Thank you, Brother Jim [Ross], for your kind words of introduction. It’s great to be with you. And let’s hear it for Sister Tammy Duckworth! She’s as good as they come! Let’s send Tammy to the Senate!
As I begin my remarks, I want to say a few words about your brothers and sisters on strike at Verizon. They are showing great courage and conviction by standing up to corporate greed. Verizon made $39 billion in profits over the last three years. Yet management is asking for concessions on everything from retiree health care to job security. Brothers and sisters, we are proud to make the companies we work for profitable. But we deserve and demand a fair share of those profits. So today I am here with a message for every striking IBEW and CWA member: the AFL-CIO has your back.
On this fight and so many others, the IBEW has a great champion in your new president, Lonnie Stephenson. One thing about my friend, Lonnie, you won’t see him hanging much around D.C. He’s been spending time at IBEW locals all over North America, and that’s the mark of a true trade unionist.
His predecessor, my close friend Ed Hill, was a giant among labor leaders. I have no doubt that Lonnie will produce a legacy that’s just as powerful, inspiring and influential. I’m proud to support him, to seek his counsel and to stand alongside him as he leads one the greatest unions on the planet.
Sisters and brothers, join me in a round of applause for Lonnie Stephenson, for the IBEW and the future of organized labor!
This is a good time to be a trade unionist in America.
The right-wing is out for our blood, because they know every worker in America will be better off with a collectively bargained contract. They know if you are financially insecure, we are your best friend. They want you to struggle, and they know we can lift you up. And they recognize we are the last line of defense against a corporate takeover of America.
Every family, every community, every city and every state will be stronger as more workers win a voice on the job. As that message spreads, our movement will continue to grow. That’s why our opponents are doing everything they can to tear us down.
They can’t stop us, though, because the American labor movement is resilient. You can see it in the numbers. Here’s a headline that ran in newspapers all across this country—and I quote—“Despite Attacks on Labor, Public Support of Unions is Growing.”
I’ll explain. You’ve heard of the Gallup organization; they’ve been doing polls on labor for more than a century. In the latest poll, nearly 60% support unions, compared to 37% against us. I can’t wait to see the next poll, because I can feel the momentum on our side.
Together, our unions are showing America the way forward. The IBEW has been doing it for years, with your focus on excellence. You’re the best trained, best equipped and safest workforce there is, and the proof is in everything you do.
We’re showing the way forward with good old fashioned organizing. IBEW membership has gone up each of the last 2 years. You’ve brought more workers into the ranks and increased market share in key industries.
We’re showing the way by continuing to bargain contracts with family-sustaining wages and benefits. I want to give a shout out to your Minnesota brothers and sisters in construction who recently won a powerful 3-year deal with paid breaks and a combined $5.75 hourly raise. That’s a win!
Let me tell you, we’re showing the way by winning on Capitol Hill, too. We were happy to delay the excise tax, but we’re not stopping until it’s dead. Nobody should be penalized for negotiating quality health care. Nobody!
We are also committed to ending the era of corporate trade deals that ship our jobs overseas. I want to thank each and every one of you for your great work to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP has become so toxic that virtually every remaining presidential candidate opposes it and Congress doesn’t have the votes to pass it. Let’s keep the pressure on. Let’s keep demanding fair trade that lifts families up. And if the TPP ever comes up for a vote, let’s kill it once and for all.
And finally, we’re showing the way in this year’s elections. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have been fighting hard and hashing out real issues, and I like what I’ve seen: Good candidates getting better. Unions have been front and center as a key to raising wages and expanding opportunity. Issues of social and economic justice have been debated passionately. It is clear to me that both Clinton and Sanders would make a great president and no matter which Democrat wins, labor would have a seat at the table.
There’s a reason for this. We are the ones setting the agenda! We are the ones defining what the economic rules should be, and who should write them!
We’re building a movement in America. We call it Raising Wages. It’s a movement where unions grow and inequality shrinks. A movement where you can grab onto the American Dream no matter what you look like, where you come from, how much money your parents have or who you love. We are and will continue to be the tip of the spear when it comes to fixing what’s broken in America. We are the change-makers.
We know the road toward shared prosperity and a prosperous middle class, it’s the union highway, and it’s big enough for everyone who works for a living!
Sisters and brothers, after this conference when you go back to your local unions, I want you to do something for me. I want you to explain to your members, and especially the younger ones, the importance of being engaged in politics, and talk to them about the difference between actual power and perceived power.
You see, we’re building actual power in politics and in the workplace, real power, and we’re going to keep doing it. That means every single one of your members, especially the young ones, need to be registered to vote. We must also give them the space to be honest, to talk through any reservations they have about our political programs. It’s OK to have questions. It’s OK to be skeptical, but it’s not OK to be absent.
Perceived power is just that, perception. We can’t worry about not getting the respect we deserve. It’s our job to keep doing what works. And this year, that means we need your political programs to be as engaged and strong as they’ve ever been. I know they will be, because the IBEW always steps up to the fight.
And let me tell you, it will be a fight. We’ve got political opponents who are as bad as any we’ve ever seen.
Just look at Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Trump’s rhetoric has tapped into the very real and very justified anger of everyday people. But here are the facts. Trump loves right to work. He routinely mistreats workers at his own companies. He cheered Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attacks on teachers and nurses, and thinks he’d be a good Vice President. And Trump says our wages are too high. Let me repeat that: he says our wages are too high.
The real Donald Trump gets too little attention, and that’s why we’ve got to constantly expose him for what he is: dangerous, delusional and a demagogue, racist, misogynist and anti-union. Any one of these flaws disqualifies him from being president.
Trump and Cruz are the ugly face of today’s Republican Party, which is why its leaders are calling for someone, anyone, to get them out of their mess. But there is no escape.
Trump and Cruz are symptoms of a party in disarray. Responsible Republicans have run for the hills, chased away by a growing radical element who believes governing is surrender.
We will hold accountable whoever comes out of this Republican primary, and we’ll do the same straight down the ticket. We’re going to hold Democrats’ feet to the fire, too, because our agenda drives our politics, not the other way around.
As labor leaders, we know how to connect the dots. We know our politics relates directly to organizing and bargaining wins. We know the men and women we elect will impact the future of Davis-Bacon and PLAs. And we know how a strong national economy built on shared prosperity means more and better work for the IBEW.
The future of America is not with the Wall Street or Washington elite. It’s in our towns, cities and communities. It’s in the places where we live and work.
When we win, America wins. When we rise, America rises, and the middle class expands. And a virtuous cycle of investment and growth and jobs takes hold.
This is how we win a better life. And it all comes back to solidarity, real solidarity, IBEW solidarity, where your picket line is my picket line. Where I stand with you, and you stand with me. When we stand together and march together and win together!
Brothers and sisters, the IBEW is a power in the workplace and in electoral politics. You know firsthand that working people aren’t asking for the world.
We want to be paid well and treated with respect. We want to have a say on things like our schedules and working conditions.
We want a fair share of the profits we help create and every opportunity to live a better life. We want equal pay and safe jobs. We don’t want our boss to define what kind of life we have. That’s for us to do. That’s what we’re standing together for. That’s what we’re fighting for. And that’s what we’re going to win.
It comes down to dignity and what’s fair. So get off your seat and on your feet. We’ll hit the worksites and walk the streets. Because we’re the ones who wake America up every single day, and we put her to bed at night. We do what it takes. We answer the call, and by God we’ll make America work again for the people who work.
God bless you, and God bless the work you do!
