What I Do
Deborah Cannada, Librarian - West Side Elementary School, Charleston, WV.
Deborah Cannada, Librarian - West Side Elementary School, Charleston, WV.
Thank you, Doris [Crouse-Mays]. It’s always good to be with you. It’s always good to be in Virginia.
You know, Doris, you are one heck of a great trade unionist. You’re tough as nails and full of compassion. You’re a good friend and a great leader who knows how to always, always find a way forward -- a leader who knows how to win.
I’m proud to be here in this hall with so many leaders for working families in Virginia – with labor leaders and activists and allies. Thank you all for being leaders in this movement. All of us share something. We share a passion for justice and the American Dream. And when it comes to the future of working people in Virginia and all across America, we’re marching arm-in-arm, shoulder-to-shoulder, and I know that what we accomplish will be won together.
My friends, Virginia stands at a crossroads. Two paths lie before us. The state could build on last’s years impressive victories that helped seal the second term of President Obama and hold the U.S. Senate for the friends of working families. Or the state could embrace the politics of fear, of division and failure.
Those are the two roads ahead in Virginia. That’s the choice.
Virginia, it’s a state with so much rich potential for working people and progress, and yet it’s also home to politicians like Ken Cuccinelli, who was Tea Party before the Tea Party was called the Tea Party, back when it was just known as the “radical right wing.” Listen, if Cuccinelli wins and has his way, look out, because he’s coming after labor, voting rights, women, people of color, LGBT rights, education and the environment -- the whole nine yards.
If he wins, Cuccinelli will basically run the ALEC playbook. And I don’t have to tell anyone here what that would do to the middle class in Virginia.
ALEC and Cuccinelli stand for everything we stand against.
And yet if working families mobilize and turn out in November, and win for leaders who will stand and fight for working people, maybe those who stand for progress in Virginia can get back on offense for a change.
What would make life better for working people? What would strengthen Virginia’s middle class instead of decimating it? You might want a public-sector employee bargaining law, and how about new laws to safeguard and improve access to the ballot on and before Election Day, so every single eligible voter, every hard-working Virginian who has to work on Election Day, can have a voice in our democracy, and in the workplace?
Elections matter. They can be a road to the future we want and need. Working families and our allies can use elections to help build an economy that works for working people.
We can build a movement of everyone who shares with us the basic vision that each of us, if we play by the rules and work hard, if we do our part, can expect to build a decent life. That’s the American Dream.
And that’s not too much to ask.
And with that vision to unify us, we will take our country back, because it’s working men and women who make America run! We drive the taxis and teach the children and build the roads. We mine the coal and load the ships. We keep the lights on and the public services humming. We’re high-tech and low-tech and everything in between. We answer the call. We rise to the task. We do what it takes, no matter what the price, no matter how high the cost. Because this is our America!
And let me tell you, we have come too far to be turned back now. We won't back up. We won't back down. We won't be turned aside. Working people built this country. Together – all of us -- we’re the American labor movement -- and we will not be denied!
Brothers and sisters, there is poverty in America, and right here in Virginia. There is want. There is discrimination. There is second-class citizenship in America. It goes by ugly terms—terms like “illegal immigrant.” All over our country, mothers and fathers work hard for next to nothing, while a tiny portion of our population grows ever more rich and wealthy at our expense -- every single day. All over America, regular people struggle to hold onto our democracy, while the titans of Wall Street spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to twist and distort our political culture -- every single day.
And it is a rare thing to find people who will stand up for what’s right, people who will listen to others, and truly hear them. It’s a rare thing to find people who will allow their own views to evolve in the face of new evidence, new ideas, and who will then push ahead to seek change in a world that resists change with the strange strength of ignorance and self-righteousness.
And yet, today in America’s labor movement, and among our friends and allies, we find extra-ordinary people who possess those rare characteristics. And I believe that everyone with the courage to stand up, and the courage to do right, will find themselves not isolated, but with like-minded companions.
We see examples of those extraordinary men and women today involved in the effort to bring about true and decent immigration reform—reform with a workable path to citizenship for the millions of people in this country who are Americans in every way but on paper. A good bill has passed the Senate, and now it's time for that bill in its entirety to be passed by the U.S. House.
I want to be perfectly clear on this point. Our immigration system is wrong. It’s broken. It is time we stopped tearing mothers and fathers apart from their children with senseless deportations. It is time we stopped letting ruthless employers use the threat of enforcement as a weapon against the rights of working people on the job. This has to stop. And it has to stop now!
Listen, some people want to blame immigrants for America’s problems. We’ve all heard that. But it won’t work. Working people aren’t the problem—no matter where we were born or what language we speak. We never have been.
And extreme politicians who think the clock can be turned back and the will of the American people can be turned aside will find themselves utterly wrong on Election Day.
Mark my words. This is a time for change!
We see that change in Virginia, where sequestration threatens to derail one of the strongest state economies in America.
Right here in Virginia, we see new momentum for working family issues despite an entrenched culture of anti-unionism among some in the state’s business community.
And I believe what we’re seeing is a growing majority in Virginia who will not stomach discrimination, who will not endure poverty and irresponsible and unchecked private enterprise. Virginia is ready for a better day. America is ready. We all see the signs. More and more people understand and take seriously the idea that we can stand together for a voice in our democracy, and stand together on the job for decent wages, and workplace safety, and health care, and retirement security.
