THE PRESIDENT:  Well, you guys don’t need advice from me, but let me tell you what I see out there.  We were hurt by this recession, badly hurt.  This is going to take some time to recover.  Unemployment is at unacceptably high levels.

But as I said before, we’d had challenges before the crisis hit.  A lot of your membership had been hurting long before, partly because we just live in a more competitive world.  There’s nothing we can do about that, that’s just the truth.  But a lot of it also had to do with the fact that we put policies in place that were not good for working families.  There’s a reason why incomes, wages, were stagnant（停滞的，不景气的） for average workers, even while the costs were going up.  And part of it had to do with the fact that we had a philosophy that said that providing help to workers, allowing them to collectively bargain, allowing them to negotiate for better benefits, that that all was something of the past instead of something we need for the future.

So on the one hand, I think everybody here understands we’ve got to be competitive in America.  We’ve got to have competitive price structures.  We’ve got to make the best products possible.  Workers have to be invested in trying to help the companies they work for succeed.  With respect to（关于，至于） public employees, we’ve all got to work together to make sure that whatever we’re doing, whether it’s as firefighters or as teachers or postal workers, whatever it is, that we’re providing the best possible service.  I think everybody understands that there’s no operation in the United States of America that shouldn’t be efficient and effective in doing what it does.

But it is my profound belief that companies are stronger when their workers are getting paid well and have decent benefits and are treated with dignity and respect.  (Applause.)  It is my profound belief that our government works best when it’s not being run on behalf of special interests, but it’s being run on behalf of the public interest, and that the dedication of public servants reflects that.

So FDR I think said -- he was asked once what he thought about unions.  He said, “If I was a worker in a factory and I wanted to improve my life, I would join a union.”  (Applause.)  Well, I tell you what.  I think that’s true for workers generally.  I think if I was a coalminer, I’d want a union representing me to make sure that I was safe and you did not have some of the tragedies that we’ve been seeing in the coal industry.  If I was a teacher, I’d want a union to make sure that the teachers’ perspective was represented as we think about shaping an education system for our future.

And that’s why my administration has consistently implemented（实施，执行） not just legislative strategies but also, where we have the power through executive orders, to make sure that those basic values are reflected.

I’m not telling anybody anything you don’t know.  Getting EFCA through Senate is going to be tough.  It’s always been tough; it will continue to be tough.  We’ll keep on pushing.  But our work doesn’t stop there.  I mean, there’s a reason why we nominated people to the National Mediation Board that would ensure that folks in the rail industry and in the air industry were going to end up having a better deal.  (Applause.)

We are going to make sure that the National Labor Relations Board is restored to have some balance so that if workers want to form a union, they can at least get a fair vote in a reasonable amount of time.  And we don’t want, by the way, government dollars going in to pay for union busting（破产，爆裂） .  That’s not something that we believe in.  That’s not right.  That tilts the playing field in an unfair way.  (Applause.)

So you’re going to have an administration that’s working alongside you.  There are going to be times where we want to get something done and we can’t get it done, at least not immediately, and we’re going to just keep on at it.  I think people have started to figure out I’m a persistent（固执的，坚持的） son of a gun.  (Laughter.)  I just stay on things if I think they’re the right thing to do.  And we should be looking for opportunities, by the way, to make sure that the labor movement is, wherever possible, finding common ground with the business community, because I want America as a whole to be competitive.

One of the problems that we’ve had over the last decade is that so often the business community sees labor as the problem, and their basic attitude is, well, you know what, we’ll just go to wherever we don’t have any problems with labor and we can pay them the lowest wages and the fewest benefits, and then just ship the stuff back here, and our profits will be good.  But over time, that hollows out（挖空） America and hollows out our middle class.  That makes us weaker, not stronger.

Now, on the other hand, when business and labor are working together, then we can compete against anybody, and we can knock down trade barriers in other countries, and we can start selling products around the world.  And we make great products in this country.  We’ve got the best workers in the world, the best universities in the world.  Got the most dynamic（动态的，有活力的） economy in the world.  We have the freest market system in the world.  And all those things give us a huge competitive advantage if we’re all working together.

So my bottom line is this:  I’m going to continue to work with all of you on behalf of working families around the country, and I’m going to continue to reach out to（接触） businesses to try to make the argument that what’s good for workers is going to be good for business.  They’re your customers as well as your workers.  And if they’ve got a decent living standard, that’s lifting the entire economy up.  And they’re going to be buying more products and they’re going to be buying more services.  And all of us are going to be growing together.  And the 21st century is going to end up being the American century just like the 20th century was.

But we’re not going to be able to do it when we’re pitted against（竞争） each other.  And I’m actually confident that once we get through some of the political posturing and shenanigans（恶作剧，诡计） that we’ve been seeing over the last several years, people are going to step back and say, you know what, the lesson we needed to learn out of hardship is, we’re all in this thing together.  We are all in this thing together.

That’s what the union movement’s always been about.  We’re stronger together than we are on our own.  That is true within individual unions.  That is true within industries.  That is true for the country as a whole.  And I hope that I will be your partner in trying to bring about that unity of purpose in the years to come.

All right?  Thank you very much, everybody.  God bless you.  God bless America.  (Applause.)  

END
11:46 A.M. EDT