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Remarks by John J. Sweeney
President, AFL-CIO
Association for a Better New York
December 6, 1995

For me this speech is like a homecoming.  New York is where
my family build a new life in a new land; where I got my
education and my start in the labor movement; and where,
six weeks ago, I got an honor and a responsibility beyond
my greatest dreams -- the leadership of the national labor
federation, the AFL-CIO.

Addressing this audience, I feel like I'm among old
friends.  Whether your're leaders in business, labor,
government, education or community service, I feel we're
bound together by the values we share -- the sense of
mutual responsibility that defines this city and this
nation at their best.  If I come here with a warning, rest
assured that it's a friendly warning -- a call to action
from one friend to another, so that, together, we can avoid
a danger that threatens us all.

For the past six weeks, I've been trying to live up to my
campaign commitment of not just sitting behind a desk in
Washington.  So I've been crisscrossing the country trying
to solve some of the awful confrontations I inherited.

We have Boeing workers out on strike in Seattle; newspaper
workers out at the Detroit News; paperworkers still out
after 30 months at Staley in Decatur, Ilinois; and a big
dispute involving hospital workers brewing at Kaiser in
Northern California.

I have to begin by congratulating the Teamsters' track
workers for their success in bringing Metro-North to terms.
They conceived and carried out a brilliant strike strategy.
And the entire labor movement takes pride and encouragement
at what they were able to accomplish.

As some of you know, at the AFL-CIO conversion here in New
York six weeks ago, there was a great debate about the kind
of tactics our labor movement should use.

In his keynote address, my old friend and former rival, Tom
Donahue, said he was more interested in "building bridges
than in blocking bridges."  And it became a metaphor for
the issues involved in the election of our reform slate --
and for the issues facing American workers and American
business.

Tom was referring to a Service Employees local representing
janitors in Washington, D.C.  They blocked the 14th Street
Bridge for two hours one morning.  They were protesting
exorbitant tax breaks for real estate developers at a time
when our nation's capital city is going broke, services are
deteriorating, and working people are suffering.

I responded by saying that, when our employers and other
powerful people refuse to listen to the working families we
represent, then, sometimes, we have to dramatize their
plight, with tactics such as blocking bridges.

But, as I made clear at the convention, I believe in
building bridges any time the shelling stops long enough
for us to start pouring concrete and putting up steel.

We need to build those bridges because we want to be full
partners with our employers, full participants in the
economy, and full citizens of our society.

I want to build bridges between labor and management, so
that American business can be more successful, and American
workers can share in the gains.  When we do this, we'll
build bridges for the working poor to climb into the middle
class; bridges for the middle class to continue the great
American journey of generations progress; and bridges over
troubled waters in a nation increasingly divided along the
lines of color and class.

At its best, this city and this nation have build these
bridges -- and all our people have benefitted.  From the
Roosevelt administration until the Reagan Era, business,
labor, and government in the United States were busier
building bridges than blocking them.

Sure, we had some bumps along the way.  But, for the most
part, we reaped the rewards of a unique economic and social
compact, especially here in this city.

My father was a bus driver, a member of the Transport
Workers Union.  Some of my earliest memories are of going
to union meetings with him and listening to Mike Quill.
Those were tough times,  But you knew that, if you worked
hard, you could earn more money and live a better life.

Employers knew that, if they paid their workers fairly and
plowed a little of their profits back into their
communities, they could count on employee loyalty and
healthy consumer spending, which has always made up
two-third of our economy.

President Kennedy found a simple but eloquent way to
describe this successful social and economic compact: "A
rising tide lifts all boats."

When things were good, as they were for almost 30 years
after the end of World War II, we all prospered because we
prospered together.  We were concerned with raising the
standard of living for working Americans, not just
accumulating enormous wealth for a fortunate few.

When things broke down, we fixed them -- together.  And you
know that better than anyone.

Twenty years ago, when this city faced up to and solved the
worst fiscal crisis in its history, you did it together.

Lew Rudin must have seen it coming when he foundd this
organization in 1971.  The Association for a Better New
York saved the New York City payroll four times by
encouraging the pre-payment of real estate taxes by many of
the organizations represented in this room.  You did your
part, and you should be proud.

And labor did its share as well, as people like Ed Cleary
and Jack Sheinkman and Victor Gotbaum recall.

We used our political clout in Albany to pass legislation
allowing the city to abrogate our own contracts.  And we
poured our pensions into bonds to keep the city afloat.

We did it because we knew that, when things were better, we
would all recoup our losses -- business and labor alike.
We did it because we had some unwritten rules -- a social
compact -- that we lived by.

Unfortunately, those days are gone.

Thanks to the work of the Association for a Better New
York, some semblance of our great labor-business-government
compact continues to function in this city.

