Remarks by AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka, United Mine Workers of America 54th Constitutional Convention, Las Vegas, NV
July 26, 2010

Brothers and sisters, I am proud to work for 11.5 million union workers across America, and I think about them every single day. But the United Mine Workers of America will always be my union. It will always be my home. My brothers and sisters. My family.

I may now be president of the AFL-CIO, but I have always been – and will forever be – UMWA. I learned unionism, and I learned life in the United Mine Workers. I learned alongside this man [Cecil Roberts]. And I learned from him. And with him.

He's one of the reasons I'm so proud to be a member of this union. His commitment runs deep. His vision is great. His passion for justice burns bright. He doesn't talk about change, he makes change.

And Cecil, there isn't a coal mining family that isn't living a better life because of you. You are the embodiment of what the UMWA is all about. You're my friend. You're my brother. And I'm damn proud that you're my president.

Thank you, Cecil Roberts.

Brothers and sisters, something has gone very wrong in America. Look at this city around us, where the housing crisis has hit so hard—75 percent of Las Vegas homeowners are underwater now, owing more than their home is worth. People are losing their homes—their security, their wealth. More and more are choosing the midnight bankruptcy. Just leaving. Walking away from their homes – how hard is that? But they're homes they can't pay off.

Look around at the towns you're from. At joblessness. Jobs exported. No retirement security. Public schools that are crumbling. Teachers and police and firefighters being laid off. And the future we tried to build for our kids—where is it?

The economic course our nation started 30 years ago—the drive for a low-wage, high-consumption society that imports more and more of what it consumes—it's hit the wall. We cannot afford to stay this course—letting the financial markets run amok, outsourcing everything that's not nailed to the floor, knocking down workers at every opportunity.

If something doesn't change, and soon, America's future will be one of high unemployment for years to come, stagnant or falling wages and total corporate rule.

But what's been happening on Capitol Hill, where we sent people to make changes? Senate Republicans are playing a cynical and unprecedented political game by stalling and obstructing every single chance to fix this economic mess. It is an unqualified shame that they would even block the simple extension of unemployment benefits for the most hard-pressed people who have been without jobs for half a year or more. At some point, there won't be any jobs left that'll pay us enough to buy the junk that's getting shipped here from around the world.

Brothers and sisters, we and our parents and grandparents haven't worked our entire lives to build the economic travesty we see around us today. Mineworkers didn't sweat and die for this. We didn't dig coal to see the jobs our coal created shipped to China. We didn't walk the line for retirement security to see it snatched away from us now. And I can tell you this, brothers and sisters: Mineworkers have never and will never sit by and watch our future, the future of our children and grandchildren and the future of our country – stolen. We won't do it.

In 1890, mineworkers from all different walks of life came together in Columbus, Ohio to form the UMWA. Many of them had been victimized, but when they left there together, they were no longer victims. They had a voice.

A lot of people don't know this, but that first convention elected two black men to our board of directors. The UMWA was never a Jim Crow union. We didn't discriminate based on race, color, creed or national origin. We had a journal that was printed in 12 languages.

Those miners might sound foreign to Americans today, but they stood together not as immigrants or native born, not white or black, but as workers who shared a common fate.

And it was when they stood together that they began to build a better life.

Working in a coal mine was not a good job. Bosses cheated them on paychecks. Charged them for the tools they used. Made them do the dead work for free. Those weren't good jobs until we made them into good jobs.

When miners—who worked in holes in the ground—when those miners stood up and spoke for themselves, they spoke for all of America.

When they built a better life for themselves, they built a better life for everyone in America.

When they sent their children to college, America got a better education.

Union workers didn't just build the bridges and the highrises and the hardware stores. We built good jobs.

Well, now there are a bunch of people and corporations and front groups that want to take it all back. They want us all – all American workers, back in a hole with no voice.

Are we going to let them do it? Are we going to have an economy and a country that serves only the wealthiest? Or one in which the wonders of our bounty are shared by all?

We need to choose: Are we going to live in an America without a middle class? Or are we going to rebuild shared prosperity?

