Thank you!
And thank you, Mark [Dimondstein],for that truly warm introduction, and for including me in your convention. It’s an honor to be with the American Postal Workers Union. It’s wonderful to be in Chicago, with you.
First, I want you to know I’ve been following your growing activism, and I think it’s smart. In particular, I like the fact that you’re moving ideas that Post Office can put into effect today. You’re not waiting on Congress to fix the U.S. Postal Service. You’ve got new leadership, and you’re taking full advantage of the energy and enthusiasm of your leaders to see what all of us can do, what positive changes we can make.
Second, I want to acknowledge the APWU for your important work in helping to pull together the historic alliance of the four postal unions. None of us should miss the significance of this coalition. It’s a big deal, because it could very well change the dynamic of the U.S. Postal Service, and it’s part and parcel of the growing activism of workers across America.
And I want say something about the work your members do every day. You moved almost 160 billion pieces of mail last year, including 66 billion letters and other first-class mail. Most of your work is never seen by the public. Most people have no idea what you do. But we feel it. We depend on it. You provide a critical service, absolutely critical. You embody professionalism, in public service. Thank you.
The American public trusts our Post Office because you always deliver. Year after year after year, the headline is the same: “The United States Postal Service once again finds itself at the top of the list of most trusted federal agencies.” That’s a real quote from a national survey.
I’ve got something else to tell you, get ready for this, the American public doesn’t trust Staples like we trust you. It’s not the same. Stop Staples!
There’s still a boycott. Staples can’t dodge this one. The battle continues. Staples hasn’t changed. We haven’t changed.
Let’s be perfectly clear. You heard me! Don’t Buy Staples!
We will not stand by and let the Postal Service privatize America’s most trusted institution.
Stop Staples is a powerful campaign. You’ve done the groundwork. You’ve built a winning campaign, and it’s gaining steam. The momentum is growing. Unions are stepping forward to stand at your side, and people all over the place are talking about it.
You’re building a coalition, and it’s getting bigger.
You’re raising your voices, and it’s getting louder!
You stand together to defend the institution we love, and when you do, you show America what unionism is!
Brothers and sisters, we’re going to help working families use unionism to build a better life. I’m not saying that because I like the sound of the words. I’m saying it because it’s true. Unionism works. The APWU builds strong careers, strong families, strong communities and a strong future for the United States of America.
The best way to fair pay, is a union contract.
The best way to retirement security, is a union contract.
The best way to a better tomorrow, so you can give your family a decent life and health care and a good education, it all comes back to a union contract.
And a decent life is not too much to ask, because we’re the workers of America. We sort the loads and ship the mail. We build the roads and bridges. We drive the trucks and answer the call. We do what it takes, no matter what the cost. We wake our country up every single day, and we tuck her into bed at night. We won’t be turned aside. We won’t be faced down, and we will not be denied.
Sisters and brothers, we’re all too familiar with the story of the past 40 years. We know how productivity rose while wages froze, which meant virtually all of the wealth created by our constantly climbing productivity has gone to the richest 1%.
Our economy doesn’t work when work doesn’t pay.
Household expenditures make up 70 percent of the American economy. That’s how working people are the real job creators, because when we do well, we buy goods and services to improve our lives. And when we spend, we create demand, and corporations hire workers to meet that demand. It’s what you call a virtuous cycle. It’s the opposite of a race to the bottom. It’s the foundation of a strong economy built on real wages, not credit card debt and asset bubbles.
At the AFL-CIO we’ve got a new program called Common Sense Economics to teach 1 million regular working people how our economy should work. That’s just one way we’ll turn things around by building power for working people. We’ve got other initiatives, too. We’re strengthening our state federations of labor and CLCs. We’re joining together with allies, in ways we never have before. We’re a mainstream movement, and we’re acting like it.
We’re building power every way we can. We’re supporting workers who organize in new ways. We’re mobilizing with new energy. We’re supporting change at the local level, and the state level. And we’re strengthening our electoral campaigns at the federal level.
We’re fighting back against the planned closures of 82 processing plants. Honestly, these closures are about the dumbest thing I ever heard. I’m tired of postal service leaders who want nothing more than postal service destruction.
I don’t like him, but I know what makes Rep. Darrell Issa tick. He has a right to his opinion. He has an ideological problem with the U.S. Postal Service. You can sum up all his ideas in one word: privatize. But what I don’t understand is how someone can take a job like U.S. Postmaster General without embracing a strong and positive vision of the service you provide.
For one thing, the postal service earned an operating profit last year, so it’s a struggle to argue for major changes. For another, if you contend—as Patrick Donahoe does—that the postal service must compete better, why would you try to cut Saturday delivery? It’s one of the service’s most powerful competitive edges!
And when the postal service remains the standard-bearer for reliability and trust, why in the world would you put timely delivery at risk by trying to close 82 plants?
And don’t even get me started on the Staples plan. That’s just another way to outsource and downgrade postal service jobs from career quality to minimum wage to make a few executives richer.
As a plan, it stinks.
As reality, it stinks even worse.
We won’t allow it.
And I’ll tell you something. There’s an interesting thing happening in America today. You see, the American people have begun to understand the connection between good jobs and a strong economy. Good jobs at the post office support local businesses. Our neighbors and friends get that basic idea, and we’re spreading the word.
America is tired of losing middle-class jobs. We’re done with the downward spiral.
