Thank you, Ambassador [Peter] Wittig, for inviting me here and for hosting this discussion about building shared prosperity. I’m honored to speak to all of you.
But before I begin, I’d like us to pause in honor of May Day and Workers Memorial Day. Please join me in a brief moment of silence for the working people worldwide who have lost their lives on the job in the past year. [Moment of silence.]
Thank you. As we honor workers, it is a good time for us to be talking and thinking about the vision and values shared by all working people, here in America and around the world.
Whatever we do, we all want our work to lift us up, wherever we live. We all want to build a better life for ourselves and our families. In Germany and in the United States and indeed all over the world, we’re pushing for stronger national wages, and against the growing use of temporary jobs as a business strategy to undermine unions and working people.
Last week, I had the honor of spending time with Reiner Hoffman, president of the DGB, and he and I talked about the importance of strengthening our transatlantic partnership, and raising wages for working people.
This idea of raising wages is growing in popularity. I believe we are on the brink of an era unprecedented in modern life. We’re seeing grassroots momentum growing all over this country and indeed all over the world. Working people want a share of the wealth we create, and we’re ready to stand together to demand it.
Just look at the Our Walmart campaign here in the United States. Week after week, and month after month, a movement for fairness and good wages continues to grow at that massive retailer, and at others like Target and TJMaxx. These are big and growing movements. In the recent national day of action by fast food workers in Ohio demanding $15 an hour, for instance, we saw adjunct professors marching next to firefighters and home health care workers and, yes, fast food workers. That’s inspirational.
What I’m seeing is a positive movement with growing momentum. When working people make gains, it lifts up our entire economy. Working people are stepping forward as leaders, not just for themselves but for our nation.
It makes me think of the way workers have been such important partners in the German economy and in society. I’m thinking of the German labor-management model of co-determination and the idea that both workers and corporations take part in a basic social contract to lift up the whole country. That idea, in which government, workers and business all come together, offers opportunities and challenges to us here in the United States, and to workers and governments around the world.
This model has many aspects, from the quality of German apprenticeships, to the specific approaches of companies like Volkswagen that are worth study by us in the United States.
In the American labor movement, we’re ready to embrace any idea that works. We’ll advocate for the policies that promote shared prosperity, and we’ll fight the things that will make it worse. We’re doing it on both the proposed trade agreement between Europe and the United States, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We stand against using Fast Track trade promotion authority here in America to pass these big trade bills.
I don’t have time to get into the nuts-and-bolts of our issues with these trade deals, but I will say this: We stand against using Fast Track because of our commitment to shared prosperity. Fast Track will undermine us and undermine our democracy. These bills are too big. The consequences are too great. The margin for error is too small. And, frankly, today we’re all completely in the dark about them.
An open process will give us a chance to raise wages. Raising wages is why we’re doing everything we do.
You see, our work against bad trade policy in the United States is only part of a large, over-arching strategy in and beyond our labor movement: We want to raise wages for all working people, because so much of what’s wrong in our economy stems from the disconnect between pay and productivity.
In the United States, wages have been stagnant for over a decade. In fact, between 1997 and 2012, the income of those in the bottom 90% fell by $3,000 while that of the top 1% almost doubled. This happened even as our productivity rose. This is not just a problem for our individual families. Economists agree that this hurts the entire American economy, and by extension it affects the world.
The U.S. labor movement is working to enact minimum wage hikes, fair overtime rules, earned sick leave and other policy initiatives to raise wages in America. At the city and state level, our labor organizations have partnered with community allies to make all manner of positive change. In Los Angeles we’ve partnered with environmentalists, business groups and a dozen others to win investments in massive infrastructure projects that create good jobs and a more sustainable environment. In Seattle, we helped lead a coalition to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. San Francisco has a new Retail Workers Bill of Rights. Organizations like Jobs With Justice have been pivotal from coast to coast and across the country. They’ve won local rules against wage theft and have made progress on other important issues.
And yet we know from experience the single best way for working people to get and keep a raise is by asking for one with a collective voice. That’s why it’s important for every worker to be able to form a union on the job.
The International Monetary Fund, hardly a leftist group, and the OECD recently released studies tying rising inequality to the attacks on collective bargaining rights.
This year, in the United States, 5 million union workers are bargaining contracts. It’s the biggest year for bargaining in recent American history, and we’re going to raise wages.
We’re standing together with union workers, nonunion and never-heard-of-union. In just the first few months of the year, we have supported the struggle of 2 million non-union workers to win raises from retailers like Target, Walmart and others. These raises aren’t enough, but they’re a start.
This vision of raising wages can help us grow bigger coalitions, because, you see, raising wages is one link that binds social and economic justice.
Labor rights, social justice and economic justice cannot be separated, cannot be isolated. When your rights are targeted, mine are in danger. We’ve seen that again and again and again. That’s why labor must lead the progressive fight.
We know how to stand together. We know to call injustice out for what it is, and fight to make it right. We know how to rally, when your picket line is my picket line and my picket line is your picket line.
And when we win, we all win. That’s the beauty of a raising wages world.
Brothers and sisters, trade has linked our economies more closely than they’ve ever been before. Wages here affect wages everywhere, and the reverse is also true. The same can be said about workers’ rights here. The same can be said about environmental standards and civil and human rights. Quite frankly, the interests we have as working people span all the things that could divide us, and as institutions, our unions do, too. Nothing and nobody can match the breadth and scope of labor unions, when we unite with allies and partners who share our vision and our values.
The challenges of working people are legion. We’ve got political opponents who want to take us out. In the United States, we’ve got governors falling over themselves to sign right-to-work laws to make it harder for working people to bargain for a better life. All over the world, politicians are itching to take the worst ideas from the United States and use them on your workers. We want to provide an alternative example—one in which collective voices work for the common good.
We know it works. Coalitions can transform politics in the United States and everywhere. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen alliances elect true progressives in places as different as Los Angeles and Nebraska.
Coalition work is hard, but it’s the best way for working people to grow power. When we stand together, the numbers are on our side. Standing together is how we’ll build a strong economy. Raising wages works. It works economically. It works politically. It’s the right thing to do, and it’ll work for every single one of us, and all of you, for our whole society.
Thank you.
