Building & Construction Trades Department

Thank you.
 
And thank you, President Sullivan, for inviting me to be here today.  With Mike Sullivan and Joe Nigro, you have a true Dream Team that is a pleasure to work with.
 
Just over a week ago, the Building and Construction Trades Department held its convention in Minneapolis.  And during that week, we focused a lot of our energies on our number one priority - which is to get our members back on the job working again.
 
We talked about how we are being aggressive in developing mutually beneficial partnerships with various industries that will lead to job opportunities. And we spoke of the continuing efforts being undertaken by all of our unions to develop a new culture for the union construction industry; one that is based upon pride, performance and professionalism.
 
And we talked about the need to tell the new, 21st century story of America’s Building Trades Unions so that owners and contractors, as well as local officials and community groups, have a firm understanding of the value that we bring not only to the jobs that we work on, but also the communities in which we live.
 
And we talked about the need for unity within and among the building trades, especially now that it appears that the United Brotherhood of Carpenters is unfortunately stepping up its efforts to raid the work of other craft unions.
 
On that issue, the Building and Construction Trades Department has established a committee headed up by my partner Sean McGarvey that includes representatives of all of our affiliated unions, including the SMWIA.  They have been charged with developing a plan of actions and recommendations to address this situation in a straightforward and effective manner.
 
Now, let me be as clear as I can.  No one can, and no one will, tolerate or condone what the Carpenters have done...and continue to do.
 
The committee is exploring all options to address this problem.  Their draft plan that was submitted to me is nothing less than heroic, considering the short time they had to put something together.
 
I want to personally thank your Committee Representative Jim White.  
 
And you have my word that whatever measures are adopted by the committee and the Building Trades’ Governing Board will be executed by this Department and its affiliates to their fullest extent.
 
It is sad and unfortunate that we are being forced to expend precious resources fighting the misguided vision being advocated by the leadership of one union. And it certainly does not help our cause in these trying times to compound the mistakes of the past.
 
All of these things, including our response to the Carpenters actions, are critically important to the long-term success of our movement.  But today we find ourselves just two short weeks from Labor Day.  Labor Day is always a time for reflection on the history of our movement, and for what our unions have contributed to this great nation.
 
In even numbered years, Labor Day holds the distinction of being the formal stretch run of the political season.  And this year, that distinction carries even more weight.  Because for the next two months the short-term focus of our unions must unquestionably and necessarily be on politics.  
 
Two years ago, the Sheet Metal Workers and the rest of the building trades were actively and aggressively successful in electing a president and a Congress that understood that the key to long-term economic prosperity in America was though solid investments in American business and American workers.
 
Not tax cuts for the wealthy few.
 
We worked to elect a president and a Congress that instinctively knew that the long-term health of the American economy would be dependent upon the long-term health of the American middle class (soon to be the lower middle class).
 
But, today, just two short years later, all of that good work is being placed in jeopardy by an destructive and often sinister political movement that has simply chosen to forget or ignore the lessons of not just two or three years ago, but the entire last decade itself.  Those were the days when economic disaster was beginning to unfold, and it reached its crescendo in September 2007 when Wall Street teetered and the government was forced to come to the rescue.
 
By November 2008, the nation's mood had deteriorated enough that Barack Obama was the overwhelming choice to clean up the mess. And what a mess it was.  The front pages and the nightly news overflowed with shocking tales of the corruption of the old order, the gross gluttony of the subprime lenders, the sabotage of the regulators, and the manufacture of poisonous triple-A securities.
 
It was an dreadful time, and we have since descended further into the worst recession in a generation.  But, with the election of Barack Obama, we were finally going to be done with the dishonest and morally bankrupt political consensus of the George Bush, Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay era.
 
How many of you, on the night Barack was elected, thought never again would journalists fall over one another to flatter CEOs or find clever ways to equate the workings of markets to democracy itself?  With the dawning of the Obama era, and the national effort required to clean up the mess we were in, we would have thought that the political advice of stock pickers would henceforth be treated like the toxic sewage it clearly was. In fact, we all thought that we had reached a turning point, especially when people such as Alan Greenspan expressed "shocked disbelief” at the gross negligence and incompetence, and flat-out greed, displayed by our financial elites and their cheerleaders on CNBC and FOX.
 
