It's great to see so many good friends. You are all like my family. What a terrific group you are! You're black and brown and white, lesbian and straight, old and young and everything in between, living with disabilities and without. You come from every corner of America -- but there's something you all have in common. You believe in our wonderful union movement. You know how important it is for millions of working women and you struggle every day to win a better life for yourself and your families -- your sisters in the workplace -- and all working women.
All of us who are part of CLUW have so much to be proud of.
I'd like to start out by paying tribute to some of the finest, most effective, most dedicated union leaders I know, whom I'm proud to have as my friends, starting with Gloria Johnson.
I've been an admirer of Gloria for years, long before I got to know her and work closely with her. We've been to more rallies, and picket lines, and conventions than either of us could count, and there's one thing I know for sure: we in CLUW are lucky to have a president of Gloria's stature.
I'd also like to pay tribute to the terrific officers of CLUW, our executive vice-president, Marcia Zakowski, who's still recovering and who we're all rooting for, our treasurer, Susan Phillips, our recording secretary, Jean Hervey, our corresponding secretary, Royetta Stanford, and our executive director, Carol Rosenblatt. They're the very best.
In the last few years, CLUW has taken on some wonderful projects to advance the cause of working women like the Wal-Mart Campaign, the HIV/AIDS Awareness Project, and the Behind the Label anti-sweatshop campaign. But I'd like to give special recognition to one that is having a tremendous impact, the Contraceptive Equity Project.
Thanks to the leadership of Carolyn Jacobsen, more union women have won contraceptive equity than ever before, and more unions are pressing for contraceptive equity for their members than ever before, from the Operating Engineers in six western states to SEIU Local 32 BJ in New York, and the Auto Workers, who just won contraceptive equity at General Motors.
Finally, I want to recognize someone who has done as much for working women in this country as anyone of this generation, an assistant to John Sweeney and the woman in charge of our women's programs at the AFL-CIO, and a real personal hero of mine, Karen Nussbaum.
Now, let me offer you a couple of invitations.
The first invitation is to join your union sisters and brothers around the country and celebrate International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, on December 10. Will we be protesting the violation of human rights in a far-off country? No, on December 10, we're going to spread the word that more than a half-century after the United States and dozens of other nations signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the most sacred rights that it created -- the right to form and join unions -- is being violated and it's been rolled back right here in America by employers, day after day, year after year.
It's not just -- it's not fair -- and it's about time for this right finally to be respected. It's time to recognize the fundamental freedom of every worker to organize and bargain collectively. Every worker has the freedom to assemble -- it's one of the basic human rights -- but it's being torn limb from limb and we have to raise the alarm.
It's easy for you to pitch in and help out on December 10. Just call the Voice at Work campaign at the AFL-CIO and tell them you want to get involved.
The second invitation is to join in the campaign against the proposed Free Trade of the Americas agreement -- another bad trade agreement that would wipe out millions more jobs in this country. We've already lost 3 million jobs in the last 2 1/2 years and 90 percent of them were in manufacturing. That's what the Bush administration's free trade doctrine has given us. Now, they want to take NAFTA, which destroyed a lot of those jobs, and extend it all over North and South America, with no real worker rights and no real environmental standards. I urge you to take a stand against this monstrosity by filling out a ballot against the FTAA.
Now, I'd like to turn to something that's tremendously important for all of us in the union movement -- political action and the 2004 elections.
Let me start out by saying a few words about George W. Bush. I'd like to say to you that as president, the guy is below average, but I can't. I'd like to say to you that he does some decent things and makes a few mistakes here and there, but I can't. The truth is very different.
I've seen quite a few presidents in my lifetime, but there is absolutely none who has been worse for working families and worse for America than Bush, and I mean none. This guy has been a total disaster for America. What he's doing to this great country should never happen. Look at his record. Remember how the country was doing on the day before he was inaugurated? The number of jobs was going up. Wages were going up. Unemployment was low. Poverty was going down. The number of people with health care was going up. The federal budget had the biggest surpluses in history.
Today, after two and a half years of George W. Bush in the White House, what's been happening to the land we love? For one thing, we've lost nearly 2 million jobs.
Now, I happen to be a grandmother who has seen 12 presidents in my lifetime. Every single one of those presidents -- Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, good and not so good -- has created more American jobs than he found when he took the oath of office. Every president but one -- and his name is George W. Bush.
He's the first president in my lifetime who's destroyed more American jobs than he created -- jobs for people like us, down the drain.
Now, we're supposed to be in the middle of something called a "jobless recovery." Well, excuse me, but if you're one of the millions of hard-working Americans stuck out there without a job, or if you stay up at night because you're scared your job can disappear by next weekend, you're not enjoying a whole lot of recovery.
There are millions of women just like us, hotel workers, assembly line workers, secretaries, who have lost their jobs, thanks to the anti-worker policies of George W. Bush. I'm sure you know someone who's trying to cope with this terrible tragedy, so you know what it's like.
Another example of what Bush has done is trying to destroy overtime. He's fighting tooth and nail to wipe out the guarantee for millions of workers that they will have overtime pay after 40 hours of work. We fought hard for that guarantee -- a lot of us depend on overtime to feed the kids and pay the bills -- but Bush thinks that for millions of us, this guarantee should be thrown on the garbage heap.
The only reason he hasn't gotten his way so far is that working people all over America have fought back -- contacted their senators and representatives -- and demanded that they vote to keep overtime. But that hasn't stopped Bush. He still hasn't given up.
There are plenty of other examples of the damage he's done. In George W. Bush's America, there are more than 9 million innocent children under the age of 19 who have no health insurance, and almost 90 percent of them are in working families like ours.
