Thank you, Brother Bob [Martinez]. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day! I’m proud to be here with the Machinists and Aerospace Workers, one of America’s largest, strongest and most powerful unions! Thank you for inviting me to your convention.
I can feel the energy in this room. You are strong, united and ready to organize. Your professionalism is unparalleled. Your activism will help create a new middle class in America.
You and your members literally made the Space Age possible, and we all know the incredible record of union workers in the airline industry. We see you working hard to bring the union advantage to communities near and far, whether at Ikea in southern Virginia or Airbus in Alabama.
When you win those campaigns, the supply chains follow, and the good news about unionism spreads by word of mouth. Your contracts set the standards on wages, workplace safety, pensions and health care. And in return, you provide workmanship that is second to none.
Unionism creates a virtuous cycle. Our entire economy improves. Consumers have more money to spend. Employers feel competitive pressure to raise wages and standards. And more workers want to experience the power of a union contract. That’s the strength of collective bargaining and collective action. By standing together, we can set off a race to the top.
We raise the bar in politics, too. When we get off the sidelines and onto the front lines, we build momentum for our issues and elect candidates who share our working family values.
This year, working people are leading the national conversation. We put the focus on good jobs with strong and growing wages. We’ve made it clear that workers should share in the wealth we help create. We’ve shifted the conversation on trade. Instead of continuing to get run over by corporate trade deals, we’re leading the fight to write new global rules that lift up our families and communities. We’ve been able to make headway because our agenda is driving our politics, not the other way around.
This year our activism has influenced and inspired America’s leaders more than any time in the past 50 years. That’s why I believe we need to throw everything we have into politics from now until Election Day. Working people are winning the debate. Now we can win the election and change the economic rules.
When you go back home after this convention, I want you to reach even higher. We need your release staff. We need your mobilization and groundwork. The leaders we elect, from the state house to the White House, will have a tremendous impact on pocketbook issues for your members. You can make the difference. Working people need it. The labor movement needs it. Your family, neighbors and community needs it.
We know unity. We practice solidarity. We built the American middle class once, and we’ll do it again.
We shape the steel and drive the rivets. We carry the loads and build the ships. From skyscrapers to airplanes, we make it all. We do what it takes. We don’t mind hard work. We do it with pride. We won’t be faced down or pushed around, and we will not be denied.
One of the things I admire most about the Machinists and Aerospace Workers is the diversity of your membership. It’s part of your strength. You don’t do what’s easy. You do what’s right. I know you’re constantly focused on growth, whether it’s with creative long-term organizing in the South or even by strengthening your organizing department. This is what powerful unions do. We can never be complacent.
As a labor movement, we are constantly evolving. We’re increasing our connections to each other and our communities. We’ve set our sights on new industries. We’re using the latest tools to communicate effectively while doubling down on the things that work.
The structures of our local, area and state labor federations are here to support you. My job exists to help you do yours, and the same is true all the way down to your local CLC.
I know you’ve been working hard, and that dedication is starting to pay off. We've been fighting for decades to put the rules of the economy up for debate so they can be changed. And we’ve done it. These rules are now front and center.
Our economy isn’t like the weather. It’s man-made, and if it doesn’t work, we can and should fix it.
Workers are making a great case for new economic rules. And because we spoke up, Democrats nominated a presidential candidate that shares our vision and our values. Hillary Clinton opposes the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership, is committed to raising wages for working families and understands that when workers are strong, when unions are strong, America is strong.
I’ll have more to say about Hillary Clinton shortly, but I can’t let another moment pass without addressing the disgrace that is Donald Trump.
We could talk all day about Trump’s poor judgment and character, his lack of respect for our military, his racism, sexism, xenophobia and outright dishonesty. When Donald Trump insults a war hero or expresses his disdain for women or behaves like a schoolyard bully, these aren’t mistakes. That’s who Trump is.
As a nation, we have always tried to hold true to the promises in the U.S. Constitution that all of us, every single one of us, is created equal. It hasn’t been easy, and progress has often been painfully slow. But we’ve always moved forward.
For America to reverse course, and allow its leader to bring bigotry into the mainstream, would be catastrophic. Hate is a cancer. It’s wrong. It’s un-American. And we must reject every effort to legitimize it.
Donald Trump is unfit to be president in every possible way. And his record on work and workers’ rights is terrible. Trump spent his career shipping our jobs overseas, failing to pay us for the work we do, devastating our communities and treating us like second-class citizens. He’s no friend of unions or working people. He always tries to cheat us and destroy us.
