Union Vital to Issues that Shape American's Lives
Thank you, President John Sweeney, for that generous introduction. I have enormous respect for John’s leadership. He’s dedicated his life to the cause of labor, and he battles every waking minute for working families across our nation. I’ve worked with him for many years now, and I know we’ll continue to do all we can to see that working families are truly and fully and fairly represented in everything Congress does. John Sweeney is my kind of President!
What an honor to be here on this auspicious day – the 50th Anniversary of the AFL-CIO. 50 years of fighting for working families. 50 years of fighting for better jobs and better opportunity. 50 years of fighting for the American dream.
Time and again over the past half century, unions have given workers the voice they need to obtain the fairness and dignity they deserve in the workplace.
Whenever there’s been progress toward social and economic justice in our country, it’s hard-working union members who’ve always been at the heart of the battle.
You’ve led the effort on every piece of progressive legislation in our country for almost a century. Without you, the New Deal would have been more of the same Raw Deal. From Social Security to Medicare to the Family and Medical Leave Act, from worker safety to civil rights – you’ve been on the ramparts and in the trenches, wherever the front lines are found. It was union members who were at the forefront of all the great battles -- for the 40-hour week – for health insurance and pension rights – for the minimum wage -- and for many other basic achievements.
But we’re here today to say, you ain’t seen nothing yet. We’re just getting started. The Republican Right always tries to stand in the way. But we know we’re right – and they better get out of the way now, or we’ll get them out of the way in the 2006 elections!
One thing is clear – we’re going to keep on keeping on – until all Americans have good jobs with good pay, fair benefits, and a decent retirement.
I know that these are trying times for labor. We all know that families have their differences. We all know that disagreement can sometimes be painful. But, always remember that ancient proverb – “Me against my brother, but my brother and me against the world.” Together we will take on that world because what divides us pales in comparison to what unites us. We stand together in our founding purpose – to improve the lives of workers and their families achieve social and economic justice. We will emerge from these times bigger and stronger than before, and better prepared to take on the challenges of the global economy and guarantee that America’s workers are always put first.
Make no mistake – there’s an organized movement against organized labor. This organized movement is called the Bush Administration, and it stands against working families – against fair wages – against decent health care – against Social Security – against the 40 hour work week -- and against over time pay. It stands against all the progress we’ve made in bringing fairness and justice to hard working families across America. Together, we will make clear that we have only just begun to fight.
So, let the word go forth today from this famous city of Big Shoulders -- we are one. We are one in the battle for good jobs and good pay. We are one in the battle for affordable health care and safe workplaces and a fair retirement. We are one in the fight against an Administration that sends America’s jobs overseas but sends America’s workers pink slips.
50 years from now, you’ll be celebrating another 50 years of accomplishments for labor, with the AFL-CIO leading the way! And, 50 years from now, expect the Kennedy family to be here again to say thanks for standing together and fighting for the working men and women who make this country great.
Over the years, the labor movement has meant so much to my family. When my brother Jack came back from the war and won election to Congress, they asked him which Committee he wanted to be on. And he said, “I want to be on the Labor Committee, so I can work on the issues that really matter to working families.” And six years later, when he was elected to the Senate, they asked him, “What Senate Committee do you want to be on?” And he said, “I want to be on the Labor Committee, so I can do even more for working families across America.”
And when Jack became President and I came to the Senate, they asked me, “What Committee do you want to be on?” I made it three in a row. I said “The Labor Committee too” – because I knew it by heart, and I felt it in my heart.
It was the same with my brother Bob when he came to the Senate in 1964, and we served together on the Labor Committee for four great years.
Later, my nephew Joe was elected to the House and he always voted with labor. And my son Patrick serves today in the House and he always votes with labor.
If you add it all up, that’s 79 years of Kennedys in Congress -- voting with labor!
President Kennedy brought his compassion and commitment to working families to the White House as well. One of his first Executive Orders sent aid to West Virginia, because he had seen first hand the tragedy of poverty in mining town after mining town. The New Frontier was also a new era for the labor movement. We need a President and a Congress today who stand with working families too!
We all know the difference you make in the lives of average families. Union workers earn 25 percent more than non-union workers. They’re 40% more likely to have health insurance. They’re four times more likely to have a solid pension plan.
