What I Do
Christy McGill, Art Teacher - Divide Elementary School, Lookout, WV.
Christy McGill, Art Teacher - Divide Elementary School, Lookout, WV.
Thank you, John [Hegarty]. It’s great to be with you at your legislative conference, my brother. Thank you for having me.
John, before I begin, I want to acknowledge something about your union – and that’s your activism. The Mail Handlers have an impressive grassroots track record.
Mail Handlers activism reaches from the White House -- where you know how to turn up the pressure, to your own houses, your own homes, and to the homes of each of your members, because you also know how to talk to your families and neighbors, you know how to rally around a cause, and you know how to get young people signed up to vote just as soon as they turn 18. You knock on doors. You work the phone banks and you leaflet the plants. Those are essential elements of union political programs, and I salute you for your hard work.
Hard work is how we’re building a stronger, independent labor movement -- a movement that builds power for union members and all working people -- not power for politicians or political parties.
And I’d like to acknowledge something else special about the Mail Handlers.
We talk often about the need for employment opportunities for veterans of America’s armed services -- but few people know how many Mail Handlers have served our country. Your ranks are second only to the Veterans Administration in the percentage of workers with a history of military service. One-quarter of all Mail Handers are veterans. One quarter. That’s a record of service that each and every one of you should be proud of.
Each and every man or woman who serves our country should be able to come home to a good job in civilian life, a good job, every single one.
And let me make a point about that: If you’re a member of the Mail Handlers, you’ve got a good job. You can raise a family, pay the bills, send your kids to college, retire with dignity. I don’t mean that you’re wealthy, but you can live and work with dignity. And that reality exists thanks to the good work you do, each and every one of you, it’s thanks to this proud union, it’s thanks to your solidarity.
Thank you.
Sisters and brothers, jobs like yours are endangered in America today. The assaults against good jobs are unrelenting. Twenty years ago, America had more than 700 postal plants. Today, that number is in the low 400s, and if the Postmaster General has his way, the USPS will only have about 200 plants in 2015!
But it isn’t just the Postal Service. We see the same story in every single line of work -- in manufacturing, hotel work, newspapers, mining, and of course in public service everywhere, a constant downsizing of the American Dream. The danger is especially real in jobs with union density -- but it's not just union jobs. They're even outsourcing legal work and medical work that used to be done by young lawyers and by medical technicians!
We're living in a time of crisis -- a man-made crisis that has been brewing for a long time, almost 35 years.
This is a crisis that causes real-world pain. The disappearance of good jobs means that America's working families live in fear and insecurity. It’s a hard, and exhausting, and painful way to live.
We know the culprit, the right-wing CEOs and the vulture capitalists of Wall Street. But the real question isn’t what’s happening but how we as a movement respond -- because if we confront these challenges with creative action, solidarity and innovation, then we will use this hard time to make tough, necessary changes, to transform ourselves into a bigger, stronger movement, a growing movement.
Our solidarity is more powerful than money.
And truly, we are all in this together.
A postal plant in Cleveland isn’t just about Mail Handlers. It isn’t just about the Postal Service or even public workers. That plant makes a difference for just about everybody who works for a living.
You see, we are facing a fundamental choice in this country between dignity and disgrace, between being a nation with a strong and vibrant middle class or one with a wealthy 1% who walk all over the rest of us.
A lot of people have decided we just have to dial down our expectations – we have to bend to reality.
My father and grandfather taught me that as trade unionists, we have a responsibility to show that working people can throw conventional wisdom on its head. It's our job to show that solidarity can win when no one thinks it can. Together we can make change happen, not later, right now.
That's what we're building for. We have to open up our movement—to make it easier for millions more working people to have a real voice—a voice on the job, a voice in our economy, a voice in our country.
You see, the Wall Street CEOs and the vulture capitalists, they think having offshore bank accounts and an elevator for their cars, or a pink marble driveway, is the American Dream. They laugh and say how much they like firing people, because they've never worried about losing a job, about losing health insurance.
Well, that's not the American Dream. Those clueless CEOs play their corporate shell games, but they don't know a thing about responsibility. They don't know what we know. They don't know what it's like to have car loans and student loans and underwater mortgages. They don't know what it's like to work hard and worry about making ends meet.
We’re the people who raise our families, we pay our bills, and we put our shoulder to the wheel, every single day!
The right-wing politicians and the corporate elite may have given up on America. They may say our nation's best days are behind us. They may say America can't afford to be a great nation any more.
But that's not good enough. We haven’t given up on America, we never will. And let me say this -- I don't give a damn if some people have given up on us—if they’ve given up on respecting the fact that working people have a voice. Let 'em!
Listen, my friends: anyone who looks past working people is making a big mistake. Working people, union and non-union make this country work! We wake America up every morning and tuck her into bed at night. And by damn, we're going to mobilize and organize, and we're going to raise our voices. And we’re going to take our country back!
Brothers and sisters, you know what I stand for.
We stand for jobs. Good jobs. We stand for quality public services, including a top-flight U.S. Postal Service with the kind of dependable delivery and long-term sustainability that has made it an icon of good government. We stand for keeping the distribution centers! Keeping overnight mail service! Keeping the plants open! We stand for keeping the “service” in the Postal Service!
As a movement, we're also taking the long view. We're doing some critical long-range planning, and I think you're going to like what you hear. We're holding listening sessions all over the country. We’re hearing from union members and from community allies, about how we can work together. And as a result of what we hear, this fall, at the AFL-CIO convention, we expect to be talking about some substantial new ideas on how to build and sustain power for working people.
Working people in America today are motivated. We’re activated. We’re energized. Quite frankly, we don’t have a hell of a lot of choice. And I absolutely believe we’ll come out on the right side of these fights, stronger than ever before.
And if anybody doubts the possibilities of what we can do, let me just say "immigration reform." A year ago, the political know-it-alls would have laughed me out of town if I had said a new law with a real and workable path to citizenship would have bipartisan support today.
The know-it-alls don't know it all. Immigration reform is in the works with real momentum, and about that reform and labor's role in it, I’ll just say this: That bill isn’t final, and we’ll be fighting like hell to make sure immigration reform works – that it has a real road map to citizenship, keeps families together and protects the rights of all workers -- all workers -- immigrant and native born, today and into the future.
We’ll win this fight, and in 18 months, you mark my words, we’ll throw those pundits for another loop when we put labor’s champion Nancy Pelosi back in the Speaker’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and put some real progress back on track in Washington, DC!
That’s how we’ll show every single politician that they’d better stand with working people, or look for another job!
You see, we’ll struggle and fight for every champion who supports our fundamental American values.
And we’ll fight for every cause that lines up with our belief in the dignity of work, all work.
Sisters and brothers, these values connect us all. They have been a winning combination in American history since before the founding of our great nation—and they’ll never go out of style.
Working people want and need progress in America today, and that’s what we aim to achieve.
We’re going to take America back.
To take it back, we’ve got to want it, we’ve got to work for it. We have to stand for it. We’ve got to fight for it.
We’ll bring out the best in our country, and in ourselves. To build the future we know we can have, we must have, for each of us, for our children, for our grandchildren. And we will never, ever, give up. We will always, always, go forward. And together, we will win, for our children, for our families, for our future, for our country. That’s how we’ll go forward. That’s how we’ll win. Together! Together!
Thank you! And God bless you!
Thank you, and I believe we may have some time for a few questions.
Thank you, brothers and sisters.
Now I have the honor of introducing a true champion of working people, the longest-serving independent member of Congress in history. I’m talking about a man who has gone to battle again and again in defense of the American working class. I’m talking about my friend and brother, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