But, in the rest of the country -- in Los Angeles and
Seattle and Detroit and Washington, D.C. -- the only rule
is that you take what you can get away with.

After getting whacked by the oil embargo, American business
decided the best way to complete in the global economy was
by driving down labor costs.

Not by innovation, not by Yankee ingenuity, not through
labor-management cooperation, not by insisting on
international social standards and rights for workers ..
but by squeezing the last possible ounce of productivity
our of American workers and then throwing them on the
scrapheap of unemployement or old age with reduced pensions
and health insurance coverage.

Since 1979, all of the income growth in our country has
gone to the top 40 percent of households -- and nearly all
of that went to the top 20 percent.  Well, that isn't the
way American built the world's largest middle class -- and
the world's strongest economy.

Henry Ford used to say he wanted to pay his workers enough
to afford the cars they were building.

Now, old Henry must be spinning in his grave: The average
price of a car has jumped 70 percent in the past 10 years,
while family incomes have climbed only 40 percent.

The business community, our political leaders, and our mass
mdia - - they all love to celebrate the American work
ethic.  But look at what has happened to the American
worker.

Think of the fellow who used to do America's heavy lifting,
the working man whose formal education ended with his high
school diploma.  Over the last 20 years, his real income
dropped by 30 percent.  And now, it takes two and three
wage earners to support a family.

Meanwhile, corporate profits are up, up, up.  In fact,
according to Business Week, they're at a 45-year high.

The stock market is up.  Productivity is up -- it has been
since the late 1970's -- nad it's way out front of
compensation.

This past year, workers' wages and benefits increased only
2.8 percent -- the lowest since 1981 -- while productivity
was up 3.4 percent.

Twenty years of declining wages and disappearing benefits
are taking their toll on American life.  There's a
free-floating anger among hardworking people for whom the
american dream is turning into a handful of ashes.

For a growing number of American workers, blocking bridges
seems like the very mildest form of protest.  And that's
not what their union leaders are telling them -- that's
what their daily lives and telling them.

I was in Europe last week, traveling with President
Clinton, and I couldn't help but be impressed with what is
going on in France.

In this country, when we're faced with cuts in vital
services that benefit workers and the poor, we shut down a
few parts of the government.

In France, the workers shut down the country -- even though
only 8 percent of the work force is organized!

I hope it never comes to that here in America.  But,
increasingly, American workers are down on their
government, down on their employers, and down on their
future.

There's a new Times-Mirror poll that say 66 percent of
Americans are concerned about being able to pay for health
care if a family member gets sick.

Fifty-seven percent are very concerned that their children
will not have good job opportunities.  Forty-eight percent
say they are concerned about not having enough money for
retirement, 44 percent not having enough to afford college,
34 percent worried about losing their job or taking a cut
in pay.  These numbers are all up 6 and 7 percent over
March, 1994.

A majority of the same repondents said they think business
makes too much profit.  And the vast majority say business
doesn't value its employees, its customers or the
communities they supposedly serve.

Another poll dramatized how workers feel about their
employers.  The great majority of workers, it found, care
a great deal about their work, but they no longer give a
damn about their employers.  And that's not surprising when
you remember that their employers don't give a damn about
them!

This cycle of cynicism is eating away at our economy, which
depends on consumer confidence and business optimism in
order to thrive.

American workers are running out of money -- and running
out of hope.  This holiday season, they are also loaded
down with debt, and that is why retail sales are lagging.
And, increasingly, people are blaming business -- and
blaming their bosses -- for their precarious economic
situation.

Are they correct in where they place the blame?  Take a
look at this picture:

Chase Manhattan and Chemical Bank announce a merger that
will put 12,000 people out of work -- and their stock goes
up.

Does a rising tide now sing most ships -- except for the
luxury yachts?

What's wrong with this picture?  Caterpillar inventories
are fat, and sales are good, so they decide to install a
two-tier wage system, schedule work on the weekends without
paying overtime, and reject pattern bargaining.

They force their workers out on strike, commit 300 unfair
labor practices, and rack up record profits while they are
doing it.

After a year and a half, the workers are forced to come
back to work without a contract because labor law
enforcement is too slow to help them.

How about this picture, right here at home:

Citibank, which says is has a community commitment to New
York City, decides to cut its building maintenance costs.
So it replaces a cleaning contractor, whose workers are
protected by a contract with an AFL-CIO union, with a
contractor covered by a sweetheart contract with a
so-called "independent" union.

The new contractor replaces career janitors earning
$15-an-hour with transients making $7.00-an-hour with no
health benefits, who then have to depend on food stamps,
AFDC, rent subsidies, and charity hospital care just to
survive.

Citibank says, "It's not our responsibility."

