[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 39 (Monday, September 29, 1997)]
[Pages 1401-1408]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

September 24, 1997

    Thank you very much. I am delighted to be here. Thank you for the 
warm welcome. Thank you for the fast introduction. [Laughter]
    The last time I spoke at your convention it was 2 days before you 
elected John and Rich and Linda. And I must say, from the outside, it 
seems to me that they have done a remarkable job, and I know that you 
must be very, very proud of them.
    I am delighted to be here with Secretary Herman and Deputy Secretary 
Kitty Higgins and Secretary Slater--a number of other members of the 
administration. I should mention one other, the successor at the White 
House to Alexis Herman, former Assistant Secretary of Labor for Wage and 
Hours Maria Echaveste. We're all glad to be here.
    I also want to say right at the outset that I am very glad that you 
voted to support campaign finance reform. Now there will be a vote on 
the Senate floor, and that will be a time of testing. But I have made 
clear where I stand. All 45 of our Democratic Senators have made clear 
where they stand. You have now made clear where you stand. We will soon 
see where the Senate stands, and then where the House stands. This is a 
good time to make our campaign finance laws better, and I thank you for 
your crucial role in it.
    On a very personal word, I might say, I came in a few moments ago 
and I was able to hear Sandy Feldman, and hear your tribute to our 
friend, Al Shanker. And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that. 
Under his leadership, and Sandy's, the AFT has been a constant supporter 
of educational opportunity and educational excellence--a clear signal 
that working professionals can be organized for the objectives, the 
legitimate objectives of the union movement. And one of these objectives 
would be excellence on the job. And there is no more important place to 
have excellence on the job than in educating our children. So I'm very, 
very grateful for the AFT and for Sandy Feldman.

[[Page 1402]]

    With your new leadership team and the new energy I feel, of the 
presidents who are here on this great stage, and all of you in the 
audience, your members back home, it is clear that American labor once 
again has a clear voice and you are making it heard. You made it heard 
loud and proud in the boardrooms of United Parcel Service. You made it 
heard in the halls of the Capitol, standing up to a barrage of anti-
worker legislation.
    You're making it heard in the strawberry and mushroom fields of 
California, in the fiery tones of Arturo Rodriguez, with noble echoes of 
Cesar Chavez. You're making it heard in nursing homes in Minnesota, 
giving new strength to women workers. And you're making it heard right 
here in Pittsburgh through the steelworkers biggest organizing campaign 
in more than 60 years. This must be a proud time for the men and women 
of the AFL-CIO.
    Our Nation can clearly see and hear that American labor is back. 
Thanks in no small part to your leadership in the workplace and your 
involvement in the political process, America is back, too.
    Six years ago, when I announced my candidacy for President, I said 
that America had a vital mission for the 21st century--to keep the 
American dream alive for every person responsible enough to work for it, 
to keep America the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and 
prosperity, and to bring our people together across all the lines that 
divide us into one America. America's oldest, most incandescent ideals--
opportunity for all, responsibility from all, a community of all--that 
is what has to illuminate our path as we stride forward to address the 
challenges of a new era.
    I pledged then to take America in a new direction--toward the 
future, not the past; toward unity, not division; with America leading, 
not following; putting people and values, not power politics, first; 
reforming Government not to do everything or do nothing, but to give all 
our people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives; and 
beginning by building an economy that works for all, not the few.
    We started with a new economic policy for the new economy, putting 
in place a bold new strategy to shrink the deficit and balance the 
budget, invest in our people and lower unfair trade barriers to our 
goods and services. The philosophy was solid and simple: Remove the 
impediments that have restrained the American people and give them the 
tools and training to help them race ahead. By reducing the Nation's 
massive deficits, we could free our people of the deadweight that slowed 
their every step from the early 1980's. By investing in their education 
and health, we would enable them to run fast and strong over the long 
run. By reducing trade barriers, we would knock down the unfairly high 
hurdles that we have had to leap over for far too long, and build 
bridges to new democracies with growing economies to ensure our 
leadership for peace and freedom well into the next century.
    The strategy has succeeded: nearly 13 million new jobs; America 
leading the world in auto production once again; unemployment below 5 
percent; over a million new construction jobs, a half a million 
transportation jobs, a half a million new jobs for machine operators, 
auto jobs having the fastest increase since Lyndon Johnson's 
administration; the biggest drop in welfare rolls in history, with 
welfare reform that is tough on work, but prochild and pro-family; 
dramatic drops in crime year after year, putting 100,000 more community 
police officers on the street and the Brady bill preventing 250,000 
sales of handguns to people with criminal or mental health histories 
that indicates they should not have them. We know we have more to do, 
but together we have made progressive government work again.
    Let's look at three crucial elements of our economic strategy, 
reducing the deficit, investing in our people, expanding exports. First, 
deficit reduction. Back in 1993, when I introduced our first deficit 
reduction plan, we both knew it was important to get our fiscal house in 
order, and we did it the right way. We did it while increasing 
investments in our people. And we did it without a single Republican 
vote, cutting the huge deficit of $290 billion 87 percent before the new 
balanced budget law passed.
    After a new majority took control of Congress in 1994, they tried to 
cut the deficit in the wrong way. They sent me a budget

