June 27, 2006

Thank you, Jim. I couldn't have asked for a better partner to help build a new labor movement in this country that has the strength to win for working people.

I grew up in the 1950's in Levittown, Pennsylvania -- in a working class family, believing in the American Dream.

My mom was a nurse, working the 3 to 11 shift at a nursing home and -- when I was 9 -- my dad, a truck driver, was permanently disabled in a terrible accident.

Mom's enormous strength and Dad's Social Security and Medicare allowed my sisters, brother and me to live decently and to go to college, without being buried by debt.

When I was growing up, 1 in 3 workers was in a union, and a union job raised up whole families, whole communities, whole generations.

Every generation of Americans has met their biggest challenges with greatness.

And each generation in America had one common legacy... they passed on to their children a better life than their own.

We call that legacy the American Dream.

And, when you had a union job it meant you were on the road to the American Dream.

But that dream is flickering. Working in America is very different today from when I got my first job.

America's greatness was that everyone who “worked hard and played by the rules” had a chance to own a home, raise a family, send their kid to college, and retire with dignity.

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But the rules today stink.

They are stacked against American workers.

The truth is we DO work hard. We’re driving trucks, and serving food, cleaning hotels, picking apples, building houses, pouring concrete, and stocking shelves.

And American workers DO play by the rules.

But the rules no longer work.

The truth is that the world changed, the economy changed, our employers changed but for too long the American labor movement didn’t.

Every day of my life the Labor movement has gotten smaller and smaller and the voice of working people weaker and weaker.

Instead of coordinating our efforts and pooling our resources, we had a labor movement at war with itself — competing over the same workers instead of standing together to take on employers and help workers achieve better lives.

But our unions looked around and made a sober assessment of what was happening to working people in this country and we new that we had to act...

And that’s why eleven months ago, 7 unions representing 6 million members made the hard decision to come together and build a new and stronger labor movement — Change to Win.

We knew it would be controversial. We knew it would open us up for criticism. And we knew we were sailing into uncharted waters.

But something had to be done — and along with Brother Hoffa and the leaders and members of our other Change to Win partners — UNITE-HERE, the UFCW, the Laborers, Carpenters, and Farm Workers — we formed the Change to Win federation.

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Everyday in America working people are struggling to make ends meet. They worry about how to get their kids to and from school between their 2 or 3 jobs. They worry about their aging parents. They worry about health care and wonder how they can ever retire.

I’ve met workers across America who work hard and love our country but are being trampled by our economy. Workers like Edward Morrison, who told his story recently at our Change to Win organizing convention. And when he was done, you could hear — a pin drop.

Edward worked the killing floor at Smithfield’s Tar Heel plant. Smithfield is the world’s largest pork processor, and Tar Heel is the world’s largest pork processing plant.

Edward Morrison spent each day working in a large, dimly lit room — a room filled with fire and boiling water for the “scalding pots” into which hogs are dumped.

He and two other workers stood at a long table. All day long, hogs weighing up to 400 pounds came down a chute. His job was to catch and flip them, so the next person could cut them, and the next could hang them.

Here’s what Edward recently told us: “I’m going to run through at least 4,000 hogs in a seven-hour shift. I may get ten minutes to eat — because it takes ten minutes to get to the lunchroom, and ten minutes to get back. And you’d better be back on line on time, because when those hogs come out of the chute, they’re not waiting for you. That line never stops.”

He went on: “Some people leave and walk out because they can’t take it. I can’t take it sometimes.”

And then, as he was talking, this big, powerful man, choked up.

“But I know I have to be there,” he said, “because I’ve got... a family to feed.”

A few months after he said this, Edward was badly injured on the job and was terminated.

The line never stops.

For so many Americans, the pressures keep mounting. The costs keep rising. Wages don’t move.

And the line never stops.

Something is wrong in America.

A full time job used to mean that you could support your family, afford health care, and have a secure retirement. Even buy your own home and send your kids to college. It was the promise of our country, the American Dream.

Not anymore.

A report out two weeks ago found that middle class household debt is now at 108% of income. The first time on record that debt has exceeded income.

That debt isn’t coming from people drinking lattés... or buying flat-screen TVs — it comes from trying to make ends meet when housing and health care costs are skyrocketing and wages are stagnant.

It comes from borrowing to buy a home, or to send a child to college, or to pay for health care.

People are going into debt just to afford the basics of that American dream we used to take for granted.

Half of the people in households earning between $30,000 and $90,000 a year say that no matter how hard they work, they can’t get ahead.

Many believe they will never stop working and never get out of debt.

They face the real fear that their kids will have a worse life than they do.

Here are four numbers that say it all:

In the last 25 years, the stock market has gone up by 793 percent.

CEO salaries went up 743 percent.

Worker productivity went up 68 percent.

But wages? Up zero percent after a quarter century!

Something is wrong in America.

At Smithfield, where Edward Morrison works the killing floor, the CEO made $11 million last year, while starting workers in that plant made $8.10 an hour. That means the CEO makes more before lunch on the first day in January than one of his workers makes in a whole year.

