    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [May 4, 1998]
    [Pages 676-679]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a California Labor Initiative Breakfast in Los Angeles,
    California
    May 4, 1998

        Thank you very much. I want to thank John Sweeney for those kind words and for his brilliant leadership in
    giving new life and energy and direction to the American labor movement.
    Thank you, Doug Dority and all the other
    labor leaders who are here. I thank Ron and
    Jan for opening their home to us and letting us
    relive the movie fantasies of the last 60 years here in this great old
    house.
        I'd also like to say a special word of appreciation to my longtime
    friend John Garamendi for his
    distinguished leadership as Deputy Secretary of the Interior, and he's
    now gone to work with Ron. And I wish him well in private life. He also
    got a daughter married off last weekend; he assures me it is survivable,
    but I'm not so certain. [Laughter] I thank the Members of Congress who
    are here, and Lieutenant Governor Davis, thank
    you for coming.
        I would like to just say a few words to all of you who have come
    here to this fundraiser. First of all, you wouldn't be here if you
    didn't believe what I think is an elemental truth of the modern economy,
    which is that we can only have a good economy and a good society if we
    find ways to widen the circle of opportunity and to reward people for
    their labors. And insofar as we reward people for doing the right
    things, then those who are especially well-positioned will do even
    better.
        John mentioned the Therma plant up in Silicon Valley I visited. Most
    people think that most of the places that are doing well up there are
    computer companies or biotech companies, but someone has to build all
    those buildings that they work in, and someone has to supply them with
    what they need. And that plant, as John said, is a family-owned business
    with 1,600 workers, most of whom are sheet metal workers,

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    a few of whom are in the plumbers union, but they're all unionized, and
    yet they have all the things that the enemies of organized labor always
    say you never see. They have a flexible workplace; they have incredible
    partnerships with their owners, and the people who run that plant are
    very, very proud with their relationship with the union and with the
    people on the floor. And they have a modern workplace in which no one
    wants to leave, because they think they're getting their fair share of
    the labor, and because they believe their labor is respected.
        We have tried to do that. I was very disturbed when I became
    President that our country had had 20 years of increasing inequality
    among working people. And there were many reasons for it, some of them
    unavoidable because we were changing the nature of the American economy,
    and whenever you change the nature of an economy--it happens about once
    every 50 or 60 years--the people that are really in the best positions
    do best. It happened when we went from being agricultural to an
    industrial economy. But a lot of it was because our people weren't well-
    equipped and weren't being treated fairly, and that people didn't
    understand that we had to make extra effort.
        So I want to thank the labor movement and John Sweeney and all the other labor leaders for the things they've
    supported that their own members were not the primary beneficiaries of.
    Most of the people that got the benefit of the Family and Medical Leave
    Act were working people who did not have the benefit of union
    representation. Most of the people who got the benefit of the increase
    in the minimum wage, directly or indirectly, most, if not all, were
    union people--were not union workers. Most of the people who get the
    benefit of the earned-income tax credit, which is now worth $1,000 a
    year to a family of 4 with an income of under $30,000, and it's lifted
    2.2 million children out of poverty--were working families that did not
    belong to unions. And so I thank you for being the voice, all of you,
    not only for your members but for those who are not members of organized
    labor.
        Now, when you look ahead to the future, it seems to me one of the
    great challenges still facing us is how every single person in our
    country, and ultimately in other parts of the world, can feel that there
    is some way they can live out their dreams, raise a family, live a life
    that makes sense in this new world we're living in.
        And it's funny, because one of the things that has clearly happened,
    with more and more people on the Internet, more and more kids on the
    Internet at school, more and more people being able to individually
    access information, is that there really is a new upsurge in the world
    today in people's desire to have more individual control over their
    destiny.
        We're in the process now of reviewing the Social Security system,
    for example, and there's this huge age differential. Young people all
    say, well, we should have--not all but a lot of young people say, ``We
    should have individual accounts, and we'll decide how to invest it.''
    Older people remember that the stock market has not always gone from
    3,000 to 9,000 in any 5-year period--and so they say, ``Well, you better
    have a little bit of protection here for what happens on the days when
    it's not so good.''
        This initiative on the California ballot can be seen against that
    background. The people of California have been very good to me and my
    family and my administration. And I have watched with interest as the
    State has emerged from its economic recession, starting in 1993 and
    coming forward--Californians, in the most popular State in the country
    and a State where it's fairly easy to get an initiative on the ballot,
    have been asked to come to grips with issues that are being debated.
        Now, I think sometimes these ballot initiatives have dealt with real
    problems, but at least from my point of view, with the wrong solution.
    For example, if you look at this ballot initiative on bilingual
    education, I think there is a significant problem in the--I think the
    way we are handling immigrant children, integrating them into our
    education system, integrating them into the mainstream of American life,
    is inadequate. I don't think it's working as well as it should. But I
    think the proposal on the ballot will make it worse, not better. That my
    only--but at least they're debating a real issue. And I'm hopeful on
    that issue that the voters of California will be able to think it
    through. And I applaud the speaker of the house here who tried to get an alternative measure through to
    deal with it in what I believe is a much more positive way.
        This issue dealing with labor unions and the relationship with labor
    unions to their members, I think it's an entirely different one. This is
    an issue, in my view, which seeks to take a legitimate principle, which
    is that people should not have their money spent against their will,

