I'm always telling people not to accept limits, not to imagine ourselves capable of less than our dreams. You help remind me of the power of that ideal.  Thank you for being here.

Each of you, if you will, look around. Some of you are friends. Many of you have just met. What you see are the faces of change, the future of American labor.  So what will that future be?  What will our movement be?  It’s up to you.  And your answer has everything to do with what our country will be.

That’s what we’re talking about at this summit.  It truly is a first-of-its-kind.  And it's about time.

I used the word “movement.”  A movement isn't just a gathering, like this weekend's event. It's people in action. It’s us. We have linked ourselves together—whatever the particulars of our unique circumstances, we are part of something together, we make up something.  And that's important.

Alone, as individuals, we could easily be swept aside. But we're not alone.  We share the noble goal of building a better world for millions of hard-working men and women—for each other, for parents, for single moms, for people of color, for our LGBT brothers and sisters, for people with disabilities.

This summit begins our work. It will help define and shape it, and there's no knowing where it will go from here — what our work will accomplish and engender.

But there are some things I do know.

I know that even the people in this room can’t bring change alone.  I know that we have to build a broader movement—to move entire communities by reaching out in honest, genuine partnership.

I know that we have to speak for all working people. be open to all working people, and create a movement—there’s that word again—that all working people want to be part of.  

And I know that we have to stand firm for basic principles of economic and social justice—not just stand for them but take action for them. Fight for them.  This is our country, and by God, it should reflect our values.  This weekend, it’s your job to start the conversations and craft the strategies to begin to do it.

Some of you may have heard me talk recently about why America’s workers are angry.  We have every right to be angry. Wall Street tanked our economy, killed millions of jobs, demanded and got a bailout to prevent another Great Depression and then went right back to business as usual. But today I also want you to focus on fear, which is one of the most tenacious and poisonous roots of that anger. America’s workers are scared.

The Australian video was funny—but it's also true. In our proud history, progressives and union workers marched and rallied and fought to demand—and win—civil rights laws, unemployment benefits, job creation, job safety laws, the eigh-hour day, curbs on child labor, health care in old age, Social Security and the right to organize to provide stability, security and fairness for millions upon millions of America’s workers.

The fact is that our movement helped working people gain entry to the American Dream for more than five decades, in the greatest era of broad-based prosperity the world has ever known.  During the 1970s—when American wages and productivity still rose together—workers retained a sense of security, even as foreign competition began to cut into American manufacturing and production.

That era didn't end by accident. Corporate CEOs wanted something different.  They wanted a low-wage workforce and they found allies by emboldening right-wing backers.  The turning point may have come in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 unionized air traffic controllers.  The cause for dismissal?  They had voted to stand fast for fair pay and benefits.

When President Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and ordered the hiring of permanent replacements, he proved that nothing—not even the safety of our airways—was more important than breaking a union.  He made it okay in corporate America to thumb your nose at obligations to workers.  Union contracts—who cares?  America’s social contract—whatever.  And he showed that no one was indispensable—no matter their skill, no matter their expertise, their knowledge or their commitment.   

That terrified America's workers. It stole our security. It scared us then, and it frightens us still today.

You don't need me to tell you that it's frightening out there. Our economy still has a deep hole where 11 million jobs ought to be. And no one knows whose job will be next.

President Reagan's assault was just one among many against America’s workers, who have been split by wedge issues, frightened by the flight of jobs overseas, lured by false claims about deregulation, and bled by financial institutions.

I believe we can and will fix a lot of this—and I want you to believe that and fight for that with me. But quite frankly, our economy will not return to the 1950s. The global economy is here to stay. You're not going to have the economy your parents and grandparents knew. You're not going to get a job and retire from it 30 years later. Heck, you probably don't want to.

Maybe the economy has changed beneath us, but we've got to find sure footing. Our charge–your charge–is to build a new foundation.  To rebuild power for America’s workers.

And whatever the job, whatever the problem, this we know:  There is no better way to face it, there is no better way to solve it, than together, with a collective voice.

You want to know what’s more powerful than Wall Street’s billions? What can move more people than Tea Party madness?  What’s bigger and stronger than racism and sexism and homophobia and anti-immigrant hatred?

You know the answer.  We are!  The answer is strength in numbers.  Our collective voice.  Our values.  Our action.  And don’t ever forget it.

This is a great time to be a progressive, to be in the labor movement. We have the challenge and the chance to make the difference. We're in a battle for the heart and soul of America, and the promise of this great country lies in the balance.  Maybe corporate America has taken millions of our jobs, threatened our security and played hell with our economy—but it can't take everything.

We have people power. We have boots on the ground. We have an organization that reaches into all 50 states and more than 500 communities through state federations, local labor councils and local unions.  The distance from me at the AFL-CIO, or you in this room in Washington, D.C., to a teacher in Alaska,  or an electrician in Nebraska, is just a few steps removed.  Those connections are powerful, but we'll need to be resourceful, creative and focused on what we aim to accomplish.

Our movement is young, brothers and sisters, and we have not yet been fully tested. We will be tested.

We're not just going to offer some good ideas and see the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its corporate bosses grin and give us the thumbs-up.

We all know we need to tackle the ruthless corporations, but there's something else we have to ta
ke on, something more ephemeral. It's inside our culture, maybe even inside us, inside the people we meet at work, in our neighborhoods, at school, in our families.

It's the nagging doubt—doubt planted by decades of insecurity, decades of attacks, decades of anti-worker fanaticism—that working people don’t deserve to demand a fair shake.  It's the distrust that tells us we're better off on our own.  It's that seed of fear that I talked about earlier that prevents us from proclaiming our allegiance to each other in a strong and confident voice—anywhere, at any time.

We can blame conservatives and the Chamber of Commerce. We can blame Wall Street or the boss who might fire us on a whim, but they aren't going to fix this. We are. So we have to dig down deep, find strength instead of fear, and build confidence instead of cynicism.

That’s what I’m asking you to do, and I’m asking you to help others do it. Will you do it?  Will you do it today?  And tomorrow?  And every day as long as you have the breath in you?

Millions of people live and work in silence, unable even to talk about forming unions because of the danger of harassment, intimidation or firing.

But in the backward, black-is-white lexicon of the corporate universe,it's unions — not managers — who threaten workers.

According to this twisted view of America, it's the greedy homebuyers who wrecked our economy by buying more house than they could afford, not the reckless CEOs who rigged our financial system to fail, and profited from that failure.

In this perverted view, it's the consumer who believes the large print on the credit card offer who's the problem, not the bank that cynically extends credit to customers most likely to get buried in late fees and penalties.

And it's the teachers and cops and firefighters who’re responsible for our state budget problems, not the greedy folks at the top who brought down our economy.

Are working families really the problem?  No, working people aren’t the problem.

We need to believe—to fight for—to convince others of this simple ideal: Working people deserve better.

Working people have a right and a responsibility to demand a fair share of the profits we produce.  We should not be conditioned to accept scraps from the tables of the rich and powerful. It's not greedy to work for and pursue the American dream.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting fairness and security.

Sisters and brothers, are you prepared to join hands and create a new and powerful movement to take labor and progressive America not back to what we once were, but forward to what we haven't yet dreamed we can be?

Are you ready and willing to fight to give America its future back?

Are you strong enough?  Are you committed enough?  Are you united enough?  I know that you can do it.

And together — dreaming together, working together, fighting together, marching together, winning together — we will make our movement and our country what we know they can be.