Good morning Philadelphia!!  Sounds strange saying that in Atlantic City…so I’ll say good morning to everyone actually from A.C. as well!

Wow -- it's great to be here!

Any music fans in the house?  I don’t know if you’re suffering like I am from staying up late watching the Grammys last night???  Nothing makes you feel older than you think you are than when you watch the Grammys…I’m just trying to keep up – you got the Black Eyed Peas, Rhianna, Pink, Lady Gaga and Imogen Heap…Yes, that is a band…All I can say, is I was really happy to see that the boys from this very state of New Jersey, Bon Jovi, still got it.   

But, really, I just want to recognize the job you do every day representing working men and women in every neighborhood around Philadelphia – and say thank you – particularly to Pat and his team, for the work they do with you, to make this labor movement so strong.

When you and your union sisters and brothers go all out -- when you put your heart and soul into rallying, spreading the message, phone banking, knocking on doors, and getting out the vote -- you’re unstoppable!

Now, I know we never stop mobilizing for elections, especially in Philadelphia, but you're gearing up for some big elections this year – the race for governor, and for U.S. Senator  will be critical – and of course re-electing those fantastic U.S. representatives from this area who have some of the best labor voting records in the country.

But this year, your work is going to be different, because politics is different.

Working people who are going to the polls in November are sick and tired of business as usual -- and politics as usual.

They're fed up with politicians who talk a good line but don't deliver.

They want leaders who fight for us and bring real change.

They're disgusted that the big banks and securities firms...the same guys who demanded that we bail them out or else the economy would topple over...are now back on their feet -- and guess what?

They handed out $145 billion in executive bonuses in 2009.

Meanwhile, four million Americans lost their jobs and a lot of those jobs went down the drain because of what those banks and financial firms did.

People are in a “show-me” kind of mood and they’re ready to see results.

They’re asking:

Why do so many politicians seem to care only about Wall Street?

Why is it supposed to be so important to bail out the banks, but we're supposed to just live with high unemployment? and Why don't we make anything in America anymore?

So it only makes sense that the #1 issue that towers above everything else is jobs, jobs, jobs and YOU know exactly why.

The crisis is all around you every day -- the layoffs, the foreclosures, the outsourcing, the slashing of benefits that people need to survive.

If there's anyone in this country who actually thinks our economy is in recovery, I'd tell them: Spend a week in Philadelphia.

The most recent statistics tell us the unemployment rate here is above the national average…at 10.6%, right?

But that doesn't even count all the unemployed workers who are so beaten down and so discouraged that they've given up looking for work.

Those statistics are about people – our family members, our neighbors, who are worried about whether they can feed their kids and keep their homes.

Talk to the laid-off employees of the City of Philadelphia. or the health care workers at Northeastern Hospital before it shut down the O.R. last summer or the workers in any of the construction trades, like my union the IBEW.

Talk to any of the unemployed workers in any industry or service in Philadelphia who are desperate to find a job so they can survive.

It's worse in Philadelphia than in some other places but believe me, Philadelphia isn't alone.

Look around the country, and you see that while some of the economy is in a recession, parts of it are in a full-fledged depression.

In manufacturing, unemployment is up to nearly 15 percent and in construction and mining, it's over 22 percent.

No wonder people are angry coming into this election.

Can you blame them?

There's a lesson for us in the Massachusetts election that elected Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate two weeks ago.

It's not that the voters up there suddenly turned into right-wing Republicans.

They haven't.

58 percent of them say they're dissatisfied or angry about what Republicans in Congress are offering.

And the people up there like universal health care a lot.

They're some of the few Americans who actually have it.

A whopping 68 percent of them say they support the universal health care plan that Massachusetts has had for several years now.

So despite what Rush Limbaugh says, these aren't a bunch of right-wing crazies.

The real lesson of Massachusetts is that voters are uncertain -- they're fearful – and they’re impatient – that “change” everyone was talking about in the ’08 election – they want THAT!  It’s not coming far enough and fast enough.