[[Page 1403]]

that made unjustifiably deep cuts in Medicare, that increased taxes on 
working Americans, that allowed corporations to raid their workers' 
pensions, that cut enforcement of worker safety laws, that slashed 
funding for education and training by $30 billion. With your support, I 
vetoed that budget and the veto was upheld.
    Later, when they pushed a balanced budget with a harmful independent 
contractor provision, a misguided privatization scheme for Medicaid, and 
a shameful plan to deny workfare participants the minimum wage, you and 
I stood firm together. We stood firm together. And I thank you for your 
support for that opposition.
    I believe this balanced budget that I signed honors our workers and 
our values and our future. And I will explain by going to the second 
element of our economic strategy, investing in our people. In the new 
economy, the most precious resources America has are the skills and 
securities of working Americans. Here, too, we are succeeding. After 
decades of working harder and longer for lower wages, millions of 
working Americans finally are getting a raise. And it's about time.
    Since I took office, the yearly income of the typical family is up 
$1,600. Wages are rising again. In 1995 and 1996, over half the new jobs 
created in this economy paid above the average wage. With your strong 
support, we also increased the minimum wage and dramatically increased 
the earned-income tax credit--it is now worth about $1,000 a year to the 
typical family of four with an income of less than $30,000. And this 
summer, I signed into law a $500-per-child tax credit that will mean 
$1,000 in take-home pay for a typical family with two children. And I 
didn't sign the bill until we made it work for rookie police officers, 
teachers, and others of modest means the Republican majority would have 
left out of their budget and tax cut plans.
    From 1945 until the mid-1970's, all of us grew together in America. 
Each group of our economy, from the lowest 20 percent to the highest, 
increased their incomes, but actually, in percentage terms, those in the 
bottom 40 percent grew slightly faster than those in the upper 40 
percent. And that was as it should have been. We were sharing our 
prosperity and growing together.
    Then, unfortunately, we began to grow apart, partly because of 
developments in the global economy, historic developments that could not 
be reversed and offer us great opportunity if we seize them, partly I 
believe, because of wrong-headed policies in the United States 
Government throughout the 1980's.
    Fortunately, now it looks like our hard work and your hard work is 
paying off and America is starting to grow together again. I believe the 
general sense that this should be so is one of the reasons for the 
renewed success and receptivity of the efforts that you are making all 
over America.
    But we cannot rest. We cannot rest until every single American has a 
fair chance to reap the rewards of the American economy. That is why, 
above all, investing in people means giving every American the best 
education in the world.
    Our balanced budget includes the largest increase in aid to 
education since 1965, when President Johnson was in office, and the 
biggest increase to help people go on to college since the GI bill was 
passed 50 years ago. The budget has $1 billion more for Head Start; more 
money to help our schools achieve excellence; the America Reads program 
to mobilize a million volunteers, organized by our national service 
program, AmeriCorps, which has already given 70,000 young people a 
chance to work and serve in their communities and earn the money for 
college. It contains money to help connect every classroom and library 
in this country to the Internet by the year 2000. It also contains a new 
HOPE scholarship to guarantee access to all Americans to at least 2 
years of college; other tuition tax credits for all college and skills 
training; an IRA you can withdraw from, tax-free, to pay for your own 
education or your children's education; the biggest increase in Pell 
grants in two decades; a million, total, work-study slots now; and 
doubling aid for dislocated workers.
    When you put all this together, we can really say for the first time 
in the history of this country, we have opened the doors of college 
education to every American who is

