It is truly a privilege to speak to this conference today. It is always an honor to share a stage with Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO, a true friend and warrior on behalf of working people everywhere and a real honor as well to follow Margie Alt of Environment America.

Brothers and sisters of the Steelworkers Union, of the Service Employees International Union, of the Communications Workers of America, of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council we are proud to join you today as an active, progressive, aggressive and militant member of the Blue Green Alliance.

Because we’re new to the Blue Green Alliance it’s only fair that we introduce ourselves so you know what you’re getting into and so you know who we are what we do what we stand for and what we fight for.

We are a half-million men and women who build America. We build highways and transit systems, wind farms and sewer systems, we remove hazardous waste, asbestos and lead to make buildings safe where our children live and where you work.

And like you we are genuinely concerned about our environment and deeply committed to creating good jobs.

Our members fight for better pay to support their families … they fight for health care … our members fight for more jobs so they and millions of workers like them can share the wealth of our nation …we fight for retirement security so there is dignity after decades of construction work that wears away at the human body.

We fight for respect and let me tell you one more thing … we fought like hell to end eight years of worker repression by electing Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States … and there was no bigger party, no bigger celebration on election night than at the Laborers International Union of North America.

Today our country is standing at one of the most significant moments in our history, a time of crisis and opportunity. For environmentalists and for trade unionists there is hope like never before in our lifetimes.

As we move forward together our unity will never be shattered as long as we remember two things: One, it does no good to care for the Earth, if we don’t care for the people on it. And two, if it doesn’t put green in working people’s pockets it’s not a green collar job … if it doesn’t enlarge and strengthen the middle class, it’s not a green collar job.

For too long we have allowed some corporations to hold a gun to our heads and demand that we chose jobs, or chose the Earth.

It’s a false choice and today we have the power to push that gun aside -- the time of the Blue Green Alliance is now.

We also won’t be trapped into other false choices. We don’t have to chose between highways or rail because we need both … we won’t draw false lines between fix it or build it … because we have to do both.

Today across America, the backbone of our country is in decay and it is costing us lives, making us less competitive and destroying our environment. Our wastewater systems contain so many cracks and leaks that billions of gallons of sewage seeps into waterways every year. Our highways are so traffic-clogged that the typical motorist wasted nearly $1,000 last year in gas and emitted millions of pounds of carbon into the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, our transit systems are stretched beyond limits, with usage increasing 25 percent since the 1990s while investment falls short by half.

We share a dream to build America so America works through an economy in which every worker who builds green can afford a hybrid car, and every worker who is struggling to keep their house warm can join the struggle against global warming.

We are making progress. Members of our union have developed a cooperative and profitable relationship with one of the most successful real estate developers in the northwest,
Gerding Edlen Development Company. Gerding Edlen builds green, pays union wages and makes a profit.

Yesterday you heard about Gamesa Corporation and their positive relationship with the United Steelworkers.

But despite progress, other workers building components for non-union solar and wind power corporations do not earn enough to support their families, even though their employers receive millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

A survey of major wind and solar manufacturing plants contained in a report LIUNA and others commissioned showed that more than a fourth of those employers did not pay enough to support a family of two.

A wind blade manufacturer in Iowa took over a shut down appliance factory where workers had made $19 an hour. They were given $2 million in state taxpayer money, and then paid workers $5 an hour less, moving them from family-supporting pay to just barely making it.

That’s not the promise of a green economy that the Obama Administration and all of us envision.

Under the President’s economic recovery proposal, we are on the verge of dramatically increasing funding for residential weatherization, providing $6.1 billion to weatherize 2 million homes.

The 78,000 men and women who would do the work must have a living wage, they must have health care benefits and they must have skills training to create a career path.

The foundation LIUNA has put in place over the last century can be the foundation that efficiently and effectively helps build the green economy. We have more than 60 training centers, available in every state, providing both basic construction and environmental skills crucial to green construction.

We are working with elected officials and with community groups such as “Green for All” to develop additional environmental coursework and to address local hiring needs to make sure new opportunities exist for those who have been shut out in the past.

Our training program is one of the best adult continuing education programs in the world – and it is free to workers. In just the past year, 100,000 LIUNA members received construction and environmental skills training to meet the needs of contractors and open the door to future opportunities for our members.

The partnership in this room will insist on the federal investment that is needed – and we will make sure that taxpayer subsidies help create good jobs, with prevailing wages and living wages that don’t drive communities further down.

The fact is the vast majority of green jobs for the foreseeable future will not be created by businesses alone, but rather through partnerships between business and government in the form of subsidies, incentives or outright contracts.

All of these businesses will owe their success to workers and taxpayers. To safeguard workers and our economy, we must fight for, win and enforce basic standards. Wherever taxpayer dollars are used, whether as subsidies, incentives or direct contracts on green construction projects, payment of federal prevailing wages must be required to ensure that transforming our economy to a green economy doesn’t drive down local community living standards.

Bad corporate behavior must not be rewarded with taxpayer money.

Contractors who thrive on low-ball bids based on cutting labor costs to the bone should no longer automatically receive work.

Responsible contractor clauses and best value contracting policies -- covering both employers and investors -- must be put in place to ensure that contractors who bid for work disclose their safety records, training opportunities and benefits policy, and whether they respect the freedom of their employees to join a union.

On that note, we are grateful that you have joined us to fight for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act to help workers freely choose to make every job a good union job.

We may have elected Barack Obama president, but our fight isn’t over. The last two weeks is proof of that as Republicans try to throw up roadblocks to every effort to get our economy moving again with a recovery bill to create good jobs.

Investing in working people is too much for them. These are the same people who for eight years couldn’t find Osama Bin Laden, couldn’t find weapons of mass destruction and now can’t find half of the $700 billion they tossed to Wall Street.

Brothers and sisters, they will fight us every inch of the way.

As I look out into the faces in this crowd, I see the heart and soul of the union movement and the environmental movement, warriors for change, liberators of working people. We never back up and we never back down – no retreat and no surrender, you are the spark that lights the fire of a worker revolution and an environmental revolution.

The Rev. Joseph Lowry, a great man, a leader and a great American, often asks, “What time it is” … it’s time to get back to our activist roots, to replace Wall Street with Main Street, to put workers first, to realize, with all due respect, that the most valuable asset in America isn’t corporate America, it’s working people.

So as we continue our partnership to invest in green jobs and good jobs, let us stand together, let us stay together, let us fight together and let us win together.
Let us change the course, the direction, the destiny of our movement, of our environment, of our country and of our world.