What does that mean for you and me?

It means our work is cut out for us. 

The entire labor movement is focusing and coming together to push for creating jobs -- good American jobs – NOW.

Let’s talk about what the AFL-CIO is fighting for:

We have a 5-point plan to create or save at least 4 million jobs – and we’re going to make that plan even more ambitious.

First (1.), we need to extend unemployment benefits – and food assistance -- and COBRA health care benefits for our sisters and brothers who have lost jobs.

Keep in mind that we have more people who have been without jobs for 6 months or more than we've had in 26 years. 

We need to help them and their families – to keep them from falling into bankruptcy -- losing their homes -- losing their health care.

Second (2.), we need to invest in green jobs and the technology of the future, and to put people to work to fix our broken infrastructure.

There's a backlog of $2.2 trillion dollars of pressing infrastructure needs -- everything from bridges to crumbling schools, to water and sewer systems deteriorating all around America.

They’re jobs that need to be done, and there are people who need work.

We need to put 2 and 2 together.

Third (3.), we have to boost aid to our state and local governments to maintain vital services like education, public safety and health care.

This is no time to be throwing teachers and police and firefighters overboard.

Fourth (4.), we need to create jobs that put people to work in distressed communities. I'm not talking about replacing public-sector jobs that already exist.

I'm talking about new jobs with good wages and benefits.

Finally, we need the Obama Administration to put a chunk of the Troubled Asset Relief Program – those “TARP” funds we’ve been hearing so much about – put those funds to work for Main Street – to get credit to small businesses.

President Obama embraced this proposal in his State of the Union address last Wednesday. 

So, This is our 5-point plan -- the first five steps to bring us out of collapse.

But, we must act on a scale that will be meaningful.

We need more than 10 million jobs just to get us out of the hole we’re in.

Now, there are some people in Washington who are saying that when it comes to jobs, we should go slow and small.

They say we can't afford to create jobs because it might increase the deficit.

Now, that's a very interesting argument.

Remember what was going on just a little more than a year ago?

A lot of these people said that when the giant banks and financial firms were wobbling, the government absolutely had to step right in and prop them up.

It didn't bother them one little bit that the Bush administration had run up some of the worst deficits in history to bail out the corporations.

But these days, they're taking a very different line when it comes to mass unemployment of working people.

Well, when we have double-digit unemployment when millions of women and men are staying up nights worrying about whether they'll have food for their kids and a roof above their heads next week baby steps aren't enough.

We need serious action on jobs, and we need it now.

But those are only the first steps.

We have to rebuild the economy from the ground up, because for years, Wall Street and corporate CEOs built our economy in a way that doesn’t work.

To start with, we have to break the stranglehold of Wall Street and make sure it pays for the damage it's already done to the economy.

President Obama has proposed that we tax the largest financial institutions so that we can recoup the cost of their bailout.

That's a fine idea and we support it.

But we also need a strong independent consumer financial protection agency we need to regulate the shadow capital markets that can cripple our economy from within we need to reform corporate governance and executive pay so they don't spin out of control and we need to get a handle on the risk that the financial giants are taking so they don't bring us all down once again.

 --- Corporations have had it too good for too long.  Now we just got some frightening news last week from the Supreme Court with the so called Citizens United decision.  Was anyone else outraged by this?? So now, corporations have unlimited power to spend as much as they want to in political races… As if the scales weren’t already tilted so far the wrong direction already, right?

We have to fight to tilt those scales back in the other direction with proposals like the financial industry reform I just mentioned -- but also it's about time we fix the free trade policies that have destroyed so many of our best jobs in Pennsylvania and the whole region.

That's the way to grow our economy working in partnership for good jobs and an economy that lifts up everybody which takes me to the most important step in our lifetimes to rebuild our middle class.I’m talking about the Employee Free Choice Act.

You know why it’s critical.

