We’ve just heard some incredible stories … 51 stories from every state in the nation and from the District of Columbia. Stories of struggle and sacrifice, of heroism and hope … stories that paint an eloquent but alarming portrait.
I wish I could tell you these stories are unique … that they are 51 isolated situations. But the fact is that we have a national jobs crisis, and it is bringing pain and hardship not just to 51 heroic individuals who have agreed to travel America’s heartland to help bring about the change this country needs, but to millions upon millions of working men and women and their children in communities from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, and everywhere in between. No state is immune – two thirds of our states have fewer jobs today than at the beginning of 2001.
This is the worst and the longest jobs crisis in decades – the Bush administration will be the first in more than 70 years, since Herbert Hoover, to end its term with more people out of work than when it began.
As Jo Ann King said when she opened this program, we are on the wrong track when it comes to jobs in this country – and it’s not going to turn around unless we insist that it be turned around.
Good jobs with health care and pensions and a living wage are becoming history. First, blue collar jobs … gone -- 2.8 million of them since 2001 alone. Now white collar and high tech jobs are our country’s newest exports – an estimated 14 million slated to be shipped away by America’s biggest corporations – household names like IBM and Microsoft and American Express.
And that is why these 51 individuals are leaving this gateway city tonight to travel across eight states and 18 cities over eight days. To tell the story of “working America” --- and to demand the respect -- and the changes in this country -- that working people deserve. From community to community, we will tell the real story about an economy that is bringing in record profits for corporations and record devastation for working men and women.
Working families are the backbone and the heart and the soul of this country. Every day, we do what it takes to get the job done. When times get tough, we don’t hesitate – we make the sacrifices that are needed.
We work the early shift, the late shift, the double shift. We do our duty and serve our country -- and we raise our children to do the same.
So what do we get?
We get our jobs shipped overseas --- we get told we have to train our replacements to get severance pay … and we find out that our president’s policies and our nation’s tax laws actually reward companies for moving our jobs to other countries! That’s a moral outrage and a national disgrace.
We see our overtime pay rights being eliminated by a president who thinks more of delivering for his corporate contributors than of looking out for family pocketbooks.
We get told we have to study harder, or train more, to be “worthy” of jobs.
We listen to news reports of investments in Mars, and rebuilding Iraq – while nobody listens to US about the problems of our own children’s schools and our families’ health care and our unraveling retirement security …
Brothers and sisters, that’s no way to treat the working men and women of America! That’s no way to treat our country’s real heroes!
We deserve good jobs that provide living wages, health care coverage and retirement security. We deserve national leaders who do not sell our future to the highest bidder.
But the stories you just heard are more than an anthem to lost dreams – they also speak of the still-strong hopes of America’s workers.
We still believe in ourselves and our nation. We need leaders who believe in us too and who will work for us and fight for us – not just some of us, not just the wealthy and the well-connected, but all of us.
We are as old as Viola from Providence, Kentucky, who as you just heard, was forced into retirement five years ago when her job was shipped to Mexico. We are as young as Iain from Weare, New Hampshire, who just told us how he has put off his dreams of going to college and becoming an English teacher to help support his family by working as a dishwasher for $5.75 an hour. We are blue collar, white collar, high school graduates, college educated – but we worry about the same things – putting food on the table for our families, paying the bills and the mortgage, meeting skyrocketing healthcare costs, giving our children a future they will be proud of.
Brothers and sisters, the 51 people up here and every one of you here today are the people who have made this nation strong. Each of us is a part of history. Because working together, we ARE going to get respect for work and rewards for working people in this country again. Whether we are touring on a bus or working for change right here in the “show me” state, we are going to deliver the message: Show us the jobs! Show us the GOOD jobs! Together, we ARE going to turn this nation around – and we set out on that journey today. Here. Now.
Thank you all and God bless each and every one of you..
