Boy, after an introduction like that I can’t wait to hear what I have to say!

I do want to thank Mike for those kind words. As some of you know, Mike and I go back a long way. I think the first time I met him was at a union convention out here back in the ‘80s. I forgot which hotel we were all staying at. But it was about nine or ten at night and I left my room to go down the hall to get some ice. When I got there I saw Mike standing at the Coke machine with a handful of change He put in a couple of quarters – and a Coke came out. Then he put in two more – and another Coke came out. Put in two more after that – and another Coke came out.

Well, this went on for a good five minutes.

Eventually, I just had to ask: “excuse me, uh, what are you doing?”

Mike turned around and gave me a look and said: “don’t bother me now, can’t you tell I’m winning!”

Seriously, I do have to tell you that if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that, in the labor movement, we’ve got plenty of union officials, but darned few who’ve earned the right to be called a union leader.

Well, Mike Sullivan earned that right a long time ago.  

He’s tough.  

He’s innovative.

He’s exactly the kind of trade unionist we need if we’re going to turn this country around – and I’m damned proud to say he’s my brother and my friend! 
And there’s someone else I want to single out: and that’s Joe Nigro.

Take it from me: I know every International union secretary-treasurer in this country and Joe Nigro is one of the best.

Now, I have a confession to make.

When I first started thinking over what I wanted to talk about today my first instinct was to go over the elections last year – and talk a bit about all the incredible work you did – not only to elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden – but to give Congress the biggest progressive majority it’s had in a generation.

I’m convinced that, years from now, when historians look at the 2008 elections, they’re going to say that what made that victory happen wasn’t websites or e-mail or TV ads. No: They’re going to say it was because this union, and the entire labor movement, decided it was time to do whatever it takes to win. But as proud as we all are of what we did in the elections, I didn’t come here to talk about where we’ve been.

I think we need to consider where we want to go.

Sure, it was an incredible victory, but we can’t let it become a record to think of it as an achievement to build on.

Because what matters isn’t the battle we won last year; it’s whether we’re going to take advantage of this moment and build the labor movement we need to create the America we want—the America every worker deserves. An America where every job is a portal into the middle-class. An America where no man or  woman ever retires into poverty.

An America where the kind of health insurance you have doesn’t dictate the quality of health care you receive.

That’s the America we want for our children and ourselves, but there’s only one way we’re ever going to get it:

It’s not by pleading for it.

It’s not by begging for it.

Brothers and sisters, it’s not even by voting for it.

It’s by educating!

It’s by agitating!

It’s by mobilizing!

It’s by organizing!

It’s by building a growing, fighting, winning American labor movement.

And we don’t have a moment to spare!

Not one moment.

Because the simple truth is that working people in America today aren’t being squeezed … we are being crushed! 

Today, there are nearly six times as many people looking for jobs as there are jobs to fill.

But, if you’re a trade unionist you don’t need to hear statistics. If you’re in the labor movement, you’re on the front lines – and you see the pain and the fear and the suffering and the chaos every single day:  It’s the welder who worked at a shipyard for 15 years – he lost his job and now he’s using Visa cards to pay his mortgage. It’s a young woman – an apprentice – she learned everything from blueprint reading to drafting to codes to T.A.B. (testing and air balancing). She was getting ready to buy a house, but now that’s all in the past – she can’t even find a temp job.

It was Trevor Johnson.

Trevor was an out of work Hvac installer in Denver. But, last fall, he met a man named Lloyd, another installer whose pastor who owned a small heating and air conditioning company. Lloyd and the pastor wanted to help Trevor out. They knew these were awfully hard times for him. According to Lloyd, when the two once went to grab lunch at a Wendy’s, Trevor was so broke that he couldn’t even afford the price of a hamburger.  Trevor was able to pick up a few small jobs just before Christmas, but things never really turned around for him. Lloyd lost touch with Trevor. The last time they spoke was in January. Then, last April, he got a call from a man named Shawn, a friend of Trevor’s. The two of them had done some work for Shawn last November.

“He was having a problem with the furnace we installed,” Lloyd recalled.

“After chatting for a bit I asked how Trevor he was doing. I’d recently tried to call Trevor, but wasn’t able to reach him because his phone was disconnected. Shawn sighed for a second and told me Trevor had committed suicide a few weeks earlier.”

Brothers and sisters, American workers have been beaten, and cheated and lied to.

We’re losing our health care, we’re losing our pensions, we’re losing our jobs, and, for workers like Trevor Johnson, even the will to go on.

Well, I want to tell you something:

It wasn’t the Sheet Metal Workers or any other union that was calling the shots at Bear- Stearns, and Lehman Brothers, and AIG and I can tell you for a fact that Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson never picked up the phone to ask me or Mike for our advice. But, I’m here to tell you that even though it wasn’t organized labor that got us into this mess; we are the people who can lead America out of it! 

But we can only do it if we seize this moment – we can only do it if we act now – we can only do it if we provide the leadership working people are demanding! Well, today I’m telling you that we will seize this moment! We will act – and we will lead!

Brothers and sisters, organized labor can turn this country around – and together we will!

That’s the kind of trade unionism I believe in – I know that’s the kind of Mike believes in – and I think it’s the kind you believe in, too!

What kind of labor movement is it going to take to win?

A labor movement that isn’t timid about getting out front and making the case that higher wages don’t hold back the economy; higher wages are the only thing that can move it forward! A labor movement that stands up and tells the truth: that while business and government can create jobs, it takes a strong union to turn them into middle-class careers.

But it doesn’t stop there.

We need a labor movement that’s not afraid to use new strategies.

A labor movement that understands that tradition should always have a vote, but it must never have a veto; and that nostalgia for the past is no strategy for the future! 