If we create lots of jobs but the jobs have low pay, lousy benefits, no future, and no hope, it doesn't do us a whole lot of good.

If we're going to have an economy built on good jobs, workers need the freedom to organize into unions.

It won't be easy for us to pass this bill with the gridlock on Capitol Hill but we have to continue to push – just like we’ve been doing – we can make it happen!

And after it passes, that's when the work really begins because changing the law isn’t worth much unless we follow it with organizing the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.

And there's another goal that's fundamental to rebuilding our economy --- that’s good, affordable health care for everyone in America -- not just the rich and the lucky.

Our grandparents fought for it, our parents fought for it, and now, we have to finish the job for ourselves and our children – we can’t quit now when we’re SO close.

All of this is just the beginning of rebuilding our economy…jobs…health care…EFCA…trade policy.

But if we're going to succeed -- if we're going to achieve the goals we have to achieve -- we can't do it alone.

We have to look outside ourselves and our own movement and build bigger, stronger partnerships with our friends and allies than we've ever had before.

I know that a lot of you were at the AFL-CIO convention last September.

You heard when we were all talking about "the power of many."

Well, "the many" doesn't just include those of us with a union card.

It includes everyone who shares our values and dreams.

Us plus our friends and allies equals more strength, more effectiveness for all sides.

We're using that wisdom every day.

At the national level, we've created Working America, which a lot of you have worked with very closely in Philadelphia; and YOU have formed partnerships at home with groups like the Philadelphia Unemployment Project and the Black Clergy of Philadelphia...

So then you could win a higher minimum wage for Pennsylvania a long time before Washington got around to doing the right thing.

And you've been leaders in the Pennsylvania Transportation Coalition working hard with a lot of the same groups, and with the environmental community, to win dedicated funding for mass transit.

So my message to you is not only to keep up your good work of reaching out and building partnerships -- but double it, triple it, quadruple it, and look for partners where you've never looked before.

And we need to do even more.

If this movement that's put food on our tables and changed our lives is going to grow, it's going to take more than job growth, more than the Employee Free Choice Act, more than health care reform.

We're going to have to reach out and connect to a new generation of unorganized workers that barely knows we exist right now.

I'm talking about young workers in their 20s and 30s.

How do we welcome them into our movement?

That's the biggest challenge for us in the long term, and we need to take it very, very seriously.

Let me give you an example of what that challenge is all about.

How many of you joined our movement because you had a parent, or aunt, or uncle who had a union card and told you what that was all about?

Raise your hands....

Well, it's very different for younger workers today.

To them, unions are ancient history.

If there's someone in their family who carries a union card, it is probably a grandparent or even a great-grandparent.

They just don't know about us -- and they don't have any idea what unions can offer them.

We need to reach them.

We learned a lot about this when we conducted a survey of young workers with our community affiliate Working America – so we know how young workers are  doing and what's on their minds.

Let me tell you – there’s good news and bad news.  Which do you want first – OK, the bad news:

Today, only 31 percent of young workers -- less than 1/3 -- are making enough money just to cover their bills and put some money asid

How about health care?

If someone is watching only Fox News, they might think that the tea partiers are right and young workers don't have any health care crisis.

Well, nothing could be farther from the truth.

32 percent of young workers say they don't have any health insurance -- at all.

Why?

It's not that they think they're invincible and don't need it.

No -- 79 percent of those uninsured workers say they don't have coverage because they can't afford it or their employer doesn't offer it.

Look a little closer and you find another statistic that's pretty shocking.

A majority of young workers earn less than $30,000 per year.  They are saddled with debt from credit cards and student loans, so 1 in 3 are living at home with their parents.

These low-income young workers are the ones who are worst off -- they're the ones that nobody talks about -- they're the ones nobody listens to -- they're the ones without a voice.

Here's the most frightening part: It might not ever get better for them.

When there's a long recession like this, the wages for many young people never recover.

