[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
[June 12, 1995]
[Pages 871-875]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the United Auto Workers Convention
June 12, 1995

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Owen, for that fine introduction, 
and thank you for your leadership over the years. I want to congratulate 
you and the other officers who are retiring. I want to say a special 
word of hello to all the brothers and sisters of the United Auto Workers 
throughout the country, especially those from my home State of Arkansas 
with whom I've worked over the years.
    I'd like to say a word also to Dennis Fitting, the president of 
Local 455 out of Saginaw, who was with me last Friday at the White House 
for a reunion of a group of exceptional Americans whom I met along the 
campaign trail in 1992. We call this group the Faces of Hope, and I want 
to thank Dennis for being a member of the group and for his commitment 
to our efforts to move America forward.
    All of you know better than anybody that Owen Bieber has dedicated 
his entire life to improving the lives of working families. He took over 
the UAW 12 years ago, during one of the toughest periods in your entire 
history. In all of the years, he has never wavered, even in the face of 
administrations here in Washington that were sure less than friendly. 
He's always stood strong not only for UAW workers and their families and 
their incomes and their future but for the kind of broad social progress 
that has been the hallmark of the UAW since its beginning in the 1930's. 
Whether it was in the fight for civil rights or the fight to end 
apartheid in South Africa, your solidarity with the American farm 
workers, the UAW has always been there for others as well as for your 
own interests.
    Owen Bieber has truly carried on the legacy of Walter Reuther. And 
moreover, in a very difficult period in our country's history, he has 
set the stage for even greater strength for you in the 21st century. We 
all owe him our deepest gratitude and our best wishes. And I feel 
especially indebted to him for his advice, his counsel, and his 
ferocious support. Thank you very much, Owen. We all wish you well and 
Godspeed.
    Now, I know you haven't elected your new officers yet, but I wanted 
to say that I personally would feel a whole lot better about my campaign 
if we could go into 1996 with poll numbers looking like Steve Yokich's 
do right now for you.
    One of the most memorable moments in my 1992 campaign, and I had a 
lot of memorable moments with the UAW, but one of the most memorable was 
the opportunity I had to walk the picket line with Owen and the striking 
workers of Caterpillar in Peoria. I looked into the tired but determined 
faces of men and women on that picket line, and I realized how much was 
at stake for them and for all the rest of us as well.
    I ran for President because I believed we had to do more to help 
those workers and millions of Americans just like them who had seen 
their stake in the American dream uprooted during the 1980's, people who 
were being aban-


[[Page 872]]

