Labor Sec. Perez Rouses AFL-CIO With Pro-Worker Stemwinder
Tuesday, September 10, 2013(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
New Labor Secretary Tom Perez pretty much tossed out his script at the
AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles on Tuesday, bringing cheering delegates to
their feet with a rousing and heartfelt speech pledging worker protections,
promising that labor and the administration would do it together and with
several blasts at corporate greed thrown in for good measure.
Perez,
who’s been in the job only for a few months, invoked his working class
background in Buffalo and his mother’s faith that things happen due to God’s
will – but then he started to question that in his Sept. 10 address.
“As I grew older, I grew to conclude that
it’s not God’s will that people who work a 40-hour week should live in
poverty. That it’s not God’s will that a coal miner should not live to
see his children graduate. That it’s not God’s will that there are 11
million people in the shadows. And that it’s not God’s will to accept
the fate of Alan White,” a Steel Worker from Buffalo who is afflicted
with silicosis.
“All these challenges are man-made!
And we will fix these challenges and they will be fixed by the people in
this room. No matter who you are and no matter where you came from…we
can do it together, because I know this president and he and I share your
values. Our values are the same, and we’ll go it together and grow the
middle class, so help me God!”
Perez’ speech came the day after a video from his boss, Democratic President Barack Obama. The president had to cancel a scheduled convention address to stayed in Washington to address U.S. military intervention in the conflict in Syria. Obama instead taped a short video that got, at best, mixed reviews from delegates.
Unions and workers have high expectations for Perez, a former Maryland state labor commissioner, a son of immigrants and a former Montgomery County council member. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said two weeks ago he expects Perez to be a stronger secretary than his predecessor, former Rep. Hilda Solis, since Perez knows how to run major agencies and work with competing interests.
Perez certainly didn’t disappoint the crowd. Among his high points:
• “The labor movement is one of the greatest forces for middle-class
economic security in the history of this country. President Obama’s
vision of an economy that grows from the middle out can only be achieved if we
continue to have a dynamic and empowered labor movement.” To achieve that,
Perez promised “together we must defend that right” to organize workers so
they can bargain collectively and join the middle class. “And you have
my word that I will do my best to defend that right at the Department of
Labor.”
• Blasted cuts
in state and local government, which he said have hampered the economic
recovery. The recovery from the 2007-09 Great Recession, Perez said, “is
the first in history in which government jobs haven’t come back. “We lost
our teachers, our police, our fire fighters.” Had the governments not
cut those jobs, he added, “the unemployment rate would be well below 7%.”
That statement cheered the federation’s largest union, AFSCME, whose
members have suffered the brunt of the cuts. The Fire Fighters, who have
suffered layoffs and pension threats from budget-strapped cities, also
appreciated Perez’ comments.
• Called the economic agenda of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s. 1963
March on Washington its “unfinished business,” repeating a line that Arlene
Holt Baker, the federation’s retiring executive vice president, often uses.
“So who’s going to make up the ground where we’ve fallen short?
Who’s going to play a key role as we confront the challenge of income
inequality, secure a better bargain for the middle class, ensure our workplaces
are safe and build ladders of opportunity with sturdy rungs all people can
reach? My friends, I’m here to communicate in no uncertain terms that
the Department of Labor can, must, does and will play an active role in securing
a better bargain for the middle class.”
• Said DOL would step up its enforcement of Davis-Bacon
prevailing wage rules. Perez said DOL now has four times as many probes of
shady underpaying contractors as it did in 2008 and promised more.
“We’re now debarring egregious violators who don’t play by the
rules,” he said. Debarment bans them from federally funded
contracts.
• Said the new
proposed silicosis rule isn’t the only one to expect. That rule has
taken 40 years to announce, and the AFL-CIO has long chafed at the delay.
Perez acknowledged the gap, adding silicosis dangers were known in the
1930s. “It is a false choice to suggest we can have job creation or job
safety, but not both. Cutting corners in safety is penny-wise,
pound-foolish and can have fatal consequences. There was no economic
development in Upper Big Branch,” referring to the explosion, due to massive
safety violations, that killed 29 West Virginia miners more than two years ago.
“We’ll work to promote job creation and job safety – because it’s
the right thing to do in the United States of America!” Perez declared.
The next rule, he all but promised, will bring tens of thousands of home health
care workers under federal minimum wage and overtime
laws.
• Blasted, and
renamed, misclassifying workers as “independent contractors.” “That
sounds like a paperwork error,” Perez jabbed. “I call it what it is.
It’s fraud. It’s cheating. It’s cheating the workers, of
course. It’s cheating the honest businesses. I spoke to a
restaurateur in Maryland who was playing fair with his workers and down the
road, his competitor was paying people under the table and not paying taxes.”
Solis, Obama’s direction, started DOL’s pursuit of misclassification.
Perez, who made reversing misclassification a major goal when he was
Maryland labor commissioner, vowed to continue and support
it.
• Again strongly
supported raising the minimum wage, and stronger enforcement of wage and hour
and overtime laws. “We will be a realistic deterrent” to violators.
“And we do not need to grow this economy on the basis of low wages and no
benefits. Raising the minimum wage enables people sweeping floors and
cleaning rooms to make a living wage. We can have both. Nobody who
works a 40-hour week should have to live in poverty,” Perez declared.
“Don’t believe those who claim a higher minimum wage stifles job growth.
When you put more money in the pockets of working families, they don’t
stash it in offshore bank accounts. They spend it at the corner store.
There was a guy named Henry Ford who understood that, in 1914. He
gave his workers a raise. “When people questioned him, he replied, ‘They
have to be able to buy my cars.’ He had the right idea: When you have
worker prosperity, you have economic prosperity.”
• Thanked the labor movement, in another departure
from his text, for its strong support of comprehensive immigration reform.
“It’s an economic imperative and a moral imperative,” Perez
declared. It’s also Obama’s major domestic legislative goal this year.
The Senate passed comprehensive reform, including a path to
citizenship for 11 million undocumented people – 7.5 million workers and 3.5
million kids – earlier this year, but House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has
deep-sixed that measure. He wants separate small pieces, all more
anti-immigrant than the Senate version.
A beaming
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka introduced and thanked Perez for his
commitment. He also took a partisan jab just before the secretary spoke:
“We all know the (Senate) Republicans were attacking Tom for his vigorous
enforcement of the law. He’s done that all his life. That’s why
the Republicans went after him: He shares our values and he never backs down
from a fight.”
- Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer