Presented by Ken Georgetti on Thursday, 17 September 2009

Sisters and Brothers it is my honour to bring you greetings of solidarity from the Officers and the 3.2 million workers who are members of the Canadian Labour Congress.

Congratulations to Rich Trumka, Liz Shuler, Arlene Holt Baker and the new AFL-CIO Executive Council members.

Our two great countries share the world’s longest undefended border – a testament to our friendship.

Our two great countries are each others’ largest trading partners – a testament to our mutual interests.

And no two great countries’ labour movements have ever worked so closely together on our shared values, for so long... as those of Canada and the United States – a testament to our solidarity.

We truly are Brothers and Sisters across our border.

Today it is my great honour to salute the incredibly strong leadership that President John Sweeney has given the AFL-CIO since 1995!

President Sweeney has not only guided the American labour movement with wisdom and determination, he has provided inspired leadership to organized labour right around the world – and has helped make life better for workers globally.

There can be no more important contribution that any of us could make.

It has been my pleasure to work with Brother Sweeney since I became CLC President in 1999.

He has been a great ally for Canadian labour and a great friend and mentor to me.

So, I would like to present President Sweeney with this gift. A piece of First Nations’ art we commissioned in honour of his years of service to working people in the United States, and around the world.

It was carved for him by a west coast native artist.

The Eagle sees and hears all and sits in the east on the Aboriginal medicine wheel – which is the direction of leadership and courage.

And I know that your new President Rich Trumka will take up the torch from Brother Sweeney and continue to make his own valuable contributions to this great labour movement that we all love.

You know, in these troubled economic times, it pays to listen to good working class investment advice from me – not the high-falutin’ advice you get from guys in $4,000 suits with red suspenders.

Here’s why – if you had invested $1,000 in Lear Corporation at the beginning of 2008 your investment would now be worth just $18.04.

The same $1,000 invested in the AIG Group at the beginning of 2008 would only be worth $11.82.

If you put that $1,000 into Nortel Networks’ shares and they’d now be valued at only $8.40.

But if you would have bought $1,000 worth of Molson's Canadian beer beginning in 2008, you’d have felt better about tough times for months – and after that – the deposit on all those empty beer bottles holding steady at sixty dollars!

So my advice to you is keep your assets liquid and always recycle!

I want to tell you that other than buying beer and making more money than investing in the stock market, the Canadian Labour Congress and its affiliates have been busy – and doing pretty well.

The reason is a simple one – our unions and the CLC have worked extremely hard to maintain high-union density in Canada.

My experience tells me we got there through political action and support for politicians and political parties that support us.

I was so impressed with President Obama’s remarks, and his courage and conviction.

His unyielding determination to govern for the majority and push through an agenda for working people is awesome.

We have our own political party in Canada – the New Democratic Party.

We’ve achieved some great things when the NDP has been in charge and even when they were a strong opposition.

Canada’s high-union density of about 30% brings with it a powerful degree of political strength – and through our political action campaigns we are using it to win fundamental changes for the benefit of our 3.2 million members.

Let me give you some of the highlights – not to be boastful but to encourage our American Sisters and Brothers to continue your strong efforts to regain higher union density in your country – a goal that Brother Sweeney has energetically pursued and that Brother Trumka will follow with equal vigour.

First, when 26 miners were killed due to the reckless negligence of the company owners in 1992 at the Westray Coal Mine explosion in Nova Scotia, their union – the Steelworkers – the CLC, and our affiliates were appalled and outraged.

So we made it a priority to demand federal government legislation that would hold corporations and executives criminally responsible for the deaths of workers on the job through corporate negligence.

And through a tough, long campaign, we won that legislation – named the Westray Bill in honour of those fallen workers.

Today in Canada, corporations and executives found guilty of corporate negligence causing workers’ deaths face not only fines but also jail sentences.

Secondly, we have recently achieved another major objective of our political action plan – and a timely one – federal legislation that provides the most significant protection ever for workers whose companies in Canada go bankrupt.

Each year more than 20,000 workers will benefit from this new bankruptcy protection – and that more than $50 million will go to workers to cover their unpaid wages, vacation pay and missed pension contributions, instead of going into creditors' pockets.

Never again will a judge or bankruptcy trustee be able to override a collective agreement to take away workers’ money!

A key reason for our success, as I said, is that with union density comes the capacity for significant political action.

In recent years the Canadian Labour Congress and our labour councils helped elect more than 800 labour-endorsed mayors, city councillors and school trustees across the country.

Those elected officials are supporting the goals of organized labour, including hiring unionized workers and using local procurement and fair wage policies.

Federally we still have more work to do but through carefully targeting ridings with large numbers of union workers, the CLC and affiliates helped our political party, the New Democratic Party, win its second highest number of Members of Parliament ever.

And now we have new goals.

The CLC is calling on all federal politicians to double Canada Pension Plan retirement income benefits – the Canadian equivalent of your Social Security plan for retirees.

We propose to double the proportion of average earnings paid by the Canada Pension Plan – from 25% to 50% over 7 to 10 years.

This would give every worker about $20,000 per year, indexed to inflation, for life, guaranteed by the government.

This change is critical – because as we all now know, both pension plans and private retirement investments have been devastated by the economic disaster.

Working people who have spent their entire lives building our country and paying taxes are seeing their dreams of retirement in dignity turn into a nightmare – and that’s totally unacceptable.

So I know that with a strong and determined effort the Canadian labour movement will win this important change and dramatically improve the lives of all working people as a result.

One other thing I want to mention that we achieved by working to elect people who look and think like us.

Over 50 years ago, a prairie preacher, Tommy Douglas – who was just voted the most important Canadian in our history – in 1947 he introduced public hospital insurance in the Province of Saskatchewan.

In 1957, public hospital insurance was adopted federally.

Then in 1962, Douglas introduced public medicare.

The doctors went on strike for three weeks in protest but it fizzled out and public medicare was won in Saskatchewan.

In 1966, under extreme public pressure led by the union movement, our federal parliament created a national medicare program.

I’ve been listening to some of the debate here and stories being told about the Canadian system.

I find it amazing.

I have asked hundreds of Canadians if they would give up our system for the American system.

Not one has said yes.

And I tell you this, if there ever was a politician who tried to eliminate our single-payer, government-funded medicare program, it would end their political career.

In conclusion, I urge you to strongly support the efforts of the AFL-CIO and your union leadership to organize, organize, organize and to fight to increase union density in the United States.

To fight for the Free Choice Act.

To fight for medicare.

Your Sisters and Brothers in the north are doing the same and the results are clear – the more union members we have, the better governments we can elect and the better society we can create for all.

Thank you for listening and have a great convention!