Good evening, everyone! Good evening, WILD! Thank you ALL for that incredible welcome.
I gotta say: That is a first in all my years in labor! You really haven’t lived until you’ve looked out over a crowd like this…and seen your own face staring back at you, a couple hundred times!
Thank you so much for that introduction, Laurel, and for your tireless work. When we talk about the importance of women mentors, women who are touching so many lives…I can’t think of a better example than the one we just saw up here on stage. Raise your hand if Laurel has made a difference in your life.
Laurel: You are a living breathing example of everything WILD is about. Thank you.
Charlie: I want to thank you, as well, for your vision and your leadership. And for always showing up for women in labor. We’re grateful.
I’d also like to thank our incredible CLC leaders here tonight, as Laurel named. And also: Wyatt Earp, President of the Monmouth/Ocean CLCl; Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, part of my IBEW family!; President Williams from IUPAT; Rebecca Damon from SAG-AFTRA; and so many others here who have helped turn WILD into the incredible coalition it is. Thank you!
And I have to say: There is nowhere I’d rather be, on the first night of Women’s History Month, than right here with some WILD WOMEN!
So…I do want to admit something to you all: I’m about two years behind on TV. We’ve been a little busy, haven’t we? I’m just now making my way through that show that it seems like the entire world watched, Succession.
It’s an interesting show for those of us in labor, isn’t it? It’s telling us in so many cases what we already know: The unbelievable levels of greed we see at the top of our economy. The complete disregard for workers, for families, for anyone other than people in the 1%.
But the more I watch the more I keep coming back to one character: the daughter, Shiv.
I’m gonna start by saying: She is by no accounts a good person. She lies. She backstabs.
But she plays the game—in a lot of ways better than anyone else on the show. She does the exact same thing the men do, at a higher level.
Yet over and over again, what happens? She gets put in her place. She gets reminded that she’s never gonna get the top job.
There’s a scene where her dad says to her: A young woman with no experience.
And she asks him: ‘A woman,’ that’s a minus?
He looks at her and says: OF COURSE it’s a minus. I didn’t make the bleeping world!
And I’ll tell you: It hit home for me.
We have women from every industry of our economy represented here tonight. And I’d bet every one of us has had a moment like that.
Where we’ve gotten told: That’s just how the world works. When we overcome all these invisible barriers, and do twice as well…only for them to tell us: Hey, we don’t make the rules.
I know I had those moments coming up.
But I think that’s why I’m so moved every time I come to a WILD event; why I feel such incredible hope and belief in the future, the second I walk into this Conference.
Because this is the way we fight back, isn’t it? This is how we change things.
By connecting with each other, growing our networks. By remembering we’re not alone in these fights.
And when we come together…the *entire world* opens up, doesn’t it?
We don’t have to ask for change, we can demand it. We don’t have to sit back and pray that the world will catch up on these basic ideas of equality.
We can do it the Jersey way, can’t we?
We can be tough.
We can fight together.
We can win together, can’t we?
I came up in the building trades. About 30 years ago in Portland, Oregon, at IBEW Local 125.
My Dad was a union member and worked for Portland General Electric as a power lineman.
My first organizing job was with the clerical workers of PGE. Predominantly women. Who, unlike the linemen, were not unionized.
And the very first project I was thrown into,
right out of school, was this full-fledged campaign to organize the clerical workers.
I saw immediately the difference a union made. The collective power the linemen had in bargaining for wages, health care, benefits.
But the other thing that always stayed with me was this fundamental connection between organizing and truly empowering women.
If we wanted financial independence?
If we wanted benefits and our own health care?
If we wanted our voice to be heard?
UNIONS were the tool to get there.
Here we are a few decades later—just a few!—and that is as true today as it was then.
I could not be more proud to stand up here representing the largest collection of working women in the country!
I see women on the rise all over New Jersey, all over our country, all over our workplaces.
Women who led the incredible strikes and collective action we saw these past few years.
Do we have any of our incredible USW nurses here from Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick? Let’s give it up for them!
More than four months on the picket line…so that they could win basic dignity and respect for themselves and their patients.
How about the amazing Rutgers faculty members? The first job action in more than 250 years…and guess what happened? Raises across the board. Job security. Better schedules.
And just for one second…I want to give it up for women of the UAW, out there in Westrock, who made HISTORY taking on the Big Three!
Wherever you look across our economy…working women are leading this resurgence of labor movement. And here’s what I can tell you for a fact: This moment, this year…it’s the turning point. One way or the other.
Because for all the momentum we have…there are extremists, billionaires, right-wing politicians…who want nothing more than to drag us back.
Who have no problem…attacking our reproductive rights, our right to decide what to do with our own bodies…if it’ll get them votes.
Who still, in the year 2024…are okay with the fact that women lose an average of $400,000 to the wage gap over a lifetime. $400,000!
Who are looking at these industries we work in and saying…let’s just replace skilled workers with A.I. and robots that do half the job.
So we need to fight back. How do we do it?
The answer to me is to take a few pages out of the New Jersey playbook.
And I’m not talking about The Sopranos.
I’m talking about how the women of WILD—in the course of just a few years—have turned this into a PRO-WORKER state. A PRO-WOMAN state. A PRO-FAMILY state.
By working together. By being fearless.
We need to replicate that all over the country.
When it comes to Organizing…we can organize in sectors and places we never have before. Getting ahead on these industries of the future. The exact way that UFCW is when it comes to cannabis—do we have anyone from Local 360 or Local 152 here tonight?
They are on a roll, aren’t they?
When it comes to A.I. and building this workforce of the future…working women are going to demand OUR seat at the table.
Because what these companies are figuring out is: A lot of this work we do with our hands—child care, nursing, construction work—it’s not so easy to automate, is it?
But IF we use A.I. to assist US, the humans, and make our jobs better—it could be an absolute launching pad for women in the trades.
It used to be that physical strength was the big driver—but technology is changing a lot of that conversation. Technology could be the enabler to open up all these new roles. We need every woman in America to see that this change will make the trades more accessible than ever.
FINALLY: When it comes to this year, and the fight we have in front of us every day until November 5…we need to stand together.
Women are going to decide this election. It’s that simple. And even if we feel pretty good about our chances here in New Jersey…the stories coming out of this room can inspire and move and motivate women all over this country.
We can let them know about the progress we’ve made the past four years. We can let them know: We’re not going back to a president who erodes equal pay, threatens our reproductive rights, and weakens our health care.
We can and we will beat Donald Trump.
But I think we all know: That’s just the beginning.
We need women in every office, in every state house, in every legislature in this country.
What you all have done is remarkable. More than 1,000 union members sent to office. A 78% win rate for WILD-endorsed candidates last cycle.
What happens when we send women into office? It’s pretty simple, isn’t it?
[Stuff/sh*t] gets done!
That is how we passed unemployment insurance for striking workers right here, isn’t it?
That is how we passed the ‘Panic Button’ bill for hotel workers—so women in the hospitality sector can feel SAFE when they do their jobs.
We send women to office…and problems actually get solved, don’t they? So let’s do that all over this country.
So look…we have a huge year ahead of us. A lot of work between now and the finish line.
But I look around this room…and I could not be more fired up to do it, alongside every single one of you.
Let’s keep fighting together. Let’s keep winning together. Let’s build an entire country that looks like what you all have built here in New Jersey!
Thank you, and let’s go get it done!