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    and turn it into a ballot initiative that will simply put organizations
    that represent working people at a significant competitive disadvantage
    to other organizations in the political marketplace.
        So this is something that sounds good, but isn't--not something
    that's dealing with a real problem. There is no real problem here. And
    that's what you have to get out to the people of California.
        John and I--on the way in, he pointed out that, again, that it is
    labor union members who do not wish their dues money, others who do not
    wish their voluntary check-off money to be spent on political purposes,
    can inform their unions of that and get back a portion of their money. I
    think you said--Gerry McEntee said 33,000
    AFSCME members got back a portion of their money last year. This is not
    a problem. This is being put forth as a problem. This is not a problem
    that exists. No one is making labor union members contribute to
    political campaigns.
        Now, what this amendment seeks to do is to basically muffle the
    ability of the collective voices of working people to be heard by
    putting on them a far, far greater administrative burden than
    corporations face when they spend their own money--they don't have to
    get their shareholders' permission every year--or other organizations
    like the Chamber of Commerce, the NFIB, any other membership
    organization that spends money either to support candidates or to affect
    ballot initiatives or other political issues.
        Why should labor unions be singled out when they already give their
    members a better voice at opting out of the system than a lot of other
    organizations do? Why should we have a system where we say--let me tell
    you, I've been in Washington now for 5 years--we haven't always agreed
    on everything. John Sweeney and I don't
    agree on every issue. But I'll tell you something: If it were up to
    them, every American would have health care tonight, every child would
    go to bed tonight not worrying whether or not there would be a doctor
    there if the baby woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning.
        We have family and medical leave. We have this very different tax
    system for low-income working families. We have all these things in our
    balanced budget agreement; we've got the biggest increase in child
    health care in 35 years--going to provide 5 million children with health
    insurance. We have virtually opened the doors of college to every
    American, in no small measure because American labor was working up
    there in the Congress to try to pass this. This is a better country
    because of them.
        I don't know what the 30-second message is because I'm not part of
    the ad team out here, but I can tell you this: I believe if the people
    of California understood clearly that every member of every union in
    America has a right at any time to say, ``I do not want my money spent,
    my dues money, spent to lobby on ballot initiatives or spent for
    political purposes''--that that is a far more expensive thing that
    applies to other organizations as a practical matter, and that this is
    just an attempt to put unions at a disadvantage to other organized
    groups in the political marketplace and thereby to diminish the voice of
    working men and women--and keep in mind--and for people who are not
    members of unions for whom they speak, who would otherwise have no
    voice--who would otherwise have no voice.
        That family and medical leave thing, we had 170 other countries that
    had family and medical leave, for goodness' sakes, and we still have
    people in the United States Congress saying, ``Oh, if you do this, it
    will cost America jobs.''
        And that's what this is about. And I honestly believe if you can
    just tell the people of California the facts, that no man or woman in
    any labor union anywhere in California or in the country is being ripped
    off, that they can reallocate their money when they want to--they can
    say, ``I do not want this to happen''--and then they understood that
    this ballot initiative does not apply to business organizations, it does
    not apply to other organizations, it does not apply to corporations--I
    think the innate sense of fairness of the people out here will prevail.
    And all of you who are contributing here at this breakfast today are
    giving the people who are running this campaign a chance to do that.
        But I really believe that it's important that the message get out
    there that is not like--a lot of these other ballot initiatives are
    dealing with real, legitimate problems, and then you're just arguing
    over whether this is the right solution to a real problem. This is not a
    real problem. This is an attempt to create the impression that
    individual members of unions are being put upon, when they aren't. And
    it's being done to alter the balance of power in the political debate.
        And so I hope very much you will prevail, and I hope my being here
    helps you a little

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    bit. And I hope between now and the time it's voted on, enough people
    will understand the facts. This is why we're--if they really know the
    facts, I think you'll win.
        Good luck, and thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:22 a.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to John J. Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO; Douglas H.
    Dority, international president, United Food and Commercial Workers
    International Union; breakfast hosts Ron and Janet Burkle; Lt. Gov. Gray
    Davis of California; State Assembly Speaker Antonio R. Villaraigosa; and
    Gerald W. McEntee, president, American Federation of State, County and
    Municipal Employees.