[[Page 1404]]

willing to work for it. Money will not be an obstacle again.
    There is still a lot to do. First of all, we have to pass every year 
for the next 5 years the funds necessary to make good on the budget 
agreement. Secondly, we have got to increase the quality of education in 
our public schools. I have sought to provide more options to parents in 
public school through public school choice and allowing teachers to 
organize new charter schools within public school districts. But I also 
know we need national standards. Every other major economy in the world 
educates its children according to national academic standards. And I 
have called for national standards and voluntary national exams to begin 
with fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math to see how our children 
are doing. Voluntary exams developed not by politicians, but by a non-
political board; not by the Department of Education, but financially 
supported by the Department of Education.
    There are those who say no to this, no to standards, no to the idea 
that we ought to have accountability. Some of them, frankly, don't 
believe all our children can learn. Some of them see some dark plot to 
take over local schools. All I see is reading is the same in Minnesota 
as it is in Maine, and mathematics is the same in Washington as it is in 
Florida. And our children had better know it if they expect to compete 
in the world of the 21st century.
    There are also those in the Congress who say no to every effort we 
make to expand educational opportunity--those who failed to close the 
Department of Education, but would still like to cut it down; those who 
still would reduce our commitment to scholarships and grants and shut 
down completely innovative initiatives, like America Reads, even though 
we know--we know--that 40 percent of our third graders still cannot read 
independently on their own. We know that, and we cannot afford to back 
up. We need to bear down.
    So I need to ask your help again on education in the tough days 
ahead. With your help we can open up opportunity, build up education, 
and shake up the status quo crowd that fights every effort we make to 
lift up our children.
    We are making progress in this country in education. The teachers of 
this country are doing a better job, the principals are doing a better 
job, parents are steadily getting more involved. We are learning how to 
come to grips with all the social problems that our kids bring to 
school. This year, on international exams, a representative sample of 
our children by race, by region, by income--for the first time the 
fourth graders scored above the global average in mathematics and 
science. So I know all children can learn, and I know we've got people 
who can do the job. We just have to support them and bear down, and do 
more of the kinds of things that we know will work.
    Al Shanker, for his whole adult life, advocated national standards 
and meaningful measures and then all the efforts necessary to give every 
kid in this country a chance to learn. And I am not going to back away 
from this if it takes me every last minute of the next 3 years and 
however many months and days I've got left. And you ought to be there, 
too, because there's nothing more important for the future of this 
country than giving our kids a decent education.
    Investing in our people also means protecting the rights of workers, 
to demand their rights. Over the past 4 years, we've defeated callous 
attempts to repeal prevailing wage laws, to bring back company unions, 
to weaken occupational safety laws. We cracked down on sweatshops and 
fought to protect your pension funds and make pensions more portable. I 
have vetoed every piece of antilabor legislation that has crossed my 
desk, and I will continue to do so. [Applause] Thank you.
    A lot of the people pushing these bills have missed the main point. 
The key to success in tomorrow's economy is people, and you cannot move 
into the 21st century by restoring the labor policies of the 19th 
century. I will oppose it, you will oppose it, and we will prevail.
    In that context, let me just say one more word about the UPS strike. 
I and, indeed, my entire administration believe deeply in the collective 
bargaining process. In the UPS strike, collective bargaining worked. UPS 
and the Teamsters reached an historic settlement that recognizes that 
companies have to invest

[[Page 1405]]

