Thank you, Arne [Kalleberg], and my thanks to Senator Edwards and to the Center for inviting me to participate in this forum. I’m delighted to be here speaking on behalf of the nearly 10 million workers represented by AFL-CIO unions and the more than 40 million people living in union households in our country.

And it is great to be joined by Dave Engledow, our Working America canvass director from Virginia who had so much to do with our labor victory there for a progressive new governor, Tim Kaine.

For reasons I’ll make clear in a moment, I’m also going to be presumptuous and attempt to speak on behalf of the 57 million workers in America who don’t belong to unions --- but say they would join one tomorrow if they had half a chance.

This is a terrific panel because it represents such a good cross-section of groups that are concerned with the plight of low-wage workers — I’m sure Annette, Tom, Melanie and even Dave have different points of view on some things. But I’m equally sure we share a commitment to economic and social justice for all in our country.

I know Senator Edwards shares that commitment and I want to commend him for continuing to be a powerful voice speaking up for the poor and the working poor of our nation.

It may not win you popularity contests or help you raise campaign contributions, but it surely raises our national morality level. And it wins John Edwards a special place in our hearts.

Our panel has been asked to focus on three questions today: Is collective organizing necessary for improving the economic situation of low-wage workers? If so, what’s the best way for low-wage workers to organize? And how should movements help low-wage workers mobilize in view of the realities of the globalization of work?

I’d like to start with the second question and work my way around.

There are a lot of good ways low-wage workers can organize — in community groups, through campaigns for living wage ordinances, through grass-roots efforts to pass legislation requiring big, rich employers like Wal-Mart to provide health insurance.

We support all those efforts. But in the long run, the best way for low-wage workers to lift themselves and their families up and improve their economic situation is to join or form a union.

Wages, benefits and working conditions for workers at all income levels are affected by markets and public policies, but they are set and maintained by employers whose goal is too often to get away with paying as little as possible. In the absence of constraints, employers in the United States are free not only to dictate wages, benefits and working conditions, but to hire, fire, discipline and terminate employees at will.

We do have a few checks on them — the federal minimum wage, civil service rules for government workers, community wage standards for federal construction. Some occupations still have overtime protections. And we also have laws against discrimination.

But employers are for the most part in total control, and individual workers are powerless to deal with them — the words “you’re fired” are just as effective for a grocery store as they are for Donald Trump.

But when workers join together and form or join unions and bargain binding contracts, not only can they impose constraints, they can compel better employer treatment and respect for their rights.

When it comes to wages and benefits, we know collective bargaining works.

The U.S. Department of Labor confirms that unionized workers make more money, 28% more, than non-union workers — and that goes up to 34% for women workers and to 59% for Latino workers.

More unionized workers have access to health insurance — 92% compared to 68% for non-union workers.

More union workers have guaranteed pensions — 73% compared to 16%.

Through their contracts, unionized workers also have grievance procedures that hold supervisors and managers at bay and provide protections against health and safety threats and other problems.

Being in a union also gives a worker a voice in his or her community, in our government and in the global economy. Through their unions and through the AFL-CIO, workers can influence what laws and policies are affected and it works.

After we joined with students, environmental groups, church leaders and community groups and put 50,000 marchers on the streets of Seattle, the Clinton Administration included worker protections and environmental protections in the next two trade treaties it negotiated. Then, of course, President Clinton was replaced by President Bush.

Just two weeks ago, the collective voice of workers was heard again when we helped elect Tim Kaine in Virginia and Jon Corzine in New Jersey, and beat back a terrible assault on workers’ rights by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Belonging to a union isn’t the only way workers can organize, but it is certainly the most direct way workers can raise their living standards and raise their voices.

And, as I mentioned earlier, according to one of our national surveys earlier this year, 53% percent of non-union workers in our country — that’s 57 million people, I’d say half of them low-wage workers — say they would join a union if they could.

So why don’t they?

Walk out the front door of this building and take a look around and you’ll meet one of the reasons face-to-face -- anti-worker employers who’ll stop at nothing to defeat a union drive –even employers that many of us think of as responsible, like the University of North Carolina.

Every year, more than 20,000 workers are fired in this country for union activities — even though it’s against the law.

And tens of thousands more are harassed and intimidated as employers use legal as well as illegal strategies to stall, block and outright kill union campaigns.

Here’s a quick case study close to home: In 1969, dining hall workers working for UNC here in Chapel Hill went on strike and with the help of many activist students, improved their meager wages and working conditions. Soon after the strike, UNC executed a popular anti-union strategy and outsourced its dining service to a notoriously anti-union firm called Aramark — “not our employees anymore, not our responsibility.”

The UNC union-avoidance strategy worked until earlier this year when workers in campus dining halls decided they wanted to unionize with SEIU. With the help of UNC Student Action With Workers, the workers requested that the university endorse their call for a “majority sign-up” election, which is the only way you can deal with an employer like Aramark.

Instead, UNC decided to side with Aramark in calling for an NLRB election. We all know the NLRB doesn’t work, and it’s an intentional strategy to delay unionization once again.

The university also did nothing about clear acts of intimidation, including the suspension of a vocal union activist earlier this year and the firing of a woman the previous year for speaking out about sexual harassment by a manager.

One can plead that Aramark is the employer, not UNC, or that Aramark may or may not be committing illegal acts. But this isn’t a question of what’s legal or who’s responsible — UNC holds itself up as an ideal of progressive values and policies .... so this is a question of what’s moral.

Unfortunately, colleges and universities all across our country have taken to union-busting with a vengeance and bashing graduate teaching assistants as well as with campus service workers.

Illegal? Maybe, maybe not. Immoral? You bet.

It robs low wage workers of a voice on the job. And the result is no way to break the lock of poverty and lift themselves up into the middle class. No way to provide the things they and their families need. Or the hope we all need. The result is an impoverished America.

I look forward to hearing from our other panelists, and from all of you. Thank you.