doned by Washington, people who were working harder and harder for less 
and less. Their struggle showed me better than any report or any poll 
that the fight to save the American dream and the fight to save American 
families must begin with the fight to save America's workers and their 
incomes and their jobs. Of course, the struggle at Caterpillar is still 
not over, but my administration continues to walk the line with you, and 
we'll stay there.
    I came to Washington to work with you and with all other Americans 
to turn these disturbing economic trends around. I wanted to shrink the 
under class and to grow the middle class. I wanted to rebuild a sense of 
hope and community. I wanted to help people to make the most of their 
own lives. I wanted to reward the values that have kept this country 
strong, the values of work and family and community. And so I've worked 
hard to develop an economic strategy that focuses on both creating jobs 
and raising incomes. And I've focused on a social strategy that would, 
instead of just talking about family values or work, would actually 
reward work and family and responsible parenting and good citizenship. 
And it's beginning to work.
    In the past 2\1/2\ years, our economic strategy has added almost 7 
million new jobs to our economy, and nearly all of them have been in the 
private sector. We're cutting the deficit by a trillion over 7 years, 
reducing it for 3 years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman 
was President. But we have been able to invest more in the education and 
training of our people and in the promotion of our children and 
strengthening our families.
    We've been able to give a tax cut to 15 million working families 
through the earned-income tax credit. What that means in simple terms is 
that this year working families with two children with an income of 
under $28,000 will have a tax break of about $1,000.
    We want to make it so that every family who works for a living will 
not live in poverty. We want parents who are willing to work full-time 
to be good parents and good workers at the same time. That's also why I 
worked so hard and you worked so hard for the passage of the Family and 
Medical Leave Act. It will make a real difference to working families in 
this country.
    As you know, we're having a big debate now in Washington over 
balancing the budget. As I have said many times, I want to balance the 
budget. It will help you if we do. It will lower interest rates. It will 
free up money to invest in the private sector and new jobs. It will mean 
that we can spend more of your tax money on things like the education of 
our children and less paying interest on the debt.
    But we cannot balance the budget by giving a huge and untargeted tax 
cut that benefits mostly very wealthy people and paying for it by 
excessive cuts in the Medicare program. We can't do it by walking away 
from the fact that we have not only a budget deficit but an education 
investment. You know as well as anyone, from the increases in 
productivity the UAW has achieved in the last several years, that we 
have to have constant education and training if we're going to guarantee 
our young people the incomes and the security they need.
    So I say, we all know that the countries that do the best job of 
educating all their people will be the real winners in the global 
economy. No one understands this more than you. You have led the way 
with your apprenticeship programs and your training programs. You have 
worked and worked and worked to support the kind of lifelong learning 
agenda that is central to my efforts to revitalize the American middle 
class.
    And that's why, even though I agree we should balance the budget, we 
don't have to be targeted into an arbitrary timetable, funding excessive 
tax cuts to people who are doing well and don't need it, and having 
excessive cuts either in Medicare for our elderly or in the investments 
that make our country strong.
    I'm fighting to preserve our investments, like the direct student 
loan initiative, which lowers the cost of college loans to your 
children, eases their repayment terms, and makes it possible for more of 
our young people to go and to stay in college; our innovative school-to-
work apprenticeship efforts, which involves partnerships with unions and 
community colleges and employers all over the country; our successful 
national service initiative, AmeriCorps, which gives 20,000 young people 
college scholarship funds in return for community service work in their 
local community, helping people to help themselves.
    We can't afford not to support something as important to our future 
as the education and training of all of our people. That's why I am also 
supporting a new ``GI bill'' for America's workers, to collapse about 70 
smaller Govern-


[[Page 873]]