These and many other long-standing advantages of union membership are undisputed. But too many employees who want to become members of a union are unable to do so today, and the reason is shamefully clear. Our labor laws are too weak. Employers don’t hesitate to use illegal union-busting tactics to intimidate workers. And when they’re caught red-handed, they simply write off the minor penalties they face as just another cost of doing business. That’s wrong – and it’s doubly wrong that this GOP Congress won’t fix it.
Each year, over 20,000 workers are illegally discriminated against for exercising their rights in the workplace. In a quarter of all organizing campaigns, a worker is fired for supporting the union. Even employees who manage to form a union often can’t get a contract, because employers refuse to bargain.
America’s workers deserve better. American democracy deserves better. As President Kennedy said, “Those who would destroy, or further limit, the rights of organized labor – those who cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization of the unorganized – do a disservice to the cause of democracy.”
Those words hold true today more than ever. At a critical time like this, when we are fighting for our own security and for the basic freedoms of other peoples in other lands, how can we possibly fail to stand up for the basic freedoms of the millions of American workers who depend on us to protect their rights here at home?
The key reform I’m pushing now in Congress is the Employee Free Choice Act. The issue is very clear – are we willing to level the playing field for employees trying to organize a union or obtain a contract? Wal-Mart says no, so Republicans say no. But the American people say yes, and we intend to prevail. When we do, the labor movement will be able at long last to reach out to new communities and organize new members – for this is where the future of the labor movement lies.
As we all know too well, the American dream is increasingly at risk for millions of families across the country. In an economy battered by globalization, hard work is not enough to guarantee decent jobs and a decent future.
In fact, America’s men and women are working harder and harder. And it’s time all that hard work started showing up in their paychecks.
One figure says it all. Since late 2001, worker productivity and employee wages have both grown. But here’s the rub. Labor’s productivity has grown 53 times faster than labor’s wages. How can anyone possibly call that fair?
Wal-Mart wants you to believe that’s just the way it is. But we know the truth. All your hard work on the shop floor is going straight into the executive suite. Corporate profits have soared by an astonishing 70 percent since 2001 – 70 percent. The suits at the top are raking it in. But we say, it’s long past time that a fair share started showing up in workers’ pay, too! Enough is enough is enough.
Look what this White House and its lap-dog Republican Congress have done to the minimum wage. It’s been stuck at five dollars and fifteen an hour for eight long years. During those eight years, Congress has voted itself seven increases in its own pay. Yet somehow it can’t find time to give the hard-working Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder the raise they deserve. That’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
A minimum wage employee working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, makes only $10,700 a year – $5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. I say, in the richest country on the face of the earth, no one who works for a living should have to live in poverty!
Every year, employees are struggling harder and harder to balance their family needs and their work responsibilities. But the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress keep putting their thumb on the wrong side of the scale. They make the work-family balance even more unfair, by cutting overtime protections for more than six million Americans.
You know it. I know it. The American people know it – overtime cuts are pay cuts! When workers lose their overtime protections, employers can force them to work longer and longer hours for no extra pay at all.
President Bush and the Republican Congress have even worse up their sleeves. They want to end the 40-hour work week for millions more Americans. They call their proposal “comp time” or “flex time” – we call it a shameful attempt to abolish overtime pay altogether. I say, “No way.”
We have many problems in this country, but one of them is NOT that we’re paying our workers too much!
Even abolishing overtime pay isn’t enough for the Far Right. The President now wants to roll back the protections of the Family and Medical Leave Act, a cornerstone of the nation's support for working families. The hard work of the AFL-CIO and the labor movement a decade ago made it possible for President Bill Clinton to sign that Act into law. I intend to fight any and all efforts to weaken family and medical leave. No American should ever be forced to choose between the job they need and the family they love.
Wherever we look, the pressures are heavier than ever. Family expenses are soaring. College tuition is up 35 percent. Housing’s up 36 percent.
Health insurance is up 59 percent and becoming more and more unaffordable for the vast majority of our citizens. On the GOP’s watch, the number of uninsured has now climbed to a total of 45 million Americans. We have a moral responsibility to see that all citizens have access to health care -- not just any health care, but good health care.
Every American should have the same quality of care that’s available to the President and every Member of Congress!
Every American loves Medicare. Except maybe George Bush. And Karl Rove. And Tom Delay. But the rest of America loves Medicare. So let’s stop fiddling while the health care crisis burns so many millions of our people. Instead of handing out more and more tax breaks to the wealthiest corporations and multi-millionaires, let’s expand Medicare and make it available to all Americans.