We need a unionism movement that makes sense to young people who are going to graduate from high school and college and go to work in a low-wage economy where temp jobs and freelance work are becoming more the rule than the exception …

An economy where decent health insurance is rare.

And good pensions? Hell, they’re almost unheard of!

The labor movement can’t ask the next generation of workers to change how they earn their living to fit our model of collective bargaining.

No! We have to change our approach to better meet their needs.

That’s the kind of labor movement we need to become!

A movement that doesn’t only win strong labor laws, but that knows how to take advantage of them once we do.

We’ve been working hard to win the Employee Free Choice Act – and I think we will.

But that’s not enough: we need to have a strike force of 1,000 professional organizers whose only goal is to see to it that every worker who wants a union contract gets a union contract! Now, lately I’ve been talking a lot about this need to become more aggressive – and more effective. And I know there are some employers who’ve been hearing about that and wondering what it all means for  them.

A few weeks ago I read that  someone at the Chamber of Commerce said they were concerned about our demonizing big business. That’s the word they use: demonizing.Well, brothers and sisters, I think we ought to make an offer to outfits like the Chamber of Commerce and the A.B.C.: We’ll stop demonizing you just as soon as you stop behaving like demons! They need to understand that we’ll join forces withany company – public sector or private sector – who respects us as an equal partner and understands that their workforce is an asset, not an expense. But, at the same time, we will never surrender to CEOs and scab contractors who think they have the right to earn a good living, but their frontline workers don’t.

Brothers and sisters, we only have one message for those companies  – when you push us, we will push back!

And we have a message to elected officials, too.

From the courthouse, to the statehouse, to the White House.

To those who believe in privatization and trashing everything from Davis-Bacon and PLAs to OSHA and the right to organize. I’m talking about those dues-paying members of the right-wing hate machine.We need to be clear that if they thought we were a pain in their ass before, they ain’t seen nothing yet! 

But, to our friends. To leaders at every level of government who aren’t afraid to stand up for workers. We want them to know that so long as you stand with working people the American labor movement will always, always, stand with you! And then there’s that other group: those fair weather friends who can’t seem to decide which side they’re on. I’m talking about politicians who love to have our help come election time, but, always seem to forget us after the votes are counted.

You know who I mean. They’ve been in the news a lot lately.

They’re the ones who say that they’re all for health care reform – so long as it doesn’t offend the insurance industry and the drug companies.

They’re the same people who’re saying that the way to pay for it isn’t to tax the rich; it’s to tax our health care benefits!

They’re the ones who lack the guts to tell the truth: that the only way we’re ever going to get a handle on the health care crisis is by creating a public system that puts people before profits! Well, we need to send them a special message: it’s that you may have forgotten what the labor movement did to get you elected; but, by God, we never will! And if you stab us in the back on health care this year don’t you dare ask us for our support next year! And, since I’m here and talking about messages the labor movement ought to be sending, I think there’s one that those of us in the AFL-CIO ought to be sending to our sisters and brothers in other unions.

Both those who had been part of the AFL-CIO, and those who never were. It’s that we need to come together. You know, when corporate America looks at us they don’t care which unions we come from; the only thing they see is a threat – the labor movement. Well, brothers and sisters, if corporate America can look at us and see only one movement we sure as hell ought to be able to do the same!

We need those unions to affiliate because, if they don’t, this moment – this incredible opportunity to rebuild the labor movement – will slip like through our fingers like sand. Together, we can build a stronger AFL-CIO and a labor movement that’s united in purpose, not only in name.

But, brothers and sisters, I also have to tell you that we can’t build a stronger labor movement when unions prey on each other.

Now, I told Mike that I’ve always been a big believer in the notion that speeches ought to end the same day they begin.

And I know you have a lot of business to conduct and I don’t want to keep you from it. But a couple of weeks ago I was reading a magazine article – it was about Bobby Kennedy. Like a lot of you here, I’m old enough to remember when Bobby Kennedy ran for president. It was around the time I first went into the mines. Well, as I was reading this article I remember how he would always say: “Some men see things as they are and ask why, I dream things that never were and ask why not?” 

That’s who we are. We’re people who dream. We dream of people working at jobs where they’re treated with respect and paid what they’ve truly earned. Jobs people look forward to going to every morning -- not the kind they can’t wait to leave every night. We dream of working parents being able to look into their children’s eyes and tell them that the money’s going to be there for them to go to college, or learn a trade, and that they’ll be able to raise their kids in a better America than the one they grew up in. And we dream of a nation where it doesn’t matter what your color is or what sex or religion you are or what country your family’s from because, in America, everyone ought to have a seat at the table.

That’s our dream ... and this is our moment to ask: “Why not?” Together we can make this our moment to build a movement that can turn this entire country around. And, I’m convinced, that together we will.

Together we will because we know that what binds us together is so much more important than anything that can drive us apart.

It’s the knowledge that there is only one way working people ever won in the past  and only one way we ever, ever will win in the future.

And it’s not by laying back,

And it’s not by sitting back,

And it’s not by kicking back.

Brothers and sisters, it’s by getting up off our rear ends and fighting back!

Joining, together.

Working, together.

Building, together.

Standing tall, and proud, and union, together!

That’s what it’s going to take to start winning, together!

Winning an America.

Where every man, woman and child who needs a doctor can see one!

Where every worker looking for a good job can find one!

And where every American who wants to have a union can join one!

Brothers and sisters, together, that’s the America we can win – and I swear to you that, together, that’s the America we are going to win!

We’re going to win because we’re strong!

We’re going to win because we’re united!

We are going to win because we are the American labor movement, this is our moment, and we will not be denied!