And this picture:  Gannett and Knight-Ridder are rolling in
dough, so they decide they can afford a big strike.  They
force 2,000 Detroit News workers into the street for
reasonable wages and job security.  K-Mart, which is nearly
bankrupt because American workers don't have enough money
to spend, keeps the strike going.  They're the only major
advertiser to refuse to pull their ads.

And this picture: striking machinist finally negotiate a
tentative agreement with Boeing Aircraft to end a 50-day
strike.  Boeing torpedoes the settlement by announcing $2.5
million in executive bonuses on the very day workers are
voting!

What's wrong with these pictures?  For American workers and
their families, they are snapshots from hell.

Writing in the New York Times last January, Louis Uchitelle
added words to the pictures.

"Something is wrong with America's economic boom," he
wrote.

"After four years of ever-stronger growth, people's wages
should be going up faster than their expenses.  For most
people, they're not, and this is the first time in decades
that a recovery has gone so long without putting more money
in more pockets.  And now, if the recovery runs out of
steam in 1995 -- as so many economists predict -- that
money might never show up."

As The Times and dozens of other media have recently
discovered, raising wages has recently become the number
one issue in our country.  And next year's elections will
revolve around who can offer credible ideas not only for
generating jobs but for increasing incomes.  Look for some
smart candidates and their campaigns to hand signs in their
headquarters with this slogan: "It's wages, stupid."

American workers and their families are suffering as they
haven't suffered since the Great Depression.  And I'm
convinced that business is going to suffer as well, if we
don't close what is commonly called the "wage gap" and
remedy the excesses of our new "winner take all" economy.

Let me offer all of you a sophisticated economic theory I
learned in college -- the carrot and the stick.  The
"stick" is this:

On behalf of workers and their families, the leadership of
the new AFL-CIO is going to challenge our unions to get
busy doing what we are supposed to do.

It's not just happenstance that our nation's 20-year wage
decline has coincided with a 20-year decline in the power
and effectiveness of  the labor movement.

I firmly believe, and I know some of you agree, that strong
unions are vital to a thriving, high-wage economy.  But,
quite frankly, we haven't been holding up our end of the
stick.

As I said in my acceptance speech at the AFL-CIO convention
six weeks ago, our problem is stagnant wages -- America
needs a raise.  The solution is a larger, stronger, smarter
labor movement.

We're going to renew and rebuild our labor movement by
pouring vast resources into organizing from the Sunbelt to
the Rustbest and from software writers to sweatshop
workers.  Our message to American workers is simple and but
powerful: Whether you wear a blue collar, a white collar,
a new collar, or no collar, we can help you make your job
better.

We're going to be stronger and we are going to take it to
greedy employers who've been picking our pockets and they
trying to tell us we stupidly lost our wallets.

Now, let me offer you the "carrot" I promised:

Labor's victories can be your victories, too.  With decent
paychecks, we can buy your products and services.

With a little respect -- as that song says -- we can help
you compete in the global economy.  We are going to
challenge American business to use our brains as well as
our backs, to let workers and their unions contribute to
your decision-making process, to let us help you make the
hard choices that affect our family budgets as well as your
bottom lines.

For American business, this is our message: If you choose
to join us in building a bridge between management and
labor, then together we can build a path to a new shared
prosperity for American business and American workers.  The
choice is yours -- and the benefits can belong to you, to
us, and all Americans.

I want to leave time for questions, so I'll close by saying
that, especially here in New York City, the labor movement
has always been interested in building bridges -- and much,
much more.

Our Housing Investment Trust, for instance, has invested
more than $1.5 billion of union pension  funds in
union-built housing projects nationwide.  And, here in the
New York area, it has financed over 2,000 units of housing,
with a value of over $64 million, and we're looking to do
more.

Recently, the Trust joined with the New York City Housing
Development Corporation to provide financing for the
1,000-unit West end Towers in Manhattan.  Our $22 million
helped this $156 million project go forward.

Earlier this year, the Trust committed $28.9 million in
construction and permanent financing for the Queens
Boulevard extended care nursing facility.

We are also reviewing several additional investments in the
New York area.  Among them are the Daly Avenue apartments
in the South Bronx and the rehabilitation of a 2,000-unit
co-op in Brooklyn.

I want you to know that the AFL-CIO Housing Investment
Trust and our newer Building Investment Trust both love New
York.  And we are anxious to work with more New York
developers, community groups, non-profits, and labor
organizations.

In a strange twist of fate, our trusts have money to invest
at a time when our members don't have much money to spend.

We'd like to have your help in putting more of our money
into your pockets through partnerships like the Housing
Investment and Building Investment Trusts.  And we'd like
to have your help in putting bigger paychecks into the
pockets of our workers and their families.   That way, they
can afford more of your good and services and condominiums
and apartments!

Labor and management should be builders not brawlers.
Together, we can build a better New York and we can reclaim
and rebuild America.  So let's get to work.

Thank you very much...