You have become a labor day tradition for us. Welcome. First, background, is born and raised in southwestern pennsylvania where he followed his father and grandfather into the coal mines and worked his way through college and law school. He is a graduate from penn state. Graduation, he joins a legal staff of the United Mine Workers and became president of the age of 33. Since 1989, he spent working on the executive council and elected president of the federation in 2009. There on the record here, no live blogging or tweeting. In short, no filing of any kind while its underway. Once the session ends, you can file away. We will email pictures to all the reporters here as soon as it ends. If youd like to ask questions, send me a signal and i will call on you as time permits. If you like to make a brief opening remark, the floor is yours. I cant believe its been 11 years. Thats incredible. You say happy early labor day to everybody here. I want to thank you for hosting us. I want to thank each one of you for being here today. Ive been in this more than 50 years now. Actually, 52. Ive never really witnessed a moment like this and ive never felt this much energy and determination for working people. Ive never seen this movement so driven to take our own future in our own hands. Working people are rising to meet a moment in history because we know something is deeply wrong. Our nation is being taken over by rhetoric at the highest levels of government. People of color are being scapegoated, minimized, dehumanized and told to go back where they came from. Racist dog whistles have been replaced with megaphones. Women are openly degraded and discriminated against america welcomes that along a beacon of hope for immigrant, refugees and Asylum Seekers by including my own parents as being bulldozed and paved over, replaced with a clear message that youre not welcome here. Meanwhile, the rich continue unprecedented money and power while people who build the wealth are working harder and longer for less with less dignity and harsher and more dangerous workplaces. The last 30 years, the top 1 has increased by 21 trillion and in the same time, the wealth of the bottom 50 has decreased by 900 billion. So we are faced with the reality of historic inequality and bigotry that goes all the way to the top. The Labor Movement in our Labor Movement is moving forward by solidarity. In 2017, more than a quarter of a Million People joint unions, three quarters of those work below the age of 35. In 2018, half a Million People walked a picket line, the most in a generation. By nearly 1000 members elected to Public Office, ushering in a series of coworker legislative victories in 2019. Not only is a Labor Movement set higher than ever, in 2020 president ial election past Union Workers said they would join a union worker today if given the chance. I guess its a great place to start with that. President trumps. s Campaign Promise was a big reason why he won michigan and wisconsin and my home state of pennsylvania. The proposed replacement falls short of what we need. See we are not looking for tinkering with the rebranded nafta. We need to replace it with a truly pro worker deal that uses the United States enormous interest and economic power to uphold the rights indignities of working people both here and across north america. So its a number of Critical Issues that we have raised and continue to raise but chief among them is this, the proposed new nafta is simply not enforceable. In particular mexico has yet to demonstrate that it has the resources and infrastructure to follow through on its promise to reform and trade without enforcement is a windfall for corporations and disaster for workers but we want to get to yes. But if mexico cant insure their workers ability to bargain higher wages through a real union than the entire deal is a nonstarter. Thats why im announcing today that i will be leaving the delegation of u. S. Labor leaders to mexico city on wednesday to me personally with president lopez or by door. Hes been a friend of the Labor Movement and i believe he is acting in good faith but i wanted to share those concerns directly with him. We need him to show us how mexico will guarantee a workers rights to raise wages through free and democratic unions and if that doesnt happen working people all across north america will continue to suffer. At this point i believe its been. Clear that without the support of the Labor Movement with the United States and mexico and in canada the new nafta will meet the same fate as tpp. Its also clear that while we cant fix the Economy Economic rules, if we dont fix nafta we also cant fix the rules if we only fix nafta. In 2019, 20 and beyond, the american Labor Movement will be engaging in a fullcourt press a wide range of economic policies that advance good jobs, higher wages, great methods on the freedom to form a union. Starting with the passage of the pro act the most aggressive labor law reform since the National Labor relations act. Working people are fighting every day. We are fighting with every ounce of energy that we have two reclaim what is rightfully that of the working people. So this labor day we arent going to settle for anything less than the workers deserve and having said that i will be happy to open up for questions. Thanks very much. I will open up with a question and open the floor if anybody wants to throw it out i will put you on the list. After that big Labor Convention he told the crowd that canada must be pro worker and per union to win the al al caos endorsement so how do you rank the Top Democrats in the race with Warren Sanders and buttigieg. You said Bernie Sanders is a huge push for labor and buttigieg also. Im excited that all the candidates are talking about workers rights and about unions and about the power of collective