Thank you very much, Gene [Carroll] for those kind words and for inviting me to be with you this morning — it’s nice to be here with so many old friends and to meet so many new ones.
I’m honored and proud to come before you and speak on behalf of the 10 million members of AFL-CIO unions who are working so hard to make ours a better country -- not just for themselves, but for all working families and our communities.
We are entering an incredible moment in history – as we enter this incredible election year it is very exciting that we have the real possibility of electing a woman, Hillary Clinton, who cares about working people and our unions; or a black man, Barack Obama, who has worked closely with labor, was a community organizer and a civil rights attorney; or a southerner, John Edwards, who prides himself on supporting unions and wants to eliminate poverty.
As a woman, an African-American and a southerner, I am so proud of the diversity of our candidates.
I am also proud that labor has helped change the debate over the direction of our country. Americans want to talk about the issues – Americans aren’t stupid – they know the economy is not working.
There will be those who will once again try and make this election about the issues that divide us. We know that playbook – we have seen it.
The circumstances surrounding this historic moment are not unlike those Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described when he spoke to the AFL-CIO’s Fourth Annual Convention on December 11, 1961, and I think it’s appropriate as we prepare to celebrate his birthday to hear some of his words from that convention.
He said, and I quote, “A duality of interest of labor and the Negroes makes any crisis which lacerates you a crisis from which we bleed. As we stand on the threshold of the second half of the twentieth century, a crisis confronts us both.
“Those who in the second half of the nineteenth century could not tolerate organized labor have had a rebirth of power and seek to regain the despotism of that era while retaining the wealth and privileges of the twentieth century.
“Whether it be the ultra-right wing in the form of Birch societies or the alliance which former President Eisenhower denounced, the alliance between big military and big industry, or the coalition of southern dixiecrats and northern reactionaries, whatever the form, these menaces now threaten everything decent and fair in American life. Their target is labor, liberals, and the Negro people, not scattered ‘reds.”
I was ten years old at the time Dr. King delivered those words to the AFL-CIO. My mother, who was a domestic worker, and my father, who was a day laborer, weren’t members of a union and we lived in poverty. They were not aware of Dr. King’s address to the AFL-CIO, but I have no doubt that they would have both agreed with his premise.
How could they not ‑ themselves victims of social and economic injustices that were rooted in racism, segregation, exploitation and poverty?
Certainly, at that time they would not have dreamed their daughter some 46 years later would be an officer of the AFL‑CIO, and their daughter would never have imagined being the Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO, the first African-American woman to serve in this top labor office – and I am honored and humbled.
But here we are 46 years later and Dr. King’s remarks to the AFL-CIO then are just as relevant today.
The big change is that the list of those most disdained by the ultra-conservative right wing has only expanded.
It no longer includes just labor and the Negro and liberals — it now includes new immigrants of all races, gays and lesbians, and the working poor, who are disproportionately single mothers and people of color.
It is precisely those on this list that we in the labor movement have aligned ourselves with, in a coalition that will make possible the realization of the dream we all share for the economic and social justice Dr. King lived and died for.
Something is happening in our country, brothers and sisters – you can feel the change. Americans want change in who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I’m proud of what the AFL-CIO and our AFL‑CIO constituency groups and our progressive allies are doing to champion the cause of those who are highest on the hit list of the ultra right.
New immigrants, some say, do the jobs that nobody else will do — being the daughter of a domestic worker and a day laborer makes that sound awfully familiar.
So let me get this right – on the one hand, some would have us believe that new immigrants are the reason for many of the ills now facing America – but on the other hand, they are good enough to mow our lawns — Mitt Romney’s among them — and to clean our houses and our hotel rooms, to construct our homes and our buildings.
But when the new immigrant, like the immigrant of old, starts to demand fair treatment on and off the job, it’s time for him or her to go back home.
The AFL-CIO stands up for fair and comprehensive immigration reform that supports the rights of all workers to organize and form a union and lift up their lives no matter their immigration status, and we support reform that provides a path to citizenship.
We must build bridges to the immigrant community, rather than building walls around them.
And we reject the notion that a guest-worker program with no rights or protections for workers and no path to citizenship should be a part of immigration reform.
Slavery is slavery.
A new report by the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education finds that more than half of black workers in the United States have jobs that don’t pay well, provide retirement and health benefits, or offer avenues for advancement.
Thirty-four point four percent (34.4%) of the black working-age population (ages 18-65) in the United States is employed in low-wage jobs. (For the white working-age population, the comparable figure is 31.2 percent.)
Fifty-six point five percent (56.5%) of black workers (full- and part-time) in the United States receive low wages (whites: 43.9%).
Sixty-five point eight percent (65.8%) of all low-wage black workers in the United States work full time (whites: 39.3%).
Fifty four percent (54%) of all full-time black workers in the United States receive low wages (whites: 39.3%).
Here in New York, according to Steve Pitt, author of this study, “Black Working Age-Population in New York City, 2000:”
30 percent of blacks were in non low-wage work;
43.5 percent didn’t work and had irregular work;
26.5 percent did low-wage work.
All of us in this room know that one of the ways for these low-wage jobs to become good-paying jobs is unionization. And blacks are one of the groups most likely to form and join a union if there weren’t so many obstacles.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, we all saw government at every level fail its people, particularly the federal government. The AFL-CIO launched a Gulf Coast revitalization program to produce housing for low- and moderate-income working families and provide good jobs, and investments to spur revitalization of these communities.
