Thank you, Brother Dennis [Williams], for your kind words of introduction. It’s great to be with you, and for those of you who traveled here, welcome to our nation’s capital.
Because of my roots with the United Mine Workers, I have always felt a special bond with the UAW.
Our two unions helped create the greatest middle class the world has ever known. The UAW’s collective bargaining with the automobile and other industries made history—and set the standard for years to come.
You are living proof that the greatest engine of job growth is us, the working people who build our cars, teach our kids and keep us safe. America does better when we can bargain for a fair share of the wealth we create. Together, we are the job creators, because demand drives production, and production drives investment and jobs.
Now I know you fell on hard times a few years back. But in crisis, you showed courage. Your members pitched in to save your companies, your industries and your union. You were prepared to do so because true trade unionists know that sometimes you have to live to fight another day.
That was then. And this is now.
With teamwork in the leadership and solidarity in the ranks, you did what was unthinkable five years ago: bargaining the best contracts in decades—maybe ever. You protected your health care. You helped secure investments in American manufacturing. You stood strong for the veteran and the newcomer alike.
Throughout the United States and the world, workers are standing up once again and saluting the UAW.
And what a year you have had supporting workers seeking to organize. Pundits and politicians were writing your obituary at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga.
But I’ll tell you who wasn’t counting you out: the workers at that plant. Congratulations to everyone, but especially the skilled trades workers at VW for joining our movement. We’ve been working closely with your leadership to re-up our organizing efforts in the South. What a boost and a shot in the arm you gave us. You proved that we can organize in the South. VW was just the beginning!
Workers at Nissan and Mercedes and parts plants all over the South continue to show us the way. We know those workers will win with the UAW, too.
The AFL-CIO is proud to be your teammate and your partner in this fight.
And, by the way, I know you are a diverse union—across companies, across sectors, across geographies. So congratulations also for the great work you are doing organizing workers outside of manufacturing. If I’m not mistaken, you won recent victories among adjunct faculty. Welcome brothers and sisters!
These victories in organizing and in bargaining are even more impressive when you consider just how out of whack our economy is.
We live in the richest country on the face of the earth. Corporate profits are at record levels. There are more billionaires than ever before. Yet too many working people are struggling to make ends meet.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We had no control over whether it would snow here this weekend. But the economy is not like weather. It is a set of rules. Those rules are decided by the men and women we elect. And those rules determine who wins and who loses.
For too long, big corporations have been the winners, because the rules have been rigged against regular people who count on a paycheck. I don’t like it. I know you don’t, either. I don’t like America’s growing inequality. I don’t like it that workers get illegally fired for talking about a union. I don’t like how wages are so low that 62% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. What are those folks going to do if the car needs to be fixed or their kids need a trip to the emergency room?
The problem is the playing field. Our economy has been tilted little by little, year after year, by politicians who want us to believe the American economy is either uncontrollable like the weather, or too complicated for us to understand. That’s a bunch of crap.
They’ve been rigging the system for more than 40 years, and we’ve had enough.
Brothers and sisters, it is time to change the rules.
We’ll do it with solidarity, real solidarity, you know what I mean, the kind where your picket line is my picket line, and my picket line is your picket line. We’ll stand together, shoulder-to-shoulder, in the cold, in the heat, as long as it takes, because we aim to win!
We’ll do it every way we can. At the workplace. At the bargaining table. At the ballot box. On Capitol Hill. We are going to tell politicians over and over and over again about the priorities of regular working people.
What I’m talking about is a broad agenda we call Raising Wages.
Raising wages is what we’re all about. But it’s not something given to us. It’s something we win. It rises from our activism and our collective voice.
It starts with the absolute truth that we should be decently paid for the work we do, and that we define what decent means. No one should make less than the minimum wage, everyone should make a living wage, and collective bargaining should be available for all workers.
Raising wages is about more than dollars and cents, though. It’s a vision and an agenda that covers everything working people care about.
Let’s take trade policy, for starters. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a terrible deal because it would guarantee all kinds of special rights for Wall Street but leave working people in the dust. It would also take a sledgehammer to the American auto industry just as it is bouncing back.