It means Edward had to catch and flip 400 million pounds of hogs a year to earn what the CEO makes while flying from North Carolina to Chicago... first class.

Something is wrong in America.

But for the super-wealthy, nothing is ever enough for them.

Eighteen of the richest families in America — worth a total of $185 billion — are financing the entire effort to repeal the estate tax. They’re being led by the four Wal-Mart kids, each worth $19 billion dollars apiece. They stand to gain $71.6 billion in savings if the tax is repealed.

What these 18 families alone would save in taxes would employ more than 4.2 million Edward Morrisons for an ENTIRE YEAR!

Something is terribly wrong in America.

Is that really the country we want to live in? Where the people who reap the most are those who need it the least?

Where working families sweat and struggle every day only to keep falling further and further behind??

That’s not the America our parents worked to build for us and I don’t think it’s the America any of us want to leave for our children.

But sisters and brothers, the truth is, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can do something about it, together.

We can rebuild our movement AND reclaim America for working people. But to restore some balance and sanity in this country, we need a strong labor movement.

Change to Win is that new labor movement — committed to organizing and growing in our core industries and the growing industries of our country.

We are a movement that understands our strength comes from our commitment to learn, strategize and leverage our power together — for each other...

... A movement that recognizes that “workers of the world unite” is no longer a slogan but a strategy of our time...

... A global movement that is more creative, less insular, quicker to react, and more effective.

We know we need to stop holding on to the solutions of the 19th and 20th centuries and work instead for solutions of the 21st century global workforce.

We are using the strength of our 6 million members to stand up to some of the largest employers on the globe and organize workers not workplace by workplace, or even company by company, but by uniting workers in whole industries all at one time.

Sisters and brothers, across America when people hear the story of a hotel housekeeper struggling to make ends meet they say somebody should do something about it.

When they hear of the janitors striking at the University of Miami for the right to have a voice, they say somebody should do something about it.

When they hear about port drivers and laundry workers risking their lives for a better future, they say somebody should do something about it.

Truth is when people say “somebody ought to do something,” they really mean “somebody else ought to do it.”

Sisters and Brothers... It’s up to us.

We are the someone. We’ve been working for change, but workers have been waiting for change.

The time for waiting is over. The time is ours. And, the time is now.

And that.s why I have such pride standing before you today. Because the Teamsters Union IS doing something about it. You have rolled up your sleeves and ramped up your efforts to make work pay again in America. You should be proud of your work on some of our most ambitious campaigns — to organize laundry workers and drivers at Cintas along with UNITE HERE, and to organize 100,000 drivers at our nation’s ports.

And it matters for real workers, people like Sandro Lerro. A port driver since 2000, he’s worked for 15 different harbor trucking companies in Miami — always looking for one, just one, that would treat drivers with the dignity and respect they deserve.

So far, he’s still looking.

Sandro works 15 to 16 hours a day hauling dangerous, overweight containers of up to 95,000 pounds each. But when he’s done paying off expenses for fuel, tires, repairs, and maintenance, he averages $6 an hour.

“I can’t afford to buy health insurance for myself or my family,” he says, “and I have no retirement benefits.”

How can this happen in America? How can a someone willing to work 70 or 80 hours a week in the richest country on earth still be living in poverty and still not be able to afford health insurance for his family?

Fortunately for Sandro and his co-workers, the Teamsters Union is now by his side. The Teamsters Union has said “enough is enough. This can’t be allowed to stand in America.” And let’s be clear, this is not going to be an easy campaign. It’s not going to be won overnight. But if there’ one thing I know about Teamsters, it’s that you never, ever shy away from a fight for justice.

I believe we can build an America where again hard work is valued and rewarded.

I believe we can create an America where health care is a right not a privilege and retirement in dignity is guaranteed.

And I believe we can create an America that values our children and provides an education for them to share in the prosperity of the future... so that my daughter Erin, your daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, and our grandchildren will live out their dream.

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Sisters and brothers, when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, I never thought that one day I’d be the Secretary-Treasurer of the biggest union in the nation or the founding chair of an historic new labor federation with the opportunity to help millions of working families gain a voice.

Eight years ago I lost both my mom and dad. At the bottom of a box that held their most important documents — love letters and their prized and special items, I found a little black book.

It was my dad’s Teamsters book. He put it there, with his most valuable possessions, because being a union member meant so much to him and his generation — and it means that to ours...

It must mean even more in this century.

This is our generation’s moment for greatness.

It is our calling, our duty and our opportunity...

Working men and women everywhere are counting on us.

Let’s give them back the American Dream.

We all need to keep in our minds people like Edward Morrison and Sandro Lerro, who — even with all that life has dealt them — somehow manage to maintain in their hearts the hope that working people will one day be truly valued in America.

Sisters and Brothers... It’s up to us. Together, we can change America.

Together, we’re going to rebuild America’s middle class.

Together, we’re going to reclaim the American dream.

Together, we’re going to secure a better future for our children.

Together, we’re going to make work pay again in America.

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