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.”
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Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer