AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond’s remarks as prepared for delivery at the AFL-CIO 30th Constitutional Convention.
Brothers and sisters, I am truly honored to accept your nomination for secretary-treasurer.
The trust you have placed in me and my partner Liz Shuler is both humbling and overwhelming.
I want to thank President Roxanne Brown—don’t that sound good?—from my home union, the United Steelworkers, for your kind nomination. It was a great highlight of my career to witness and speak at Roxanne’s installation ceremony a couple of months ago. Rox, you inspire us all.
I want to thank Brother Jimmy Williams Jr., a second-generation president of the Painters and Allied Trades, and a first-rate and visionary leader.
And to the Reverend Doctor Everett Kelley, who with a steady hand and a strong belief in a mighty God is leading the American Federation of Government Employees through the most difficult time in its history. Thank you, Everett.
And I want to thank my chief of staff, JP Smith, and our team in the Office of the Secretary-Treasurer: Tracey Roberts, Jamie Garcia-Prioleau and Michawn Blakeney. They put in the hard work every day to make sure that I look good, but more importantly, that our federation is fiscally responsible and financially sound. I appreciate you all.
I am so fortunate to have my family with me today, my daughter and son-in-law, and grandsons and their partners, and my four great grandkids, and of course our family matriarch Ann. Tomorrow we celebrate our 51st wedding anniversary. I love her more now than I did 51 years ago.
Now look, this is a most challenging time for our movement. The attacks on worker and civil and human rights by the most anti-worker and anti-labor administration in American history has been unrelenting and unprecedented.
And this is a most challenging time for our country. The wealthy and well-connected are consolidating power at an alarming rate.
This administration is corrupt to the core and its corruption knows no bounds.
He does not care about America. He does not care about our well-being. Trump cares only about himself and what he can get out of the deal. As long as it’s more for him and his billionaire buddies, and less for everybody else.
Their idea of winning deepens income inequality, increases social injustice and tramples our rights and freedoms. And they’re OK with it, as long as it tacks another zero to the end of their capital gains.
They’re OK with it because they think for some reason that extreme wealth is going to fix the problems that extreme wealth created. It never has and it never will.
But I do know what will, and you do, too.
That is why we’re here. To strengthen our movement so we can address the problems that extreme wealth created—and reverse its effects before it’s too late.
In 1967, the year before he was killed, Dr. King issued a warning. He said that “in this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
This is also one of those times.
Our forefathers marched and fought and bled and died for the rights and freedoms that we hold dear.
But those rights and freedoms didn’t arrive all at once, neatly packaged. It arrived with incremental effort, as all real progress does.
The road to real progress is never quick. It’s never easy. The road is bumpy. And there are no shortcuts.
And there’s no guarantee that you’ll get to where you wanted to go.
This uncertainty can tap your strength and test your will.
And at some point along the way you're going to ask yourself: Is it worth it?
Is it worth it?
Especially when you look in the rearview mirror and see all of the landmarks and milestones, the decades of the progress we made— hard-won progress—being buried under the weight of policies that endanger our rights, undermine our unions, abandon working families and betray our communities.
When the fertile ground we made organizing and at the bargaining table has turned to sand, it is not unreasonable to ask the question: Is it worth it?
But here’s the thing. We aren’t on that road alone.
We have the strength and courage of the millions of trade unionists who came before us and sacrificed so much and fought so hard to bring about the incremental changes that have made jobs safe, workplaces more equitable and society more just.
Everybody in this hall, they know who those people are, for we carry them in our hearts: the strike leader who refused to give in, the union sibling you locked arms with in the march for justice, the organizer that gave you the courage to stand up and fight for dignity and a voice at work, the shop steward who listened when no one else would.
You see, I think of Lynn Williams, the former president of the United Steelworkers. He said something to me when I was a young man. I was the first-term president of my local union at the time and I picked President Williams up from Midway Airport, and he said that it is a great privilege to represent good people who go to work every day. They pay their taxes and strive every day to be good citizens, but these good people are unable to represent themselves before the boss.
That has always stuck with me.
He is just one of the millions of profiles in courage who set aside their self-interests in the interest of the greater good.
And when the historians of the future write the story of our time, they will look to how our movement responded.
And here’s what I believe they will see. They will see working people determining their economic and political futures, demanding full participation in democracy and decency from the leaders of this nation.
They will see a working class, betrayed and knocked down by the billionaire class—and trade unions, once held back by the corporate elite and their political pawns, shake free of these oppressive forces and join together and rise together.
They will see this diverse and inclusive labor movement that we love restore the core values of America back to the American people.
And they will see our vigorous and positive action generate win after win.
Sisters and brothers, we are made for this moment. The labor movement is primed for this moment.
Each and every one of us piling up the small victories that turn into big victories.
That’s what the historians of the future will see: each and every one of us building and leading the resistance against injustice and oppression.
Each and every one of us ushering in a new age of equity and inclusion and decency by simply heeding the call to vigorous and positive action to fight the good fight.
It is my great honor to be in the good fight with each and every one of you. God bless you and God bless the American labor movement.