Just two short years ago, there was talk that deregulation had gone "too far," and that we needed to reign in corporate greed and financial wheeling and dealing.  Yet in the political world, things have scarcely changed at all.  And the real audacity has resided with the Republicans.  At the height of our economic crisis, many Republicans chose to respond NOT by renouncing the conservative political philosophy of limited government, de-regulation, attacks on unions, and “tax breaks for the rich” that has prevailed for the last 30 years.  No, the Republicans chose to double down on it!
 
Incredibly Republicans and their conservative allies are calling for more financial deregulation and are waging more war on government.  They have partially succeeded with such a strategy.  These years of financial crisis, mine disasters, and oil spills are a testimony to their political brilliance, and a wake-up call to our unions...and all working Americans.  
 
Anybody who has watched Glenn Beck and Fox News surely knows that the elimination of unions in America is a central part of the recycled Republican agenda.  This conservative resurgence has succeeded by usurping an emerging populist movement that now stands beside the GOP and which is transforming anger over unemployment into anger over the auto bailout, anger over federal infrastructure investments that create good jobs, and anger over the good pensions enjoyed by union workers.
 
Yet, on Wall Street the road to hell is still lined with insane bonuses.
 
Brothers and sisters the elections of November are critically important and they come down to one simple thought that is reflective in the choice we will have before us.  And that is when working people rise, so does our economy.  For 30 years, conservatives and corporate CEOs have been waging war against workers, eroding our economic and moral foundation, and chopping away at the American middle class.
 
They’ve been hard at work to low-wage us, to outsource, and now to in-source, our jobs and livelihoods, and to pit worker against worker while they reap the economic benefits.
 
And for thirty years, it’s worked pretty damn well.  
 
We’re up against a wall, brothers and sisters.  Nationally, building trades workers have an official unemployment rate of about 20 percent.  That’s bad, but you know the truth.  It’s over 30 percent or 40 percent in many places.  Numbers like that can’t convey the sickness in your stomach when it looks like only a miracle can save your home or your car or your marriage…and in some cases your life.
 
I know you’re frustrated.  I know you’re angry.  I am, too.  I’m angry as hell!

We’ve won a lot this year; historic victories that the power of our unions won.  But it’s not enough.  It’s not enough to put sheet metal workers to work, at least not enough of them.  It’s just not enough.  And yes, we are frustrated with the Democratic Party, too.  There have too been many instances where we have had to express our anger and our opposition to some of the things that Democrats wanted to do.
 
In fact, it was your General President, Mike Sullivan, that led the charge to prevent the health care reform bill from including a full-out tax on union health benefits.
 
But, when you look at the big picture, it is easy to see where our fortunes best lie.  And that is with the continuance of Barack Obama as president, and with a Democratic majority in Congress.  
Because without the Obama recovery plan, we'd be in a full-blown depression.  The Obama administration has already created more jobs, even in this weak recovery, than were created during the entire 8 years of George W. Bush. It’s an undisputable fact.  
 
Many of our members are working today on bridges, highways and other projects funded by recovery dollars.  And let’s not forget the jobs in clean energy and school construction, as well as Obama’s executive action to reverse the Bush ban on Project Labor Agreements, and his administration’s actions to prohibit federal contractors from using federal unds to block union organizing.  
 
Let’s not forget the great work by our new Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, to stop the misclassification of employees by those cut-rate contractors.  
 
That’s a record, a real foundation.  It’s something to build on.  But we know it’s not enough.  It’s nowhere near enough.  
 
To be frank with you, a lot of us anticipated that Congress would have moved faster.  That maybe, by now, we would have seen some serious job growth and major investments to rebuild our crumbling schools, bridges, highways and rail systems.  These are the essential investments we’ve called for to rebuild America.
 
But let’s be clear about WHY we haven’t seen more.  Most of what we see is Republican obstructionism.  But as you know, we have a hand full of Democratic Senators that ran as Democrats but vote like Republicans.  They need to go.   
 
But here’s the main problem.  Every time the real Democrats and President Obama have proposed jobs legislation they’ve been blocked by crass maneuvers from the most politically motivated Republican minority we have ever seen.  And I really do mean ever.    
 
At every attempt to solve America’s most urgent issues, their answer has been, No.  
 
And not just No…it’s more like “Hell No!”
 
The Party of No doesn’t want the recovery to work for one reason – and that is because they don’t want President Obama to succeed.  And that is insane.  In fact, it’s disgusting.  The Party of No doesn’t want workers to have the freedom to form unions and bargain for better lives because they don’t want us to succeed.
 