bargaining. Thats a big plus. We have also urged everyone of those candidates to meet with as many members as we can and in as many different forms as we can so they can make their case to the American Worker. And the endorsement of a candidate will come through from the bottom up from our members or executive counsel and our executive counsel has to have a large vote, 70 vote in order to endorse anybody in that means they have to have no large groundswell of support. We will see what happens among the candidates and how our members relate to those candidates. I think you have seen those candidates talk more about the issues that are important to working people than we have seen in the past. Thats a positive thing and people always say to us what you want in a candidate . We want a candidate who wants what workers need and if that candidate wants what workers need we have a chance. If they only give us platitudes and they only say they are in a union group that raises antennas most of the time for those five candidates that you talked about have fully supported and have a history of supporting unions over the years and we will see how they intend to change the rules of the economy so they make america work for the workers. Its a top priority. Who do you think is the best president to be. Is that President Trump or is it the labor message . A workers message actually and its a combination of of all of those. I guess if you cant be him you cant change the rules but i think if they make the case for changing the rules they are going to be able to have success in an election so its not an either or. Its actually a combination of both and the more that they talk about changing the rules its not just trade. Its tax laws come its tax laws comments regularization said health and safety. Its education education, its health care comments pensions, its bankruptcy laws that have stripped workers of their paychecks over the years. What changes they make on all of that and our members will say thats the one we want. John from news max steyer right. Thank you. Going back to when they aflcio was formed and george meany dealt with the republican secretary of labor there has always been tension between the president of the aflcio and republican secretaries of labor to some degree. Two nights ago President Trump formally nominated Eugene Scalia to the secretary of labor. Will the aflcio opposed the nomination actively and if so, why . Well, when Eugene Scalia was nominated for solicitor of labor back and 2002, we actively opposed him because he didnt have a record of being antiunion and all of that time. Since 2002 his record has only gotten worse. He called repetitive injury at one time junk science. He has made a career out of trying to bust unions and trying to do things like that and as a result i would say its most likely, i would say its most likely we will continue to oppose him because we opposed him in 2002 and his record has only gotten worse. If you quite frankly art dangerously outside of the mainstream and leave us no choice but to oppose him. Jerry from the buffalo news to your left. I wanted to talk to you about a labor issue. Recently what i would call the starbucks of ruffalo the workers voted to unionize and this struck us as somewhat unusual for a small coffee shop for people to unionize so im just wondering if you are aware of the situation if you see this as any kind of precedent for Service Centers are a workers nationwide who organize in the smallest of companies . You know it doesnt surprise me at all. This is happening everywhere and people in small units mediumsize units and big sized units really need the voice of a union. We are seeing right now for instance in the Airline Industry , jeb lou and spirit airlines, Customer Service agents and food catering stuff, graduate workers at brown and columbia and georgetown and harvard, journalists at the l. A. Times, chicago tribune, new york magazine, new republic, buzzfeed sleepy onion and fox media. They all voted to organize so people all over the country are organizing and heres why. Workers do not believe that the political system or the Economic System is working for them so they have turned to each other. They understand the only way they are going to get anything is by joining together in using their collect the power whether they are in a coffee store or a coal mine in a classroom at college or kindergarten. The only way to get something is to come together and bargain collectively. So it surprises me not in the least that we have seen it elsewhere. We have starbucks and other places that are organized and we have different types of things with doctors that are organized and they organize for multiple different reasons. Nurses organize in a number of places for their patients. No one would listen to them so they organized a union so that they could argun for fairer staffing or fair trade and so that is sort of why i am so excited about this labor day and where we are and that type of momentum, workers believing in each other is really catching fire all over the country. In this particular situation for three employees who were trying to organize the unions were fired and i think that kind of got the other about joining. Is it more difficult in a smaller environment for workers to come together . Unfortunately what you just said is typical. Let me explain to you what happened in america because of our antiquated labor laws. Remember these laws were done in 1947. The first was 35 and the second was 47 and one and 59 all of which took workers rights away. A group of workers want to organize because they want to bargain collectively with their employer. The employer immediately hires what are called union busters, firms who specialize in doing nothing but preventing workers from getting ahead. They do have meetings where they