I call the idea Medicare for All. Let’s say it and mean it – no man, woman or child in America should ever again have to worry about the cost of health care. Will you join me in passing Medicare for All?
The list goes on. Working families also deserve retirement security. But President Bush thinks workers should roll the dice on their retirement. He loves the idea of privatizing Social Security and making workers bet on the stock market. I say, we should have privatized President Bush in the 2004 election, and we’ll privatize this GOP Get Old People Congress in 2006.
Our private pension system too is in jeopardy. Companies are using the bankruptcy courts to shed their pension plans. Top executives bail out in luxury with their solid gold parachutes. But in this Bush economy, private savings are at an all time low. If we let the President have his way, the three-legged stool of a decent retirement – Social Security, private pensions, and individual savings – won’t have a leg to stand on!
Last, but far from the least, I want to mention the coming big decision by the Senate that may well determine what kind of future we have for our own generation, and for our children and our grandchildren. In September, the Senate will be voting on whether John Roberts should have a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. It’s one of the most solemn responsibilities of the Senate, and I take it very seriously.
Our generation and generations before us have sacrificed and given their lives for the rights and freedoms we enjoy today. For worker’s rights. For women’s rights. For civil rights. For disability rights. For immigrants’ rights. For the fundamental rights of all our fellow citizens.
We’ve made real progress, often at great pain and hardship. We need a Supreme Court that will not turn its back on all that’s been accomplished at such great prices.
I love America, and I know you do, too. We know there is still much work to be done to strengthen our nation – to expand the range of opportunity and progress, and to prepare every American to compete in this global economy and live the American dream anew.
I’ve met John Roberts. He’s a pleasant man and brilliant lawyer. But the Supreme Court is the last line of defense for our freedoms. It has the final say on our fair labor laws and our pension laws.
We need a court that understands our history and the role of Congress in dealing with national problems and improving people’s daily lives.
In recent years, we’ve seen the current Court begin to impose new restrictions on the power of Congress to pass laws that protect civil rights, worker’s rights, and disability rights. They’ve rolled back protections for our seniors, for our children and for our environment. Few things would be worse than to put someone on the highest court in the land who would put these protections at even greater risk.
We went through this kind of debate before. It’s what the New Deal was all about. The Supreme Court of that day tried to stand in the way, and a huge fight erupted between Congress and the White House over what should be done about The Court. FDR is thought to have lost the battle over his court-packing plan-but the Supreme Court dramatically changed its mind, and FDR’s plan was no longer necessary. Because of the “the switch in time that saved nine,” we have minimum wage laws, Social Security and Medicare laws, cleaner rivers and lakes, safer workplaces and stronger communities.
Now, though, some Justices again want to restrict the power of Congress to ensure basic fairness and protect basic fundamental rights. The question of how Supreme Court Justices interpret Congressional power is not an abstract legal issue. It makes a huge difference in millions of Americans’ daily lives, and it’s a huge factor in the hearings of John Roberts.
For our future – for our children’s future – for our nation’s future – we need to know whose side Mr. Roberts is on.
We know nothing about his real views, and the hints we have so far are not reassuring.
In the Senate hearings, we’ll question him at length about his views. Will he stand for workers rights and women’s rights and civil rights?
Will he stand with the workers of America or the Wal-Marts of America?
When a worker is injured, will he stand with corporations – or with average Americans?
When insurance companies deny health care – will he stand with the HMOs or with average Americans?
When polluters poison our water and our air, will he stand with the polluters – or with the people?
And when Benedict Arnold companies use tax loopholes to send jobs overseas, will he stand with corporations – or will he stand with hard-working Americans?
That’s what we want to know. Whose side is he on? I believe that every American deserves an answer. And I promise you that I’ll be there at those hearings every single day, fighting for acceptable answers for every working family in America. Are you with me?
Unions have brilliantly brought tens of millions of men and women to reach common goals for the common good. You’ve given us the help we need to fight for a better life for all Americans. We have many battles before us, and we need your energy and commitment more than ever. We need you to be a strong and united voice to defend our hard-won victories of the past, and bring greater fairness and prosperity in the years ahead. I look forward to our work together in the coming weeks, and I’m proud to be by your side. Thank you very much for all you do so well for America and for all Americans.
Contact: Laura Capps/Melissa Wagoner, 202-224-22633