And the Party of No doesn’t want the union vote or the working family vote.  They want us all to stay at home out of frustration.  They figure that if they can mobilize the rightwing radicals, the corporate conservatives, the Tea Party fanatics, and the talk show fans – and if they can thoroughly disgust the rest of us – then they can win this election in a walk.
 
Well, I have news for them.  We’re not quitters.  We’re going to win jobs. We’re going to win for each other and we’re going to win for you by fighting to keep strong majorities in Congress and in the states who will invest in jobs.  
 
Right now, across this country, there are key proposals in the works to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in transportation and green energy manufacturing.  Not to mention the 400 bills that were sent to the Senate by the House to put Americans to work and ease their suffering.  Those 400 bills sit outside the Senate door for nearly two years now because one lonely Senator, in every case Republican, can sheepishly utter the words “I’m going to filibuster” – which, coincidently, is derived from the Dutch word for “pirate”  - and shut the entire process down.
 
In Los Angeles, we’re fighting for the 30/10 Initiative that would build in 10 years a 30-year planned expansion of the metro rail line.  By itself, the 30/10 Initiative would create 166,000 jobs for 10 years.  In Georgia, peak construction at two new nuclear power plants will employ 10,000 workers; and the same is true in Texas and in Maryland.
 
Road, rail and tunnel construction on Long Island will get tens of thousands of construction workers back on the job.
 
We’ve seen good projects in the works from coast-to-coast.  Right here in Colorado.  And in Minnesota.  In Oregon. In Missouri. In Florida.  You name it.  Right here on American soil, scientists and engineers are developing technology for a new generation of commercially viable solar panels and wind turbines and high-speed rail.  But it’s not enough for us to develop those technologies if the products are built in China or Vietnam or Germany.
 
We’ve got to manufacture those products right here in America, and in so doing our brothers and sisters can gain the jobs to build, retrofit and maintain those factories.
 
And we need federal dollars to kick-start that cycle of progress.  Yet none of this come to pass if we stay home for the next 63 days.  That’s why I’m asking you to commit to Labor 2010 to get your members on the walks, and on the phones.  Talk to your brothers and sisters.  I know it’s hard with the numbers of people that we have unemployed.  But we need to remind them of what occurred over the last decade.  Of what we could return to if we simply stay home and let the other side have a free ride at the polls in November.
 
Help your members get over their frustrations.  I know it’s hard.  Nobody in America has a harder job right now than a building trades business agent or business manager.  But, we need you to pull out all the stops beginning today.  Because we need leaders in Washington and in the states who will be steadfast friends to workers and friends to families.  Leaders who will fight for good jobs in America.
 
Big Business is going to spend a lot of money to defeat our champions.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has pledged to spend upwards of $300 million to stop our progress.  And it’s not hard to guess their playbook.  They think if they can confuse us with a blame game and frustrate us with Washington gridlock, then we won’t come to the polls.  They are counting on us to sit home.
 
But here’s what they don’t understand.  We’re union!  That means we know how to work.  No one’s better than us.  They can spend all the money they want…but we’ve got people power!  We are people power.  No man and no woman is an island.  But if you get enough of us together we can build an island!
 
And on Nov. 2, I think we’re going to have to throw some opponents of working families off the island!  Every one of us, and every one of our members, has a choice to make.  Do we want House Speaker Pelosi?  Or do we want Speaker Boehner?  Do want Senate Leader Reid?  Or do we want Mitch McConnell?  Do we want candidates whose only answer is “No,” or candidates who fight for good jobs and an economy that works for everyone?

I can't promise you what we'll get if the Democrats hold onto both houses of Congress, but I can promise what you'll get if they don't.  We have a choice between saving and improving the jobs that Americans need now more than ever, or telling our communities “sorry, but you’re going to have to starve because you’re on your own.”
 
A choice between building things again in America, or continuing to export jobs instead of goods.
 
It’s not going to come easy, and the Party of No stands in our way.  But if we’re going to get sheet metal workers and the rest of the building trades back on the job we've got to work for it.   
 
If you believe in returning the U.S. And Canada to a North America that makes things again we’ve got to work for it.
 
Work for it.  Stand for it.  Stand together.  And fight together.  And in so doing, we will WIN together!  Mike and I were with President Obama a couple of weeks ago and he summed things up quite well.  He said that when you are in your car or truck and you want to go backward you put the transmission in R; and when you want to go forward you put it in D.

I guess that's all I need to say.
 
Thank you.

And God bless you.