will bring you altogether and you must come, its mandatory in all they do is spend two or three hours talking about how bad unions are. Many of them are not even allowed to speak. In fact we had a case where someone tried to speak and tried to leave and the employer fired him. And then they threaten you to take away her job and when they dont see that happening a quick fire you and guess what happens . When you get fired under todays laws and it may take you three or four years to get your job back. That means you will have the work somewhere. All the money that you make is deducted from that them player that illegally fired you have to make so its cheap but that head is up on the wall for everybody else. If you dare try to exercise your rights your statutory rights and have a union i will fire you. So after you get through all of that sometimes they wont recognize it and they appeal it for four or five years. Entelechy fight the courts for four or five years and then when you get recognize they sit down and they say we will negotiate with you. We call it surface bargaining. They mouth in the worse but there are no intentions. In 50 of the cases after youve gone through all of that you end up not being able to get it done. Thats typically, its typical that workers want to avoid losing their jobs small to medium and large and typical response of the employer is to violate the law because there is no cost to them for violating the law. It cost them virtually nothing. They get to deduct the penalty. As a result we are trying to get the pro act back. The proactive would be a rewrite of the law and it would put real teeth into it to make an employer who fire somebody illegally paid triple, three times what they do just like they do in the antitrust laws. We do a number of other things as well so making sure in first contracts if you come to an impasse you arbitrate the first contract so you could get going together. Thats why the pro act is important and over 200 cosponsors in the house and 41 sponsors in the senate and we would be pushing forward and hopefully well get it done. When we do get it done the president if its under this president he will get to demonstrate his real love for workers. Julie pace from ap to your right. Im wondering if you think that President Trump strank and 2016 in michigan and wisconsin has had an impact on the way the Democratic Candidates are talking about trade talking about unions and talking about workers in this election. You know would you mind if i went back and sort of answer that with a little bit more of an expansive answer to give you a framework because i can give you a threepart answer but it wouldnt really be the way it is. Look, harvard did a study on millennials and they asked them how important is to live in a democracy. 30 of millennials said they want to live in the democracy and 24 said its bad to live in a democracy and they wonder why. Thats the first generation in this country that has lived their entire lives under the rules of globalization. All they have ever seen our wages going down, their Parents Health care taken away, pensions taken away. They have probably seen their parents or someone they know lose a home or a household. Then they are told dont worry, you can go to school and everything will be hunkydory for you so they go to school and they come out with a mountain of debt and they cant find a job either. They are starting to believe the reprieve that capitalism is equal to low wages in security and poverty. Those same workers over that three decades have seen stagnant wages in pennsylvania and michigan and minnesota and wisconsin and West Virginia and any number of states. They dont believe the political system works for them and they dont leave the economics work for them. Along comes donald trump and says im going to change the rules. Im going to change the rules so they work for you and people said i want somebody to change the rules. Id like to give them a chance so they voted for him. Now, i think the lesson and to your question, i think the lesson to democrats in these candidates particularly have come to understand is, unless you talk about the Economic Issues that affect the working people you are not going to elect a so they have begun talking about the Kitchen Table economics that affect workers. The more they do that the more workers will connect with them and the more support they will get. She talked about Kitchen Table issues and she talked about working people. Is there Something Different about the way democrats are talking about it now than maybe she did our other stood . Its been a piece of their campaign. Thats a party. They are talking about changing the rules of the economy to make the country work for workers. The economic rules were secondary. Now Kitchen Table economics are first and foremost. Workers are starting to listen. They are having conversations on the ground in iowa and philadelphia suburbs in pittsburgh and columbus, ohio. They are having those actual conversations with workers in the workers are listening because they want somebody who will change the rules of the economy to make the country work for workers and when we do that i think we start to reverse that trend and you start to see more kids saying living in a democracy is important. The fact that there is a potential implosion which we just reflected a few days ago by the ceos of the business roundtable, 181 of them came together and signed a new agenda about whats the purpose of the corporation. Remember before the purpose of a corporation was to maximize your overall value in the helped create inequality that we see, the growing inequality and now they are saying rightfully so a corporation has obligations to workers the state that they live in and the community where they reside. We will see if they translate that into