I want to thank each and every one of you for your hard work against the TPP. Fourteen hundred UAW activists lobbied Congress and told real stories about how this agreement would lower wages and standards.
We’re powerful when we speak with one voice, loud and clear. And let me tell you something: if the TPP comes up for a vote, we are going to kill it once and for all.
And how about the so-called “Cadillac tax?” It’s a direct attack on this very union, and it’s coming from members of both political parties. I, for one, am offended by its name. It assumes that somehow we shouldn’t get as much as someone else. That’s complete B.S.
We’ve worked hard at the bargaining table to negotiate quality affordable health care, often foregoing raises in the process. We shouldn’t be penalized for success. This is a solidarity tax, plain and simple. Late last year, we were able to win a 2-year delay. But we will not rest until this unfair tax is fully repealed so working people can keep the health care we have earned.
We’re saying no to TPP and no to the solidarity tax!
But here is what we are saying YES to -- the Raising Wages agenda. A big piece of that agenda is something we call the WAGE Act.
The WAGE Act would strengthen penalties against employers for illegal anti-union activity.
It will help more working people stand together and send a message to bad bosses who are infringing on our right to a better life.
The WAGE Act isn’t the be-all, end-all, and it won’t happen overnight, but we’re going to push it forward, and when it’s law, you’re going to like how it feels. And so will millions of other workers, those in unions and those trying to form unions.
Let’s stand together for raising wages, brothers and sisters, for a better America, and a better tomorrow. Let’s march together, organize together, mobilize together, vote together and win together!
This is our country, and it’s time we took it back.
Brothers and sisters, when it comes to the American economy, you’re going to hear all kinds of stuff that doesn’t make a lick of sense. Like I said, there’s no mystery to it.
Some people say raising wages hurts jobs. That’s not true, 72% of our economy is driven by consumer spending. When a regular person has enough to buy a refrigerator or a new car, guess what? They buy it, and that leads to growth.
The UAW knows the best road is the high road. Your union has been lifting up working families for generations. And we need your leadership now more than ever.
UAW members have made great sacrifices for the good of our nation. The auto industry is back on its feet. It is time for the workers on the line to get a fair share, and for all UAW members, from the university to the casino, to get their fair share as well.
Over the next few days, as you attend your workshops and lobby on Capitol Hill, I want you to keep in mind the future we’re going to win.
Back in the 1930s, a lot of people would have scoffed at the idea that America would be on the eve of entering her most prosperous era, but that’s exactly what happened.
Politics back then was full of the same kind of hatred and toxic language that we’re hearing today from the likes of Donald Trump. He’s nothing new. He’s just another hate-monger in a business suit.
Well, working people stood up to gasbags like him then, and we’ll do it again. I have every confidence that the UAW will stay at the front of the pack, just like you always are.
The UAW consistently, time after time, does the right thing. You used multi-tiered contracts to save jobs and the American auto industry, and I know that you are absolutely dedicated to making all of your automakers equal once again. That’s not easy, but it’s right. It’s leadership.
Walter Reuther said and I quote: “There's a direct relationship between the ballot box and the bread box, and what the union fights for and wins at the bargaining table can be taken away in the legislative halls.”
If Walter were alive today, he’d be leading the charge to change the rules.
He understood that our only fidelity is to our membership. That’s who we represent. That’s who we fight for. That’s who we win for. Not Republicans. Not Democrats. Working men and women.
We have one yardstick: what’s good for our members. And we know the best thing for our members is raising wages.
When America’s working people do better, we all do better. It’s as simple as that.
Raising wages is good for our economy, our communities and our country.
And if some is good, more is better.
Yes, we’ll campaign. Yes, we’ll fight. Yes, we’ll lobby for what working people need.
These are the tools to change the rules, from the workplace to Washington D.C. And we’re going to use these tools to build a new era of raising wages!
It’s up to us to build a better tomorrow. We’ll do what it takes. We’ll keep fighting for it together, shoulder-to-shoulder, because we know that if we want it, we've got to work for it.
Keep working for it. Keep fighting. Today. Tomorrow. As long as it takes.
Thank you. God bless you and God bless America!