They're trapped in low-wage jobs for the rest of their careers.

Ever since we became a country, each generation did better than those before it.

That's what gave us hope and optimism -- something to dream about.

After more than 200 years, that dream is at risk.

It's a familiar story.

I lived it.

I know what it's like to rely on mom and dad when you're a young adult and want to be out on your own.

I can tell you about piecing together part-time, dead-end jobs to make full employment.

We called it the McJob back in the mid-90s.When I got out of college, I was the McJob woman -- but luckily, it was a union job that put me on the path to a better life and a future. 

The first part of the story -- my McJob story -- is happening to millions of women and men in their 20s and 30s.

So that’s some of the bad news -- and it's pretty terrible.

Now, let me tell you the good news.

Young workers need unions even more than older workers -- and they're open to our message.

The study told us they've lost trust in corporate America they see corporations and banks as part of the problem and not the solution and overwhelmingly, they're in favor of expanding public investment to create jobs.

They know what's going on.

They belong with us.

So how do we get our message to these young workers?

First, we need to rethink how we deliver it -- and we can do that.

We need to connect in the neighborhoods and in the streets and in workplaces but also in the media and social networks like Facebook and Twitter that barely existed --or didn't exist at all -- just a few years ago.  (in fact, at the Grammys last night, Imogen Heap wore a dress that had an interface built into it with its own Twitter account embedded into it.  So she was tweeting, live from the show, and fans could send photos using the hashtag given to them, and they were displayed on her dress…so she could be close to her fans on the red carpet.)

That's where young workers are.

And let's look a little farther down the road.

What about the young people who will be joining the work force in the next few years?

The ones who are 8 to 18 years old are spending  7 1/2 hours a day with a smart phone, or computer, or TV, or another electronic device.

And if you count multi-tasking -- the kids who are listening to music while they're surfing the Internet -- they are taking in almost 11 hours of media content a day.

Now, what that means for us is that not only do we need to use these new tools, but we need to think about how we are packaging the messages.

With this generation, we'll get a lot farther if we use a little more humor, a little more wit, a little more edge.

What goes viral on You Tube?

It's the videos that make us laugh and entertain us, but also make us think.

These are the ones we connect with and remember.

And young workers are using these media in different ways from the media of 30 years ago.

Back then, a 25-year-old worker might see Walter Cronkite on the evening news and think, "That's nice" -- then change channels when Walter was done.

Now, if there's something they like, they send it out to a dozen or 300 friends on e-mail or through social networks or both.

A video that goes viral can reach more people than any of the anchors on the nightly news shows.

That's the world we're in.

We see it -- and our enemies see it.

You know which political candidate has set the record for putting media budget into online advertising? Scott Brown.

That tells you that our opponents may be evil -- but they're not stupid.

When it comes to getting our message out, we have to be just as creative -- just as smart -- as they are.

That's where the future of the union movement lies.

We have a lot of work to do.

We must reach these young workers, both within our ranks and outside.

We have to get this right!

Let's give the next generation hope -- fight for them -- embrace them -- and make this their movement.

Give them a place where they know they belong, where they're excited about what's coming up next, where they'll build a better life than what they're stuck in now.

That's how our movement can grow.

I hope you make it your personal mission, like I have, to connect with young workers.

If everyone here reached out to one young worker in their midst (kind of like the enviro “do one more thing for the environment” – one more young worker)…we can start to turn the perception around that labor is no longer relevant –one young worker at a time.  As the Black-eyed Peas said last night – yes, at the Grammy’s --  “Welcome to the future.”

Ever since Rich Trumka, Arlene Holt Baker, and I were elected to lead the AFL-CIO last September, we've been working to open new doors in our movement.

I'm very proud to be part of a leadership team with these two great leaders.

But if this movement is really going to succeed…it is your hard work, your dedication, your vision that will make it happen.

For everything you've done, for everything you've already won but most important, for everything you will continue to do...

I thank you.