ment training programs into one big block and to give people a check or 
a voucher when they're unemployed or when they're underemployed so that 
they can take the money for up to 2 years to a local community college 
or to any other approved training program to get the kind of training 
they need. When people lose their jobs in this country today, too often 
people walk away from them. And it's wrong.
    Let me take just a moment to talk about one other aspect of our 
strategy that is crucial to our future. As we enter the 21st century, 
trade is becoming more and more important to the long-term health of the 
American economy. We only have 4 percent of the world's population. Our 
success in the future rests heavily on being able to sell our goods and 
our services to the other 96 percent of the world.
    When we open new markets, we find new consumers for our products. 
When we sell more products, we create more jobs. Every billion dollars 
in new exports creates 17,000 new American jobs. That's why I've done my 
dead-level best as President to open new markets around the world. The 
Congress has helped me, because it means so much to our economy and to 
our way of life. The fight for open trade should not be a partisan 
issue. Democrats and Republicans work together to put in place more than 
80 trade agreements in just over 2 years.
    I know you haven't always agreed with us, and I understand. I think 
I did the right thing, because we get the burdens of low wage countries 
shipping goods into this country and into our markets no matter what we 
do. The trade agreements we've reached aren't just pieces of paper; 
they're meaningful, concrete pacts that open up markets to us and create 
jobs that, on balance, pay above the national average.
    Open trade is now expanding all around the world, everywhere, that 
is, but Japan. Of all the industrialized countries, Japan imports fewer 
manufacturing goods for their size than any other by a long shot. At 
times, some people said it was our fault that we didn't sell more there. 
They said our deficit was too high. They said our products were not 
competitive.
    Well, we cut the deficit, and on an annual basis now, our deficit is 
as small a percentage of our income as that of any other advanced 
country in the world. And all of you and millions of American workers 
like you worked hard to make sure that our products could compete and 
win in terms of price and quality.
    Now, in some areas we have made progress with Japan over the last 
2\1/2\ years. We've concluded 14 results-oriented agreements. Believe it 
or not, they're now eating American rice in Tokyo. Japanese consumers 
are buying everything from our apples to our telecommunications 
equipment. But in many areas, Japan's market remains stubbornly closed. 
There's no question this is about artificial trade barriers, not the 
quality of American products.
    By some estimates, if Japan had open markets, the increase in U.S. 
exports would create hundreds of thousands of American jobs. By the way, 
it would have been good for the Japanese, too, because their consumers 
pay almost 40 percent more than they should for the basic necessities 
and products of life.
    Japan's trade barriers are most unfair, as you well know, when it 
comes to cars and car parts. In the last 25 years, we shipped 400,000 
cars to Japan, and they shipped 40 million cars to us. That's a 100:1 
ratio. Be sure and quote that number the next time somebody tells you 
there's not really a trade problem here.
    Twenty-two years ago, in 1973, the Big Three had less than one 
percent of Japan's auto market. Every President since then has tried to 
fix this problem and open the Japanese market to American cars. You know 
what kind of success we've all had, what kind of market share the Big 
Three has today, after 22 years? A whopping 1.5 percent.
    Now, you know how bad this problem is. Our auto industry accounts 
for about 5 percent of our gross domestic product directly. It employs 
2\1/2\ million Americans. But when the auto industry does well, so do a 
lot of other people, the people who make iron and steel and aluminum and 
rubber and glass and semi-conductors, the things the auto industry 
needs. American auto parts are so good that we have an auto parts trade 
surplus of $5.1 billion around the world, because demanding companies 
like BMW and Mercedes use our auto parts all the time. But with Japan, 
we have $12.8 billion trade deficit.
    My fellow Americans, this is a simple question of fairness. The 
American auto market is open to Japanese products, more open than the 
European market, more open than most markets in the world. The Japanese 
auto market, by contrast, is still closed to American products. We have 
tried and tried other means as long as we could. And we have tried long 
enough. Now

[[Page 874]]

we must act decisively to level the playing field and to protect 
American jobs.
    I have ordered the U.S. Trade Representative to impose 100 percent 
tariffs on 13 Japanese-made luxury cars by June 28 unless Japan agrees 
to open its markets to cars and car parts before then. Now the ball is 
in their court. I hope Japan is ready to reach a serious agreement. But 
make no mistake, if we have not resolved this by June 28, these 
sanctions will go into effect.
    I'm gratified that there's so much overwhelming bipartisan support 
for this policy in the Congress. It's time for the Japanese to play by 
the same rules the rest of us play by. If working Americans see us 
continue to put up with unfair deals, they'll lose their faith in open 
trade. And we can't afford that. We've made too much progress opening 
markets to risk letting this problem with Japan spin out of control. We 
can't hesitate to fight for our rights.
    Japan is a valued friend and partner. We cooperate on a host of 
other issues. Our trade relationship must also reflect that kind of 
cooperation. It has to be a two-way street. That's all I'm working to 
do. Just as we must be good partners with the other nations of the 
world, we know that Japan must be a good partner with us.
    Let me say again, this is not just in our interest; this is in their 
interest. Even though their incomes are high, they are paying almost 40 
percent more for consumer products than they should. We'll all win if we 
have fair and open trade.
    I also want to ask all of you to be partners in strengthening the 
economy. I believe good, strong unions and good faith collective 
bargaining are essential to helping us meet the challenges of the 
future. That's why one of the first things I did upon taking office was 
to rescind the anti-union Executive orders of the previous 12 years. And 
3 months ago, I signed an Executive order that states loud and clear we 
will not allow companies that do business with the Government to 
permanently replace striking workers.
    The right to strike is a fundamental American right. Anyone who 
tries to deny that right can expect a fight from this administration. 
Labor unions have worked too hard in the 1980's and the early nineties. 
They have made too many concessions. They have changed too many work 
rules. They have shown over and over and over again the willingness to 
make changes to become more productive and more competitive. When they 
make those kind of changes and show that kind of flexibility and when 
they have the kind of results that have been achieved, they deserve to 
be respected. And the spirit as well as the letter of the law should be 
honored.
    We will also fight any attempts by companies to dominate labor 
unions. I will veto any effort to weaken Section 8(a)(2) of the National 
Labor Relations Act. And I am fighting to preserve your hard-earned wage 
protections. The Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act are the 
foundations for decent living standards for many, many Americans. Some 
want to take that away, but I want to stand at your side to protect that 
standard of living that you have fought long and hard to maintain. I 
don't agree with those who criticize these acts as inefficient or 
excessive. I believe that the Davis-Bacon and Service Contract Act 
simply put the American Government on the side of favoring a high-wage, 
high-growth economy. I don't believe we should support policies that 
increase the inequality that has grown so much over previous years. I 
believe we should go up or down together. We should have shared 
sacrifice; we should have shared benefits. And I will veto any effort to 
repeal those laws.
    I also believe, as you do, that collective bargaining is not a 
privilege but a right. Our appointments to the NLRB, Bill Gould, Peggy 
Browning, and the General Counsel, Fred Feinstein, are committed to 
preserving that right.
    And so, together, we are all working here, fighting hard to help you 
hold onto what you've struggled to win over six decades. But after 
standing in your way for 12 years, there are those in Congress who now 
want you to believe they're on your side. Kind of reminds me of the 
words to a country and western song, ``How can anything that sounds so 
good make me feel so bad?''
    There are those who talk about the health and safety of working 
Americans that try to weaken, even to gut health and safety standards; 
those who say they support work over welfare but support a welfare 
reform bill that's weak on work and tough on children, one the 
Congressional Budget Office says is unworkable in 44 of our 50 States. 
They say that work should pay, but they oppose raising the minimum wage 
to make it a living wage. All of you know how