New Orleans is the pilot site for the AFL-CIO’s Mobilization for Young Men of Color, a special outreach and career training program aimed at minority youth.
We have partnered with the Building and Construction Trades Department to establish a Gulf Coast Construction Careers Center, a one-stop center for training and job placement devoted to opening new career paths in construction to young men and women from the devastated Gulf Coast communities.
To date, the center has graduated 8 classes — 137 students have entered training, 128 have completed the courses (including a woman), and the center has a 40 percent placement rate in Building Trades apprenticeship programs.
Thank you to the AFT teachers who volunteered in New Orleans and helped with tutoring.
The AFL-CIO and our allies and constituency groups are advocates for these young people, and we must make sure that our young people are being equipped for a future that holds the promise of a good education and a good job and not a jail cell.
There are huge stakes in this election for all working people and all of our communities.
This is why our AFL-CIO Labor 2008 effort is the most ambitious we’ve ever undertaken.
We, along with our Working America partners, are determined to educate, mobilize and motivate our members and their families and turn our country around.
And let me note here – that’s not just rhetoric — we are determined to educate, mobilize and motivate our members and their families and turn our country around – knocking, calling, door-to-door, worksites. It worked in Kentucky and it worked in Virginia.
From what we saw in Iowa and New Hampshire, education plus motivation equals mobilization and there were record turnouts.
In Iowa, where union households make up 15 percent of the voting age population, voters from union households were 22 percent of those voting in the caucuses.
In New Hampshire, union households accounted for 20 percent of the primary voters. The AFL-ICO Political Department projects that in the 2008 elections, a quarter of voters will come from union households.
We are organizing around three basic issues: turning our economy into one that works for working families; reforming health care so it provides affordable, high quality care for all; and restoring the freedom of every worker to join a union so we can regain our strength as a movement and restore our middle class.
We need look no further than the current subprime lending crisis to see the impact that our failing economy is having on millions of homeowners who simply wanted a piece of the American dream, but instead are being faced with the nightmare of home foreclosure because of the predatory lending practices of our loosely regulated financial institutions.
For example, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) projects that in New York State 34,691 homes will be lost through foreclosure on subprime loans made in 2005 and 2006.
This will cause over 3.9 million homes to lose value due to nearby subprime foreclosures and a loss of $40.7 million in lost property tax revenue.
No surprise here that those mostly likely to have been targeted for these subprime loans were women, and people of color, as reported in recent studies.
Those impacted by this crisis are our members, their families and the constituents of our civil rights and community partners.
Today they are bleeding; tomorrow it will be the rest of us if we don’t turn the economy around.
The causes of this crisis and of the failing health of our entire economy are obvious: stagnant wages, disappearing pension benefits, and runaway health care costs. People who have decent incomes and benefits don’t have to resort to sub-prime loans in order to buy a home. We’ve spent billions of dollars waging war instead of spending billions waging a fight for our future – investing in jobs, education, training and shoring up our crumbling infrastructure.
Our economy isn’t working for anyone except the privileged few, and our health care system is in nearly the same fix.
Today, 47 million Americans are without health care – 8 million of them children, 8 million reasons why we cannot stop short of a Congress and a president who will extend and improve the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
To demand and get what our families deserve, we must be a unified labor movement that is bigger and stronger, one able to demand and get the changes that working families so desperately need.
There may be differences among us on specific issues, but the record is indisputable – when labor unions have been the strongest in our country, our economy has done better and our communities have thrived.
We know that in states with higher union density, levels of poverty and crime are lower, and academic achievement and civic participation are higher.
In states with higher union density, wages are higher, more workers have pensions, and more families are covered by health care — our unions lift up all workers and their families.
We have to let the public know these facts, and especially women and people of color, who are so ready to join our unions.
And most important, we have to increase our majorities in Congress so we can pass the Employee Free Choice Act and restore the freedom of workers to organize and we must – and we will – elect a President who will sign it.
The 2008 election is alive with the possibility of doing that by starting to turn our country around and get us back on the track of social and economic justice.
How it will turn out we are not sure, but it is clear to me that it will take a huge effort by our progressive coalition to make this victory a reality, to transform our economy into one that works for all, to create a health care system that works for all, and to restore the freedom of workers to join unions.
We have to turn out our members in record numbers, we have to make sure every qualified voter is allowed to vote, and that every vote is counted.
We may have passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but voter suppression and intimidation is still rampant.
We now see it in the form of government ID requirements and other voter suppressive tactics.
This week, the Supreme Court has taken up the most important election-law case since Bush vs. Gore in 2000, and at issue is whether states may require voters to show a driver’s license or a passport at their polling places.
We are deeply concerned — labor has a vested interest in making sure people can vote easily and freely and that votes are counted, because those most likely to be the subjects of voter suppression are also those most likely to share our values.
In 1961, Dr. King fully reminded the convention delegates at the Fourth Annual AFL-CIO Convention that when the Negro wins, labor wins.
Today I stand before you as the Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO knowing that when all of us who love mercy and justice, no matter the color of our skin or our gender, stand together – fight together – and vote together – we all win.
In the words of Dr. King, “If we will go out with this faith and with this determination to solve these problems, we will bring into being that new day and that new America.
“When that day comes, the fears of insecurity and the doubts clouding our future will be transformed into radiant confidence, into glowing excitement to reach creative goals and into an abiding moral balance where the brotherhood of man will be under girded by a secure and expanding prosperity for all.”
Thank you and on to victory in November.