in their workers in order to be competitive in the 21st century. I did 
the right thing to let the process work. The parties got together, they 
worked through it and we got a good result. [Applause] Thank you.
    Investing in people also means expanding access to health care, 
quality health care. The family and medical leave law that you worked so 
hard for, the very first bill I signed as President, ensures that 
millions of people don't have to choose between being good parents and 
good workers. I still hear from citizens as I travel across the country 
and just stop at airports, or in crowds in communities and shake hands--
people still come up to me and say, that law changed my life, saved my 
family, has meant more to me than anything the Government has done in my 
life. It is a good thing, and I thank you for your support of it.
    The Kennedy-Kassebaum law helps millions to keep their health care 
if they take a new job or if someone in their family gets sick. The new 
balanced budget spends $24 billion to expand health care to 5 million of 
the most vulnerable Americans--5 million children almost all in working 
families, without health insurance. That is the largest investment in 
health care since the creation of Medicaid in 1965. Never--never--would 
this have happened unless you had helped me wage the fight we waged and 
lost to give health insurance to every American family that doesn't have 
it. And sometimes you have to lose a battle. I'm glad we fought for it. 
I'm proud that you helped me. And those kids are going to get insurance 
because of the issues we raised in 1994.
    Finally, I ask for your support to help me pass sweeping legislation 
to keep tobacco, our number one health problem, out of the hands of our 
children. The health of our children is my bottom line and I believe it 
should be the bottom line of the tobacco industry as well.
    The final component of our three-part economic strategy, one that is 
just as essential for the future growth and the future wage growth of 
our economy, is our continuing work to open new markets and give 
American workers a fair break. I know we don't see eye-to-eye on fast 
track, but I think I owe it to you to tell you exactly why I feel so 
passionately about it. And I think I've earned the right to be heard on 
it.
    Fast-track authority is a tool that has been given by Democratic 
Congresses to Republican Presidents and Presidents, indeed, of both 
parties for more than 20 years now. It simply says that if the President 
or his representative, his trade representative, negotiates a trade 
agreement, then the Congress has to vote on it if it rises to the level 
of comprehensive agreement, but must vote it up or down, so that the 
other country does not believe it is having to negotiate with 535 people 
in addition to the person with whom they negotiated.
    We cannot create enough good jobs and increase wages if we don't 
expand trade. There's a simple reason why. Indeed, about a third of the 
economic growth that has produced 13 million new jobs over the past 4\1/
2\ years has come from selling more American products overseas. Here's 
why: We have 4 percent of the world's population and we enjoy 22 percent 
of the world's wealth. If we want to keep the 22 percent of the wealth 
we have as 4 percent of the world's people, we have to sell something to 
the other 96 percent.
    And this did not happen by accident. There were over 220 trade 
agreements signed in the first 4 years of this administration. In the 
over 20 agreements signed with Japan, in those areas, our exports went 
up by over 80 percent.
    The information technology agreement that we just signed, worldwide, 
covering 90 percent of information technology services in the world, 
under residual fast-track authority that covered that area, amounts to a 
$5-billion tax or tariff cut on American products--high value-added 
products, many of which are made by union workers.
    Now, in the next 15 years, the developing countries in Latin America 
and Asia will grow three times as fast as the United States, Europe, and 
Japan. As I told the United Nations a couple of days ago, early in the 
next century, about 20 nations comprising half of the world's people 
will move from the ranks of low income nations to middle income nations. 
They are going to grow in a world economy. We are going to participate 
in that growth to a greater or lesser extent. The

[[Page 1406]]