The AFL-CIO did a poll recently. We asked a group of voters if they agreed with this simple statement: “We need to make sure that all of us, not just the CEOs get our fair share in our economy.”
When we asked those making less than $50,000 a year, two out of three voters agreed, 66% said, yes, that’s right, we need to make sure all of us, not just CEOs get our fair share. Here’s the kicker. Guess who we asked? Registered Republicans. That poll was of voters registered with the Republican Party.
Here’s what this means to me. It means a solid majority of working people of every stripe share the same basic challenges, and the same hopes and dreams, and we recognize economics are at the heart of our problems. And that’s why we’ve started educating, mobilizing and organizing these workers on a national scale.
You see, I believe the labor movement has an opening in America today. Every day, more and more people are ready to hear what the labor movement has to say.
But we have a challenge. We need to present a positive vision for the future, like what you’re doing with the idea of non-bank financial services at post offices, so under-served communities aren’t forced to pay huge fees to check-cashing companies and pay-day lenders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren likes the idea, and she’s pushing it, and that’s all well and good, but we don’t need a legislative solution. We’ve got a solid and independent piece of research pointing the way. The post office has the power to get the ball rolling today, and a recent poll found it’s a popular idea with the American public!
What else do you want? All we need is a postmaster general who knows a little something about business, like maybe someone who sees the potential in $9 billion in added revenue from new service, rather than $750 million in savings from job-killing cuts.
With ideas like these, we can start to show working-class people the good things we can accomplish by standing together, to build strength and prosperity for all of us.
Ideas like these will help us motivate working-class voters to get to the polls, because if we want the policies our working families need, if we want all of us to get our fair share, we need the right leaders in our states and for this country. We’ve got to engage and turn out our people.
When I say, “our people,” I mean union members and families but also like-minded folks in our communities.
But don’t get me wrong. We’re not working for any candidate. We’re not building power for any political party. Not the Democratic Party. Not the Republican Party. We’re building power for working people, pure and simple. We’re looking at the long view.
Yet I promise, nobody will work harder, or smarter, to elect the leaders who make the right commitments, and nobody will work harder, or longer, to defeat those who don’t, regardless of political party. We’re not going to hold our nose and endorse Democrats, just because they have a D next to their name. That’s not good enough.
We’re asking hard questions of every candidate who wants our support, and one question we want every candidate to answer is, do you support the United States Postal Service? Do you believe in the U.S. Postal Service? Do you believe in postal workers? Will you grow the service, not shrink it? Will you build the service, not tear it down?
Standing together, working people will change this country. It’ll take hard work, but we have an advantage mobilizing hard-working voters—because the values and policies we stand for, are directly in our shared interest. Raising wages, protecting health care and retirement security, making workplaces safe and jobs family-friendly, and making sure this economy works for the many, not just the wealthy few.
Brothers and sisters, we have big things to do as a country—put our people back to work, raise wages, restore our democracy and build 21st century infrastructure. We’re going to strengthen and grow the U.S. Postal Service, not throw it away.
We’re building power from the ground up, and we’re taking it one day at a time. We don’t have to accomplish everything at once.
We can take the time to do it right, because we know, the American people need what we have to offer. America needs solidarity.
Sisters and brothers, from the Vatican to the VFW post and everywhere in between, people want an end to the politics of cruelty, the politics of poverty, the politics of exclusion.
The time is right. The world is changing. America is changing. The power of the 99% is growing. This is the new story in America.
This new national storyline did not start in Washington, D.C. or in the centers of American power. It didn’t come from Wall Street. It grows when whole communities join postal workers to defend the quality service of the USPS. It has risen up from the hotels and casinos and the taxi stands and from the early bus, when the domestic workers travel across town together for a day’s work. It comes from the Facebook pages where Walmart workers meet and learn how much they have in common, and how strong they are. It comes from the college graduates trying to find jobs under crushing debt, and from those earning our terribly low, low minimum wage.
And it is up to you and me, to each of us, to help make the voices of America, our America, heard in the workplace and in our national life.
Work should never hold us down and trap us in poverty. Work must lift us up. We want our country to work for the people who work!
Power and hope are rising, sisters and brothers.
Power and hope are rising. It’s truly a groundswell, in the words of the great poet Maya Angelou, who died just a few short weeks ago:
“Still I rise.”
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I rise.
You may trod me in the very dirt …
You may trod me in the very dirt …
but still, like dust, I rise.”
We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and November, and after.
Listen, I know how hard you work. I know how dedicated you are. Working people need you again. We need your political action, we need your mobilization, we need it to show working people everywhere we can stand together, in solidarity, for a better life. It works.
It’s about changing our lives, and scrambling and reaching for a little more hope. We have a vision. And we’re going to make it real, because when all of us pitch in, that’s shared responsibility, shared sacrifice. We do what it takes.
What we want is simple. It’s what everybody wants, the chance to work hard for a decent life, for health care, for a secure retirement, and to give a better life to our kids. We’ll stand together, because we’re stronger together.
We’ll work for it, sisters and brothers. We’ll stand for it. Together. Each of us. With solidarity. Real solidarity. Where your picket line is my picket line. And my picket line is your picket line. And we’ll stand together. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm-in-arm. All day. Every day. As long as it takes. To win together. Because we’re going to win together. Grow together. To bring out the best in ourselves, to bring out the best in America.
Thank you. Thank you, and God bless you!