Here's the good news. We already did it once. We can do it again.

And do you know how we did it? We did it together.

Are you ready? Will you stand with me? Will you stand together?

Will you give this nation another golden age? I know you will.

When you're working in a mine, you learn about real solidarity - real courage. You watch out for one another. You learn about life in there. You learn that what you do affects everyone else.

I can remember a fire in Nemacolin. Five men were trapped. Our whole community rallied around those families, and men risked their lives to get the miners out of there. That's real family values.

There's a place near Nemacolin, and every time I pass it I remember what happened underground, beneath it. That's where Tommy Samek's dad got killed in a roof fall. Tommy's a friend of mine. I grew up with him. I think about his father every time I pass the spot. Walter was his name. Walter's farm abutted my grandfather's.

Walter was a horse of a man. He'd work the hard shift in the mine and then go out and work a full day on the farm. Those were hard-working men. It's tough to put into words the connections families can have in those circumstances. I'll just tell you I'll never forget my Uncle Steve—we called him Uncle BoBo—driving Walter's truck home that day after Walter died in that mine

You know, years ago, it used to be that you'd get fired for killing a mule, but if a man died in a coal mine they'd leave him there until the end of the shift.

A man's life was worth nothing. They thought a miner should have a strong back and no mind. We've still got mine bosses like that, throwbacks to the 1890s.

Don Blankenship. Hell, Don Blankenships are everywhere these days. They run the banks that trashed our economy. They run the deep sea oil rigs and the refineries that kill Steelworkers. They've got lobbyist offices on K Street where they plot how to buy influence.

You know, Washington D.C. is a beautiful city. For too long, though, there were just too many mean people in it.

They ran this great country for eight long years. About ran us into the ground. That kind of people never gives up anything. You want it, you better be ready to take it.

During the Civil Rights movement, people in Memphis wore signs that said, "I am a man." That's right. And we're men and women, too. We deserve better than orphans left behind by an unquenchable thirst for profit.

And the only way we're going to make this country great again is by standing up, standing together and taking it back.

I'm working on a strategy right now to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. We need it to end the corporate intimidation so every worker who wants to stand with us can do it as a proud member of a union, with a voice. But one law isn't going to make this country again. It can only clear the way.

Brothers and sisters, we have a fight to fight.

It's only 99 days until the first Tuesday in November. I don't want to hear that one of you sat this one out. If you're feeling complacent. Ambivalent. Shake it off, and get yourself together.

We're fighting for the people who raised us who are now retired and who need us to protect their dignity and their way of life.

We have a fight for the next generation of workers and the generation after them.

When you go back home, talk to your co-workers about the election. Talk to union members at their front doors. Sign up with your local or CLC and walk your communities. Give it all you've got.

The choices are clear. It's between those who stand with working families and those who stand with the Big Banks, the Blankenships.

It's a choice between Speaker Pelosi and Speaker Boehner.

It's a choice between making things right here in America and exporting quality products or exporting more jobs.

The corporate CEOs think they smell a comeback. Don't give it to them. They want to distract us by crying about the deficit. If we don't spend on jobs now, when is the right time? Later? When our Recession is a Depression?

They want to divide brother from brother, immigrants from the native born. Don't let them.

All they want to do is export more jobs, beat workers down and put this 30-year-long race-to-the-bottom into a higher gear.

We'll fight till the polls close on Nov. 2. And the day after the election, we'll pick up the fight again.

I know some of you are frustrated. We haven't achieved everything we wanted. Well, I'm frustrated too – but nobody ever said it would be easy. Nothing will be handed to us.

It's our job to fight, and it's our fight to win.

We're in this together – God help us – and together we're going to win because I know you know how.

We're going to rebuild America the same way we built this union. The same way this union built good jobs.

Together. Strong. United. Committed. With the power of solidarity. With people power. Union power.

Thank you, brothers and sisters, and God bless the U.M.W.A.

Photo: Coal miners protest Massey Energy's safety violations that caused the deaths of 25 miners April 5. (Photo by AFL-CIO, courtesy Flickr, cc by 2.0)