more fair trade deals we have to allow us entry into their markets where 
we've been at a significant disadvantage for too long, the more we will 
participate.
    You know that our own markets are among the most open in the world. 
We were able to get 220 trade agreements in the first 4 years because we 
made people know that if they wanted access to our open markets, they 
were going to have to open theirs. We have to insist upon this 
treatment. If we don't act and we don't lead, nobody else will level the 
playing field for us.
    Indeed, our competitors in the other wealthy countries, in Europe 
and Japan, would just as soon we not make these trade agreements. They 
can make them because they read the same predictions we do--they know 
that their economies are only going to grow a third as fast as the ones 
in Latin America and Asia as well, and they are looking for some way in 
to protect their workers and their longtime economic security.
    We can compete if given a fair chance. Last year, I had a chance to 
visit the Jeep Cherokee plant in Toledo, a UAW plant producing tens of 
thousands of right-wheel-drive jeeps for export to Japan and other 
markets we thought hard to open up for them. They have 700 new jobs at 
that plant, and I think it's the oldest auto plant in the United States 
of America still operating. The global economy is working for them. I am 
determined to see that it works for everyone.
    Should we ask other people to adhere to global standards on the 
environment? Of course, we should. I think you could make a strong case 
that no administration has done more to preserve and protect the 
environment against onslaughts than ours has. Should we acknowledge that 
global trade can pull the rug out from some of our people? Of course, it 
could. At every period of economic change in our country's history, that 
has happened to people. The difference is that we have to be committed 
to give more aid, to do more for people who are suffering, who are 
displaced. Because nobody should be left behind in the global economy--
nobody. That's why we double funding for displaced workers. That's why I 
know we have to do more. We don't have to leave people behind. Everybody 
should have the right to keep a good job and to go into tomorrow.
    But we can only do that with a growing population if we continue to 
grow the economy. So the trick is to get the right economic growth 
package, to create the right mix of new jobs, to try to make sure always 
more than half of your new jobs are paying above average wage, and not 
leave people behind. It's not easy to do, but this administration is 
committed to doing it. And I think we have demonstrated that commitment 
time and again.
    We also have to recognize that the global economy is on a fast 
track. It is changing amazingly. For example, every month--every month--
millions and millions of new contacts are made on the Internet--every 
single month. It's exploding like nothing ever has, creating all kinds 
of networks of commerce and bringing people close together in new and 
unusual ways. We have to figure out how to make this work for us. If it 
doesn't work for us, it will work against us.
    I believe leaving our trade relations on hold with the fastest 
growing economies in the world will not create a single job in America, 
and it certainly won't raise environmental standards or labor standards 
in other countries. This year--this year alone, so far, two-thirds of 
the increase in America's trade has come from Canada to the southern tip 
of South America, our neighbors--two-thirds. We could do better. This 
year, leaders from Europe have gone to South America to tell them that 
the United States no longer cares about their markets or the cooperation 
and leadership that goes along with working with them. They say that 
their future should be with Europe, and they should organize to give 
Europe considerations and breaks in opening their markets and leave us 
out.
    Now, think about it. Think about Chile or Brazil or Argentina. Their 
markets are more closed to us than ours are to them. We still are 
selling more just because they're growing so much. But we know they'll 
grow a lot more over the next 10 to 20 years. They now need things that 
we sell and things that your people produce better than any other group 
of people in the world.
    This is not about NAFTA or factories moving there to sell back to 
here. I think all of

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us agree it is highly unlikely anyone will move a factory to Chile to 
sell back to here. This is about how we can best seize our opportunities 
in the economy that is emerging and how 4 percent of the world's people 
can continue to maintain 20 to 22 percent of the world's wealth and 
continue to grow the economy so incomes can rise and new jobs can be 
created.
    Now, I know this is a difficult debate, and I know we disagree about 
it. But the debate over fair trade and fast track should itself be fair. 
It should also be open and honest. I have personally sat alone in the 
White House and listened to talk shows where your representatives were 
on the shows, because I wanted to hear the arguments and hear the 
concerns and know the things that you want. And you know we have had 
exhaustive numbers of meetings between the administration and leaders of 
the labor movement. We ought to have an open, fair, and honest debate. 
We are trying to move as much as we can on a lot of the concerns that 
you have raised.
    But I also want to say that I think we share too many values and 
priorities to let this disagreement damage our partnership. You just 
think of all of the things that I reeled off that we've done together 
and all of the things we've stood against in the last 5 years. I have 
worked to make this economy work for middle-class Americans. I care 
about making sure everybody has a chance and making sure nobody is left 
behind. But I can't build a better future without the tools to do the 
job, and America can't lead if it's bringing up the rear.
    At the moment of our greatest economic success in an entire 
generation, we shouldn't be reluctant about the future. We ought to 
seize it and shape it. And I think I also have to say to you that there 
are a lot of good Members of Congress who agree with me about our trade 
policy who also stood for the minimum wage. They agree with me about our 
trade policy, but they fought to provide health care for 5 million more 
kids. They support open trade, but they also fought to protect Medicare 
and Medicaid and education and the environment and to open the doors of 
college to all Americans.
    And when the majority in Congress wanted to do so, they stood 
against them and fought with you against the contract on America. They 
fought with you against attempts to repeal the prevailing wage laws, to 
weaken unions and workplace health and safety laws. They did so in the 
face of intense pressure. They have fought for you and for all working 
people, and they deserve our support. If they were to lose their 
positions because they stood up for what they believe was right for 
America's future, who would replace them and how much harder would it be 
to get the necessary votes in Congress to back the President when he 
stands by you against the majority?
    America is far better off when the friends of working people stand 
together without letting one issue trump all the others. Friends and 
allies don't participate in the politics of abandonment. They band 
together, disagreeing when they must but banding together.
    I pledge to do that, and hope you will, too. We've got a lot to do 
in education, in making sure Medicare and Social Security are there for 
the next generation of parents, in bridging the divide of race and all 
of the differences that are now taking place in this country. That's an 
area where you've always been out front, and I want to close with that, 
because you can help, perhaps more than almost any other group in 
America, to bridge the divides and to preserve the bonds of community.
    When I leave you, I'm going home to Arkansas, and tomorrow I will 
try to focus our Nation on a haunting but hopeful moment in our 
country's struggle to make America the Nation live up to America the 
idea--a day, 40 years ago, when nine brave African-American boys and 
girls, shielded from a hateful crowd by United States Army paratroopers, 
walked through the doors of Little Rock Central High School for the 
first time. I will honor the courage and vision of those whose eyes were 
fixed on the prize of equal educational opportunity without regard to 
race.
    There are still a lot of doors we have to open. There are still some 
doors we have to open wider. And now, unfortunately, there are some 
doors we've got to work hard from being shut again. There is also a new 
reality we're all going to have to come to grips with that very few 
Americans have thought about. It will change the workplace. It will 
change

