I should be applauding you guys for being here rather than glued to your televisions and computer screens during the height of the winter Olympics, because I know it must be very hard to break yourself away from the breathtaking action of the curling competition.

 

I hope I’m not insulting any curling enthusiasts, but: What is UP with that sport?

 

But, really, most of America is settled into armchairs this weekend, tuned in to watch skiers swooshing down the slopes in Vancouver—while you’re making plans to put some justice into the Nike “swoosh.”

 

Frankly, I am just so excited and honored to be here to congratulate you in person on your amazing victory in the Russell Athletic campaign in Honduras.  Thanks to you, 1,200 workers again will have a way to feed their families, and workers who choose to have a union can do it without corporate interference.  For these workers—and for garment workers throughout Honduras and the world—this truly is a New Day.

 

On behalf of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and the entire AFL-CIO union movement, we thank you.

 

One of my personal passions and priorities in taking on the job of AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, besides being our Chief Financial Officer, has been strengthening the role of young people in our labor movement and making the union movement more relevant to younger workers.  In fact, we’re convening a major national youth summit in June that will include some of your leaders here today. 

 

When I meet with labor leaders—who tend to be middle aged, older, white and male—I remind them that major change in our country has always been led by young people.  That Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 when he led the Montgomery bus boycott.  That at 25, Cesar Chavez was registering Mexican Americans to vote. That Walter Reuther headed strikes demanding GM recognize its workers’ rights starting when he was 30. And suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton was 25 when she and her fellow activists were sowing the seeds of the women’s rights movement.

 

There’s no question that the union movement needs your skills, your energy, your ideas, your leadership.  And I believe you need us, too, because I am looking right now into the faces of the first generation of America’s young people who may be left worse off than their parents by today’s economic crisis.

 

Think of that.  When you leave your campuses, chances are you will take with you a mountain of debt and face a job market that doesn’t offer the hope you deserve for climbing out of debt, finding a job in your field and building the kind of life and security that was within reach of our parents’ generation.

 

The 11.5 million members of the AFL-CIO want to work with you to change that—now.  We want a better deal for you and all the young people who follow you.

 

You, my friends, are the guinea pigs of the so-called “new normal” economy in which higher education—even for those who can get it—does not guarantee a foothold; in which hard work doesn’t mean you can start and take care of a family and everything your parents expected from an employer—job security, health care security, retirement security—sounds like fantasy to you.  This is how this “new normal” is defined.

 

We recently surveyed young workers—and I’m not talking about 17- and 18-year-olds. I’m talking about 18- to 34-year-olds. No surprises for you:

 

--One in three young workers worries about being able to find a full-time job with benefits.

 

--Only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put a little aside—and that’s 22 percent worse than it was 10 years ago.

 

--Over 30 percent are uninsured.

 

--Less than half have retirement plans at work.

 

--One in three in the survey still lives at home with their parents.

 

Can anyone here relate to that?

 

I know what it’s like to piece together part-time, dead end jobs—what we used to call “McJob” when I graduated from college.  I don’t know if that term means anything to you, but it was when many college graduates had to work many part time jobs like McDonald’s to make full-time employment because jobs weren’t available.

 

I know how it feels to rely on mom and dad because you can’t afford to make it on your own.  For me, it was a union job that put me on the path to a better life and a future.  That’s the kind of difference the union made in my life.

 

And part of my job is to make sure the labor movement makes a difference in the lives of your generation—for students, for young workers and for young activists looking to build the kind of country you want to live in.

 

If young people are going to operate in a “new normal” economy—and move from job to job—then the security and health care and retirement benefits that previously came with tenure—well, they have to come from someplace else, and they have to be portable.

 

We need a whole new mindset to address these issues—based on the realities of young people today and the labor market we face.  Basically, we have to create a new national economic strategy for a globalized world with rules that prioritize how we treat workers and the environment, here in the U.S. and everywhere.

 

We are in this global economy and we’re in it to stay, but we need a strategy for how our nation can prosper in a global economy.  We need new rules, new institutions and laws to reflect the values we share: that the environment and basic workers’ rights must receive at least as much respect as corporate interests.  And while we’re building that new economy—we need JOBS.