[[Page 875]]

important the minimum wage has been to making sure people have a decent 
standard of living in this country.
    You know, I saw something recently that brings home the need for an 
increase in the minimum wage more than anything else that I've seen in 
recent months. I was watching a news special on television, and they 
went down South to a town that had a lot of minimum-wage workers. There 
they interviewed a remarkable woman in a local plant who was working for 
the minimum wage. They said to her, ``You know, your employer says if we 
raise the minimum wage, then they'll either have to lay off people or 
put more money into machinery and reduce their employment long term, and 
you could be affected. What do you say to that?'' And the woman just 
threw back her shoulders and smiled and said, ``Honey, I'll take my 
chances.''
    There are a lot of women and no small number of men out there who 
are in that situation. Some of them are raising their kids on the 
minimum wage. The truth is we have looked at all the arguments, pro and 
con. There is really no evidence that a raise in the minimum wage will 
cost jobs, but we do know it will make more people want to move from 
welfare to work. We do know it will reward work. And we know if we don't 
raise the minimum wage, next year it will be at a 40-year low, once you 
adjust for inflation.
    That's not my idea of the 21st century economy. My idea of the 21st 
century economy is Americans working hard, working smart, well-trained, 
well-supported, competing and winning in the global economy, doing the 
kinds of things the UAW is doing today, not driving down the minimum 
wage so that more and more people work harder and harder just to fall 
into poverty. That's wrong, and we need to turn it around. We need to 
give everybody a fair shot at the American dream.
    In closing, let me say that our work here requires a partnership 
with you, so that we'll be ready to compete and win in the 21st century, 
so that we don't raise the first generation of Americans to do worse 
than their parents, so that instead we begin to grow the middle class 
and shrink the under class again. The future of our Nation depends upon 
rewarding the efforts of workers like you. You and your families are the 
heart and soul of America, so we have to work together to preserve not 
only what has been won but to fight for the jobs, the incomes, the 
justice, the American dream of the future. We can do it. We can do it.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke by satellite at approximately 5:45 p.m. from 
Room 459 of the Old Executive Office Building to the UAW convention in 
Anaheim, CA. In his remarks, he referred to Owen Bieber, outgoing 
president, and Steve Yokich, incoming president, United Auto Workers.