The findings exposed another one of Donald Trump’s lies—the idea that he has “tremendous” support among union members.

In fact, Trump’s numbers are lower than Mitt Romney’s in 2012. We are cutting through Trump’s bluster and getting to the heart of his record. Trump may be loud, but we are clear. When your membership gets involved, nothing can stop us. When working people speak the truth about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we move the needle.

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 results are in, we’ll be in a better position to improve our communities, to organize in the workplace and to win strong contracts and raising wages.

We’ll fix what’s broken in America. Together, we will create a better tomorrow. We’ll work for it, sisters and brothers. Each of us. With solidarity. Where your picket line is my picket line and my picket line is your picket line. Machinists with Glass Molders. Laborers with Operating Engineers. Plumbers and Pipefitters. Boilermakers and IBEW. All of us together. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm in arm. All day. Every day. Voting. Fighting. Winning. 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! God bless you!

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