What's worse is that even though this is the richest nation in human history, the number of people without health insurance is growing larger and larger.
In George W. Bush's America, do you know the one thing that puts you in the greatest danger of going bankrupt? It's not gambling, it's not splurging on a trip around the world. No, it's having a child. If you and your spouse have a kid, that will double the chance that you'll have to file for bankruptcy, and you're much more likely to face a foreclosure on your home.
In George W. Bush's America, multi-millionaires get huge tax breaks, but millions of working mothers can't afford good, reliable, safe, high-quality child care for their kids. In fact, it's become so bad that one out of every five kids ages 6 to 12 with a working mom now doesn't have any adult supervision after school.
In George W. Bush's America, if you have a child, there's no guarantee in the law that you'll get paid maternity leave. Just about every other industrialized country in the world has that guarantee for women. Even Afghanistan had it before the Taliban took control, but not George W. Bush's America -- and this guy is actually determined to keep it that way.
He can give all of his self-righteous little speeches about family values, but the truth is that he sure isn't lifting a finger to help the families who need it.
What's going on? Why is he doing this to America? The answer is very simple. It is that all of Bush's loyalty -- all of his allegiance -- is to the big multinational corporations and the richest families in the country, not to working women, not to working families, not to the unions that represent them.
In fact, Bush and his administration hate the union movement -- they hate all that we do and all that we stand for -- they're doing everything they can to weaken us. They've already destroyed -- or they're trying to destroy -- the rights to collective bargaining for more than 200,000 federal workers.
To show you how low Bush and his people will sink, they are actually pretending that being in the union makes these workers -- our sisters and brothers -- into some kind of security risk!
He and his people have made our workplaces more dangerous, when they trashed the OSHA standard to protect workers from repetitive strain injuries.
Now, you know as well as I do that it's not the CEO of some multinational corporation or the president of a bank who's suffering those injuries, it's your next-door neighbor or your best friend at work.
All that has happened in just two and a half years of George W. Bush, and we have almost a year and a half more to go, with his party controlling both the House and the Senate. You and I, and the union movement, and all of America can't afford four more years of this. And that's exactly why all of us in the union movement have to get the country back on track in the election next year.
We need a president and a Congress who are on the side of working families for a change… leaders who will fight for more jobs, protection of overtime, affordable high-quality health care for all, a reliable and stable Social Security, good, well-funded schools for our kids, new life for the construction and manufacturing sectors, and the freedom of every working person to choose a voice at work through their union.
Can we win next year? We absolutely can.
Americans are waking up to what's going on. For the first time, most Americans say that Bush doesn't share their priorities, and most think the country is on the wrong track. And they're absolutely right.
But the only way we can turn this country around for the better is with your help, your very best effort.
There are several things you can do.
First, call your local and volunteer to be the Labor 2004 coordinator, if there isn't one already. Your job will be spreading the word to other members, letting them know about the issues and the candidates, and helping them register to vote and go to the polls.
A second thing you can do is to put a special effort into voter registration from now until the end of this year. In your local, set a goal of boosting voter registration by 10 percent.
Another thing you can do is to become part of Working Women Vote. They'll supply you with flyers on the issues women care about the most, their famous poster for 2004, and a terrific new program to help you join with other women's organizations and get out the vote, with good, solid information about precinct walks, phone banks, and other events. It's a great way to help make sure that every working woman has the information she needs to make the right choice on election day.
You'll be hearing more about this from my friend Rachna Choudry on Saturday. These things are important. They lay the groundwork for 2004.
But the single very best thing you can do right now, and it's not too early, is to talk with your union sisters and brothers about the issues that matter. Share information and fliers with them -- right where you work.
Tell them how important it is for them to register to vote. And make it your personal mission -- first and foremost -- to seek out and talk to the members who are undecided about whether to vote to re-elect Bush. They are the swing voters. They are the ones who are going to decide the election.
All you have to do is one thing: tell them the truth. Tell them the truth about George W. Bush's record of job loss -- the worst for any president since the Great Depression. Tell them the truth about Bush's war against working people's right to overtime pay. Tell them the truth about damage he's already done or trying to do to health care, and child care, and Social Security, and Medicare -- and they'll decide for themselves what's best for their families and best for America.
When it comes to tough fights, when it comes to struggling for what is right and fair, working women like us are the champions.
In the next 13 months, I urge you to keep up the good work. And always remember that our mission isn't electing Democrats or Republicans. We're not interested in which candidates have the prettiest bumper stickers or the best sound bites on the TV news. No, our mission is greater than that. It is to elect candidates who will fight for working women and stand with us on the issues that count the most.
With every workplace conversation you have, with every flier you give out, with every union sister and brother you register to vote, what are you really doing? Are you creating a better life for your own family and loved ones? Are you helping out the union members you know and work with every day? Are you building a better America? The answer to each of those questions is a resounding yes.
There's a reason we're doing all this. There's a reason we're going to do everything we can between now and election day 2004. Let me put it this way. Many years from now, when we're all gone, our names won't be on any great cathedrals, or skyscrapers, or bridges. We won't leave behind mansions, or yachts, or fortunes worth millions of dollars.
But if we succeed in turning America around, you and I will have a different monument. Working women will have a real voice in our country. They'll get real respect for the work they do, and real rewards for the contributions they make.
If we win the election in 2004, if America wins the election in 2004, that will be our monument. That is who we are. That is our struggle. That is our dream.
For all that you have done to make that dream a reality -- and for all you will do in the next 13 months -- I admire you, I congratulate you, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