[[Page 1408]]

communities. It will change the way we do our business as citizens. That 
reality is that we are not simply a black-white nation; we are not 
simply a black-Hispanic-Native-American-white nation. Instead, we are a 
nation now of nearly all the peoples of the world, with greater 
diversity in how we work and live together and greater integration in 
how we work and live together than virtually any other democracy on 
Earth. And within the ranks of Caucasians and blacks and Latinos and 
Asians, there is increasing ethnic and cultural diversity.
    As we become the most diverse democracy on Earth--and make no 
mistake about it, we are becoming that--today, only Hawaii has no 
majority race. Within a decade, probably within 4 or 5 years, 
California, our largest State with 13 percent of our population, will 
have no majority race. And sometime before the next century is half 
done, America will have no majority race. Are we going to embrace this? 
Are we going to say that we celebrate our diversity, but we're united by 
something more important? Or are we going to let it get away from us and 
drift off into little enclaves and weaken our country and our future and 
our children's future? You're in a unique position to help.
    Labor has a tradition here, established by visionaries like A. 
Philip Randolph and Walter Reuther. Labor has helped generations of 
African-Americans and new immigrants to gain dignity and respect. Your 
members reached across racial and ethnic lines to fight for a common 
future and personal dignity. Few institutions in America can claim 
anything like the record of the labor movement in fighting for equal 
opportunity.
    It was for that reason and for her own merit that I appointed your 
executive vice president, Linda Chavez-Thompson, a member of my race 
advisory commission. She has seen discrimination firsthand. She knows 
discrimination is not a thing of the past, but she is determined to see 
that it has no place in our future. I am grateful for her help, and I 
ask you for yours.
    A century ago, the working men and women of labor imagined an 
America where older people had health security, where African-Americans 
enjoyed equal protection under the law, where working people had the 
right to organize and fight for a better life. Because they imagined it 
and because they worked for it, it's the America we're living in today.
    Now it is up to us to imagine the America of the 21st century. And 
on every issue I discussed today, that is all I ask you to do. Imagine 
it, based on what we now know. Imagine an America in which every child 
has a world-class education, in which every family can fairly balance 
the demands of work and childrearing, in which we lift living standards 
here and around the world, in which we learn to grow our economy and 
preserve the common environment which is our home, in which our oldest 
values of opportunity, responsibility and community guide us into a new 
time of greatest opportunity.
    As American working men and women have shown time and time again, if 
we imagine it and we work at it, we will build it, an America for our 
children, always eager for tomorrow. You have brought new energy to the 
labor movement. You have brought new energy to America. Let us work to 
build that into a future we can be proud of.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:25 a.m. in the Convention Hall at the 
David Lawrence Convention Center. In his remarks, he referred to John J. 
Sweeney, president, Richard Trumka, secretary general, and Linda Chavez-
Thompson, vice president, AFL-CIO; Sandra Feldman, president, American 
Federation of Teachers; and Arturo Rodriquez, president, United Farm 
Workers of America.