For Immediate Release
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Gerald W. McEntee, AFL-CIO Battleground States Conference
Delivered at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Ill., on Sunday, August 5, 2007.
Sisters and Brothers of the AFL-CIO, welcome to the Battleground States Kick-Off Kick-Ass Conference. We’re here to lay it on the line. Not mince words. Not go easy. Not compromise. This marks the official beginning of our 2008 Political Program. And we mean business!
We want everyone in this room and outside this room to know: We are ready to engage in the fight of our lives – and win!
As chair of the AFL-CIO Political Education Committee and the International President of AFSCME and a lifetime unionist, I will say and do whatever it takes to reclaim America for all working families. Are you willing to do the same? If not, you might want to use the door.
But if you stay, you’d better be ready to work like hell. So we can win and win big for working families. As you know, AFSCME’s got a loud voice, but one voice isn’t enough. We need everyone’s voice. We need your voice! You are the folks who will move labor’s program forward.
So let me hear you – are you ready to wage the fight of our lives to take back America for working families?
This is the most important election we’ve ever faced. A defining election. It’s our opportunity not just to elect representatives in the House, the Senate and a new President. The 2008 election is a chance to change the political landscape in this country for decades to come.
We’ll do this by supporting and electing politicians who care about working people and aren’t in the pockets of corporations and the rich.
The stakes have never been higher. With the Supreme Court stacked against us. With important but small majorities in the House and Senate, if we don’t commit – and deliver – important victories in November, 2008, this country will no longer be a place where anyone can reach for the American Dream. We especially have to get that magic number 60 in the Senate so that an Employee Free Choice Act and other pro-labor legislation can be passed and signed by a Democratic President.
If we don’t commit, the huge gap between the haves and have-nots will widen.
If we don’t commit, the very foundation of our rights as Americans will be gone.
If we don’t commit, we can lose everything labor has worked so hard for – this has already begun under the current administration:
One in five children now lives in poverty.
Over 46 million Americans don’t have health insurance – 11 percent are children.
Half of working American families are living paycheck to paycheck.
Over three million industrial jobs have been shipped overseas. The manufacturing sector has been hit so hard that Bush is the first President since the Great Depression to actually LOSE jobs.
The people of the Gulf Coast experienced the worst natural disaster in our history, and two years later they still have not recovered. They have been lied to and forgotten about.
And let’s get the hell out of Iraq. We’ve been repeatedly lied to about the war in Iraq, where $602 billion has already been appropriated. Lives and families have been destroyed and we have no end game.
Imagine what $602 billion could do for our country and our people. Let’s take care of our own country. Let’s put money into our infrastructure. Checking and rebuilding our roads and bridges so they’re safe.
No one knows this better than our AFSCME members in Minnesota where the I-35W Bridge just collapsed. They were on that bridge as tragedy struck. They were the everyday heroes who saved lives as part of the hospital medical teams, as 911 and radio control operators. And our state correctional officers were put into service providing security at the disaster site.
National disasters, the war in Iraq, the unraveling of the social services net – these are all George Bush’s legacy. But it won’t be ours, not if we continue to turn things around.
2006 was our year. A real turning point. One out of four households voted in that election – 25 percent! And they voted by a three to one margin for AFSCME-endorsed candidates. We won victories in six governorships and 10 legislative chambers. We put the United States Congress back in the hands of working America by taking 30 U.S. House seats and six U.S. Senate seats. But we need to expand these majorities.
The AFL-CIO reached out to 13.4 million voters in 32 battleground states.
Each year, we have ramped up the program a few more notches. We’re improving our labor-to-labor contact program. We’ve added a new twist with Working America, which allows us to talk to non-traditional union members. And they voted by a three to one margin for union-endorsed candidates.
In 2007, we’re focusing on the governor’s race in Kentucky. We need to dump that anti-union Fletcher guy who took collective bargaining away from four unions in Kentucky with the stroke of a pen. Now we know he has been running the most corrupt state administration in the country. And he’s gone out and pardoned his people. We hope he goes to jail, where our correctional officers will watch over him.
In 2008, Indiana and Missouri’s governors’ races top our list for the same reason –Daniels in Indiana and Blunt in Missouri obliterated collective bargaining with a stroke of a pen too. We want collective bargaining executive orders at a minimum – collective bargaining laws are the ultimate goal.
In 2008, on the national scene, everything is on the table.
We’re going to build on the 2006 program issues: labor law reform so it’s possible to organize and bargain collectively throughout this country; health care reform so people have access to quality, affordable health care; employment reform so we create jobs in this country not export jobs; and pension reform so we protect our retirement. We’ll continue to fight against privatization of key domestic programs like Social Security and Medicare.
People are scared to death. What’s happening to your pensions? Our people put their money in; it was taken out of their paychecks. But governors didn’t do what they promised to do.
We must take this election to a different level. It’s not just about tactics. It’s about what we expect as a result of supporting and electing a candidate. We want to solidify the economic position of working and middle income families. We need candidates who support our goals and then once elected, honor their campaign promises.
We can do this. We can win the White House. We all know that we actually won in 2000. And we came close in 2004. But there were bumps along the way. It didn’t turn out like we planned.
For the upcoming Presidential election, we’ve got the most talented and diverse candidates we’ve seen in years, giving America’s working families an historic opportunity to elect a President who will fight for us.
So as we launch Labor 2008, the AFL-CIO plans to secure our Trifecta: Presidency/Senate/House. And we must all commit to making change happen.
The role of the labor movement and the AFL-CIO unions is to drive the 2008 political program. We’re the biggest, most powerful progressive organization. And you are the people steering us to victory.
I challenge each and every one of you to go out there and make a difference – for you, your parents, your kids and generations to come.
The entire nation is in crisis. Working families are getting the short end of the stick. There is not one of us unaffected by these elitist policies.
And let’s not kid ourselves. The stakes are enormous and it won’t be easy. It will be a close election. No matter what we think. But we can do it with you leading the way.
So I say to you, Sisters and Brothers, no more politics as usual. No more business as usual. When we leave here today, we must come out fighting.
Are we ready to take back the White House and take back every state house in this country?
Are we ready to end the reign of King George and his cronies?
Are we ready to protect our health benefits while expanding coverage to every American?
Are we ready to end privatization and guarantee a secure retirement for all?
Are we ready to pass the Employee Free Choice Act?
Are we ready to elect a President who’s for the people – all the people?
You bet we are!
I know that with those of you sitting here leading the way, we can turn this country around. Snatch it from the hands of the profiteers and thieves. And put it back into the hands of working men and women. So that once again we can say this land is our land.
Thank you and God Bless you. And God Bless America.
