Sisters and brothers, companeros y companeras, my name is Elizabeth Bunn, proud member of the United Autoworkers and it is with great humility that I second the nomination of John Sweeney for president of the AFL-CIO.

The lives of members of our union and the lives of the families of members of our union have been touched and improved by the leadership of John Sweeney in ways that they will never likely know. President Sweeney has walked picket lines and has walked the halls of Congress; indeed during the important fight against NAFTA we learned firsthand the type of front-line leader John Sweeney is when he personally visited members of Congress explaining with intelligence and conviction the importance of stopping this landmark trade treaty. Since then, of course, we have come to expect that same level of commitment and dedication from him and his team.

In November 2003, he convened a meeting of international trade ministers to discuss the implications—all disastrous—of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement. That meeting resulted in worldwide opposition to the flawed concept. Since then trade union leaders throughout the hemisphere continue to be mobilized in opposition to the South American expansion of NAFTA.

In organizing, under John’s quiet leadership, the federation has assisted the UAW and workers in the auto parts sector of our country mobilize to form a union—he has provided research, strategic campaign analysis, executed an unprecedented capital strategy, worked with international trade union leaders—all to leverage our power in the global auto parts sector. Workers at Dana and Johnson Controls and Peterbilt and Freightliner—and the list goes on—have never had the opportunity to meet John Sweeney but they understand nonetheless how his leadership has helped them secure workplace democracy.

For my part, as I said yesterday, John Sweeney has been there every time we have called to seek help in organizing drives outside of manufacturing. He has convened meetings with the presidents of the University of California, University of Washington, New School and new York University for the purposes of delivering the message that the house of labor stands united with the graduate employee teaching and research assistants in their quest to secure workplace democracy. In those meetings, President Sweeney has demonstrated his unparalleled command of the facts, his unwavering commitment to workers of every occupation and industry and his unique ability to convey a message of force and conviction but quietly and respectfully. He has been impressive at those meetings. But for me, the depth of his leadership and his commitment is most forcefully demonstrated in his meetings with the workers themselves—in those meetings he has demonstrated as well as his understanding of the profound strength of the diversity of our movement. Sitting on hardback chairs or on the stairs of university buildings, he has listened to student workers, blacks, with the brown, gay straight, mail, female, foreign born and U.S. born.  He has asked questions; he has learned from these workers. He knows that they have as much to teach him as he has to teach them.

He knows that we all have so much to learn from each other. He knows that humility is not a sign of weakness. In this hall, all of us think constantly about the true test of leadership. In recent weeks and months, we have thought about it even more than usual. Sisters and brothers, the strength and power of leadership is not measured by the decibel level of speeches. Companeros y companeras, the intelligence is not measured by proclamations of how much you know or claim to know. The greatness of leadership is measured by commitment, by compassion, by curiosity, by respect for the views of those you have been elected to serve, by integrity—the kind of integrity when someone shakes your hand and looks you in the eye and you know that he is speaking the truth—by compassion, by kindness. The greatness of leadership is measured by action and deeds.

Sisters and brothers, companeros and companeras, John Sweeney demonstrates every minute of every day the greatness of his leadership. I am proud that I, the members of my union and workers all over the world call him friend, call him teacher, call him leader and for the next four years will call him our president.