Trump thinks our wages are too high, and he has stolen our pay time and time again. He said outsourcing creates jobs. He rooted for the housing collapse. He supports right to work 100 percent. And he thinks Carl Icahn—who wakes up every day thinking about ways to destroy our jobs and benefits—would make a good Treasury Secretary. No wonder an independent business review says a Trump presidency would kill 3.5 million jobs.
Sisters and brothers, the last thing we need is a morally bankrupt corporate hack running our economy. That’s why on November 8, 2016, working people are going to turn the tables on Donald Trump, and fire him.
Thankfully, the Democratic side has been a much different story. The primary contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton moved America in a good direction. The Democratic platform yielded the most progressive and unifying vision in a generation. And Hillary Clinton is rising to meet the challenges of tomorrow with a strong agenda of shared prosperity.
Hillary is tough. She is smart. She is prepared. And she listens. When she accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention, when she talked about “love of country and the selfless passion to build something better for all who follow,” it was clear she heard our call.
Hillary Clinton is ready to rewrite the economic rules by reforming or killing corporate trade deals and saying no to the TPP. She has an aggressive plan to rein in Wall Street. She will make the largest investment in infrastructure, public education, workforce development and manufacturing since World War II—to the tune of 10 million new jobs!
And most importantly, Hillary Clinton knows the single greatest tool for economic mobility and a growing middle class is collective bargaining. She will protect and expand the freedom of every worker in America to join or form a union—whether they live in Washington or South Carolina!
Let me tell you something, brothers and sisters: America is waking up to unionism. This is our chance. This is our moment. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other. We won’t back up or back down. We’ll stand tall. We’ll register. We’ll vote, and we’ll win!
My friends, I want to tell you something personal. In August, I welcomed my first grandchild into the world. My son Rich and his wife had a beautiful baby boy. Becoming a grandfather is a reminder that this movement is not just about us, it’s about building a stronger America for generations to come.
It seems like yesterday I was in my backyard with Rich when he was just three or four years old. His grandfather had gotten him one of those battery operated jeeps. He and his buddy Chad were driving around in the backyard.
I was out there too—talking on the phone about what else—the union. Rich must have overheard me because he drove up and said: “Dad what’s a union?”
So I told him to try to push his jeep up the hill. He strained and struggled and eventually got stuck. Then I told his friend Chad to give him a hand. Working together, they were able to do it. I looked right at my son and said: “That’s a union.”
Today, working people are climbing up our own hill. Wages are still too low. Benefits are still too few. Retirement security isn’t secure enough. And the economic rules remain skewed toward the wealthy few.
People are understandably cynical. They work hard. They do the right thing. But they can’t seem to get ahead.
A lot of our members, and our friends and allies, are turned off by politics right now. Reaching them won’t be easy. But we can’t accept the idea that just because someone is angry or cynical, they can’t be reached. We need to tell people, again and again, that progress is possible, if we are powerful!
We’ve suffered through layoffs and takebacks. We’ve seen our hopes and dreams put on hold. But it gets better. I’ve seen it. Trust me. We are in position to win.
A better life is right in front of us. All we have to do is reach out and grab it.
This fall, we’ve got more than just an election on the line. It's about where our country is going. It's about what kind of nation we're going to be, an America that says you are mine and I am yours, or one that governs by dividing people and fanning their fears.
As we stand together and define American values, we’ll defeat the misguided, petty and unnecessary politics of division and disunity. And we’ll send a message to every politician who made the rise of Trump possible: change course or face extinction.
America’s labor movement is unleashing the most comprehensive and sophisticated electoral program in our history.
We need your help. Talk to your members. Send out your release staff. Ask members to volunteer and turn out at the polls. I want to see union members vote at unprecedented levels. If you haven’t done it already, talk to your central labor council. Name a coordinator for each worksite, so our team has someone to communicate with.
When your membership gets involved in the ground campaign, nothing can stop us. When working people speak the truth about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we will move the needle. You know what it takes. Keep leading the way. Keep blazing a trail forward.
So it’s time for us to stand up strong, brothers and sisters. It’s time to mobilize and organize. This electoral season is all about raising wages. We’ll hit the worksites. We’ll talk to members. We’ll walk the streets and knock the doors. This is what a unified labor movement does. This is what it looks like when working people stand together, union strong!
And after the ballots are counted and the elections have been won, we’ll be in a better position to organize in the workplace, and win strong contracts and better pay.
We’ll fix what’s broken in our country. Together, we will create a better tomorrow. We’ll have to work for it, sisters and brothers. Each of us. With solidarity. Where your picket line is my picket line and my picket line is your picket line. All of us together. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm in arm. All day. Every day. Voting. Fighting. Winning. Together. To bring out the best in each other and ourselves. To bring out the best in America. To build the nation we can have and must have and will have!
Thank you! And God bless you!