 

Every one of us needs to push for public investments to create jobs and put people to work in this struggling economy, to create green jobs here at home, and to make sure they’re good, family-supporting jobs.  Jobs that give us the opportunity to increase America’s energy independence, combat global climate change, revive our manufacturing sector, and make America a global leader again and an exporter of green technologies.

 

America needs to be a provider of solutions to the world’s great problems, not an exporter of financial crises and low-road business practices.

 

Since this Great Recession started, we’ve lost more than 8 million jobs.  We needed to create 2 million just to keep up with growth in the working-age population.  So we’re really in the hole more than 10 million jobs, and that’s a big hole to climb out of.

 

Let’s be honest: So far what we’ve seen coming out of Congress this year is a pittance compared with what we need.  The House has a good start on a jobs bill, but the Republicans in the Senate—and some Democrats, too—they haven’t all exactly been profiles in courage—so they are short-changing working people.

 

It’s going to take real government investment to put people back to work…to rebuild our crumbling schools and highways and water and sewer systems…to build a world-class green energy economy that will employ millions and put the Made in America label back to work.

 

We need to pump life back into state and local governments so police and firefighters and teachers can keep doing their jobs.

 

We need to make sure higher education once again is the key to a lifetime of opportunity for all, not just a lifetime of debt—and that means major student loan reform with Pell grant increases, not letting Big Banks have their way on student loans, expanding the Perkins loan program, and making the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent. 

 

And, where the private-sector won’t create jobs doing what’s needed in our communities—from cleaning up abandoned buildings to helping seniors get their groceries—government has to step up and do what’s needed.

 

A lot of people right now are using the federal deficit as an excuse to ignore America’s jobs crisis, saying we can’t possibly afford to invest in jobs and a better future.  Well, let me ask you this: How angry are you that the Big Banks and Wall Street destroyed our economy, took huge bailouts of our tax dollars, and now they’re using it not to get our economy back to creating jobs but to hand out billions of dollars in executive bonuses?

 

Last year, when more than 4 million hard-working Americans lost their jobs, the Big Bankers’ bonuses totaled $145 billion dollars.  One hundred forty five.  Do you know how many jobs $145 billion dollars could create?

 

Just $8.4 billion would create over 253,000 jobs in transit and revive communities starved for dollars to keep them viable.

 

Just $1 billion would fund the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and result in nearly 28,000 jobs.  Another $10 billion would rebuild the infrastructure of our nation’s deteriorating schools and create the jobs to do it.

 

So when we talk about jobs right now, we have a great idea:  Let’s tax the biggest Wall Street players who created this mess and use it to create jobs.

 

And let’s regulate those bankers so they are not allowed to go right back to business as usual, or worse.  If the government gives a corporation money to create jobs, that business better be a law-abiding corporate citizen—here and where it operates in other countries.  Bottom line: No government jobs dollars to corporate criminals!

 

We need jobs, and we need them now.  But not just any jobs.  We need GOOD jobs – jobs that feed and shelter and give health care and retirement security to hard-working families.

 

What you won with Citra Jersey workers in Honduras— which is the right to form a union while the company remains neutral—We don’t even have that in America right now.

 

That can change, though, when we pass the Employee Free Choice Act.  I say “when” and not “if,” because I believe we will pass the Employee Free Choice Act and restore workers’ freedom to join unions and bargain collectively.  Members of Congress support it.  President Obama and Vice President Biden support it.  Most of the American people support it.

 

Of course, corporate America considers it the end of the world as we know it—and yes, they’ve used those exact words.

 

So we’ve got a real fight on our hands because they are powerful.  Just like the fight we have to pass real health care reform, reform that will lower costs, end insurance company abuse, require employers to pay a fair share and cover millions who now rely on emergency rooms and prayer for health care.

 

Let’s work together in these fights for America’s future—for your future.  Help me strengthen the bonds between our movements that can make us unstoppable.  Help us tell Congress—Republicans and Democrats—that they have no choice but to hear and respond to our voices.

 

Let’s continue to work together at every level—locally, in our states, nationally and internationally.  I refuse to believe that all the corporate dollars in the world can beat us when we are united.

 

So, to borrow from one of the few good ideas that’s come out of the Nike corporation, let’s get out there and, dare I say – Just do it.

 

Thank you.