Clinton addresses the Building and Construction Trades Department

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke today at the Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) 2008 Legislative Conference, where the BCTD celebrated a "century of leadership." She told the participants to think of the election as a hiring decision, and the primary as a long job interview.

She said unions build the middle class, and that the American labor movement is under assault, which is shrinking the middle class. She said she co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) to stand up for the right to organization. She also said she would stand up for the Davis-Bacon Act and fair wages, and that her plan is to raise minimum wage, and to tie minimum wage to congressional salaries. She said that when the economy is faltering, the country needs unions to "stand strong" for workers' rights, wages, and a right to affordable health care.

Clinton said that if she becomes president, she will end the war in Iraq and bring the troops home, and when the veterans come home she will take care of them with programs such as Helmets to Hardhats to get them jobs. She said she also has ideas for a program called the Rebuild America Plan to create three million more jobs, and will appoint a Secretary of Labor that is pro-labor. She also said she plans to keep defense jobs in America, create a strategic energy fund, and work on trade that is good for families.


Clinton said she thinks this is the most anti-union and anti-labor administration this country has ever had. She also thinks Sen. John McCain is "dead wrong" on important issues facing America, and that he does not understand the economy. She said right now the U.S. has lost jobs, costs are up, and there is a home and credit crisis, and that what this country needs is a labor movement like it had in the 20th century.

Other speakers at the conference were Charlie Cook of the National Journal's Cook Political Report, and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), and Joint Economic Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). Cook said he expects the presidential election to be very close, like the last two elections in 2000 and 2004. Schumer said he also supports EFCA, and wants to "go back to the days" where laborers had bargaining power, and to "bring back the middle class."

Hoyer, other representatives urge union leaders to vote Democratic

The Building and Construction Trades Department held the first of its three-day 100th annual Legislative Conference with over 3,000 union leaders from around the country. President Mark Ayers addressed the crowd and introduced guest speakers, urging the audience to support whichever Democratic candidate becomes the presidential nominee and ignore the “shameless distortions, falsehoods, and fear-mongering” of the “conservative political playbook.” He claimed that “the America we know and love, the America we have and will defend, deserves better than John McCain.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called on unions to organize for the benefit of the American middle class, citing that union membership is at its lowest since the Great Depression. He advocated inclusion of prevailing wage provisions in the Davis Bacon Act, and emphasized his approval for Congress’s recent $168 billion economic stimulus package but said he would push for more action if it proved inadequate. He also asked the crowd to stand up if they felt they were better off than they were seven years ago, and no one stood. On this note, he urged the crowd to work together to elect a candidate who would work for change.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) also addressed the crowd, and claimed that “this administration has screwed American laborers” and said that she voted against the economic stimulus package because she did not believe it was an adequate solution. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) spoke to the crowd about the need to cross party lines in order to support unions and laborers.