Thank you, Bob [Scardelletti], my old friend. Thank you for your warm words and generous sentiment. I couldn’t say exactly how long we’ve known each other, but it’s been quite a long while. I can tell you this: I appreciate you. You’re a down-to-earth union man, focused on your members. And you’re effective. Thank you, Bob, for who you are and what you do.
Brothers and sisters, it’s good to be with you. It’s good to see a union that’s doing so well. You’ve got great contracts, great benefits, great retirement. Every worker in America should have it so good, and, let me tell you, we’ve got something like that in mind.
You see, I’d like all of America to share the goal of lifting all people up, rather than allowing ourselves to be divided.
Does someone need retirement security? We’ll stand with them until they get it. Does someone need fair pay and good benefits? We’ll show them how to build a union to bargain collectively for what they need.
It’s not rocket science. It’s unionism. It’s the American way. And it works.
That’s the message we’re spreading all across this great country.
Unions build 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 haul the loads and ship by rail. 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, and how tough things have been for the majority of working families from coast to coast. We know that productivity rose while wages froze, which means virtually all of the wealth created by our hard work has gone to the richest 1%.
Our economy doesn’t work when work doesn’t pay.
Household expenditures make up 70% of the American economy. That’s why 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.
Now I know the TCU hasn’t suffered from the off-shoring and outsourcing of American jobs, not like the Machinists and other manufacturing unions, but the truth is we’re all connected, and, as your president says, if corporate CEOs could figure out a way to send your jobs to China, it would happen in a heartbeat. So we’re banding together with industry and anyone else who will join us to support American manufacturing from the ground up.
You see, America is tired of losing middle-class jobs. We don’t like it. We’re done with the downward spiral. We don’t want it anymore.
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.
What this means to me is that working people of every stripe share the same basic challenges, and the same hopes and dreams. That’s why we’re educating, mobilizing and organizing these workers on a national scale. And that’s why it makes sense for you to partner with House Republicans when your interests coincide.
You see, 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.
America needs leaders who will support the priorities of working people.
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 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.
Brothers and sisters, from the Vatican to the Moral Mondays in North Carolina, 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. One hundred and fifteen years ago it rose from the rail yards and depots. It came from the mines and mills. It rose from factories and warehouses, and today it is rising up from the hotels and casinos, the fast food restaurants 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 together. 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 workers 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.”
This fall, when you go into negotiations, think about this: We’re building power.
Workers all across America are stepping forward. All across this country, our political programs are swinging into action. We’re knocking on doors. We’re getting to the phone banks. We’re choosing our targets. We’re registering our voters. We’re building power.
Because I don’t care how well you speak, or how convincing your argument, when you’ve got political power, our issues suddenly grow legs. All of a sudden, our issues start to move forward. It’s amazing.
I want to see a lot more of that. We’ve only had a taste. But to get it, 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. Have a great convention. And God bless you!