It won't be easy. There are no guarantees. Working people everywhere face tremendous obstacles, enormous pressures from without, and, yes, even within our movement, there is resistance to the changes that are essential to our future.
Some of our brothers and sisters want to follow the familiar paths, the paths that have led us to where we are today.
Well, I'm here to say that what we have done until now is not enough for the future. It's not the road we must chart for ourselves.
Like it or not, we live in a time of change. A time of political danger and economic uncertainty.
But this is also a time -- more than any time I’ve seen in my lifetime -- of opportunity, because men and women in towns and cities large and small all across America are ready to take action together. The public is open to the energy and creativity of our labor movement, and any other movement that will help us all to mobilize and organize to lift ourselves up.
Because it is not our opponents, or their actions that will define us, but how we respond and how we act.
And it is from the heat of these conflicts, the crucible of our struggle, and the iron strength of our resolve that we will fashion a new labor movement, a movement to rebuild America’s working families for years -- for generations -- to come.
None of us can see the future. It is beyond our vision. But it is certainly not beyond our control.
Nobody else can shape our vision and our values. That responsibility is ours.
Nobody else will transform our visions into reality. That will be the work of our own hands, working together, united in purpose.
Ours will not be a small coalition. We’re not a fringe group with narrow interests. We are the mainstream. We are the majority. And it’s about time we acted like it.
And come September, I think you’re going to see, at the AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles, a labor movement that looks like a winning movement.
We’re taking on the issues. We’re ready for change. We’re gathering together the best and most creative ideas from inside and outside our movement, from our allies and partners, and we’re putting together an agenda for the future that will dramatically improve our ability to make a difference in the lives of everyday working people.
Our challenge is to use the proud institutions of our unions to build the movement of working people for the future—inside unions, outside unions, never heard of unions, private-sector, public-sector, blue collar, green collar, white collar—all of us together!
Why should employers be able to tell us who can and who can't form a union? Why shouldn’t anyone who wants to join our movement be able to? Why shouldn’t we throw the doors open?
There is no secret to success. No silver bullet. It’s not rocket science. It takes hard work. You’ve got to take it day by day, and always believe that what seems impossible can be possible, if we hold the absolute and certain belief that every worker -- every single worker -- deserves a voice on the job, and a chance to improve his or her life through collective action.
America needs that now!
America needs that today!
And when people ask you about the state of the labor movement in America today -- and I know they do -- don’t sing them a sad story of past glory and decline. Don’t lay all the blame on the bad actors of Wall Street and the far-right-wing. They’re bad, it’s true, but we’re going to beat them anyway. We can’t wait for them to see the light.
When people ask you about the state of the labor movement in America today, tell them we’re ready to meet our opponents on the field of play, and we hope they have a good day, and all the resources they can muster, because when we beat them, we want them wondering if they’ll ever have the stomach to meet us again.
Tell them labor has made big comebacks before, and we’ll do it again.
Tell them the labor movement is full of life. Tell them the people who make this country work are ready for change. And tell them we have no intention of going quietly into the night. We’ve got clear eyes and a goal in sight. And we won’t quit until America works for all who work, until no child wakes up hungry, until every child can get a quality education, until work and workers are respected and valued for the contributions we make!
What we want is not too much to ask: a good chance for a decent life, fair wages, health care, a secure retirement, education, and a better life for our kids and grandkids.
Here’s what I want you to tell people: Expect Wins! Expect wins! Expect us to win!
Expect change! Expect a day soon, when the income gap stops getting wider and starts to narrow.
Expect change! Expect a day when the wages of America’s workers stop falling and start rising.
Expect a day soon when workers are again recognized for the contributions we make to our society, our economy and our communities.
We’ll stand for it. We’ll fight for it. We’ll stand together, with solidarity -- real solidarity -- the kind where your picket line is my picket line, and where we pick each other up when we fall, and we all march on together.
And I promise you, we will keep marching, keep fighting, until we restore a record of winning!
Sisters and brothers, I’ve heard a lot of talk about demographic changes in Virginia and what those changes spell for the two main political parties. I've seen the demographics that show Virginia, with its large and growing populations of young people, immigrants and African Americans, to be ripe and receptive to the labor movement. But listen to me closely: People are not cord wood. Voters are people who make decisions. We cannot be stacked by color and type for an easy win at the ballot box, in any legislative chamber, or in the court of public opinion.
And we have to show each worker in Virginia how a voice on the job is still the best way to make work pay and to build a better life. It's the stepladder to the middle class. And it works.
The labor movement and our allies will have to work hard for every win in the workplace, and we'll have to work hard every election cycle to tell our story and build our movement. It’ll take time. It’ll take commitment. It’ll take struggle.
Take nothing for granted. Not victory. And certainly not defeat.
But always, always, keep reaching. Keep fighting. Energize. Organize. Mobilize.
Those are the keys. That’s the strategy we need to 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 and grandchildren.
And we will never, never give up.
We will always, always go forward
And together we will win, for our families, for each other, for our future, for our country. That’s how we’ll go forward. That’s how we’ll win. Together.
Standing together. Fighting together. Organizing together. Voting together. Winning together.
Thank you, and God bless you!
