English subtitles for clip: File:Communications Workers of America Endorsement - Bernie Sanders.webm

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We're here today to formally endorse the next President of the United States, Senator Bernie Sanders.

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[cheers and applause]

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This has been a long process for CWA.

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This morning, our executive board, who is meeting here today and is here right now, unanimously endorsed Senator Sanders for the Presidency.

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But before that happened, for the last three months we have been conducting a grassroots poll of our members and tens of thousands of our members voted in this poll.

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More than we've ever had vote in a Presidential or any other kind of poll before and our members decided.

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And in September when we started this poll I said that this union would do whatever it was that our members decided we should do and that is the action that our executive board affirmed today.

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Our members unanimously, well, not unanimously, but our members voted decisively for Senator Sanders in this poll.

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They voted first for us to endorse because we asked them both things, whether they wanted CWA to endorse a candidate in the Presidential primary and then who that candidate should be.

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And we had every candidate that's currently running for President included in that poll and some our members voted for every single one of those candidates, but they decided decisively for Bernie Sanders.

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[cheers and applause]

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And I believe that they voted for Bernie Sanders and I gotta say that the executive board stayed out of this. We did not want to influence what our members decided.

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They decided this on their own, none of us had anything to do with how they decided and this is absolutely a democratically come to decision.

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And if you look at our members of CWA, they are a cross section of working people in the United States of America. So Bernie Sanders just won the first election that's happened in this country for President.

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[cheers and applause]

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You know, we’ve heard enough from our members to know that they decided it should be Senator Sanders because he is the candidate that they believe will fight for working families most of all the candidates that are running for President of the United States.

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And that is why they chose to vote for Bernie Sanders in this election. It is the the political and the economic time to do away with politics as usual and we know, our m embers know, Bernie Sanders is the candidate that is prepared to do that.

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He is the candidate that is prepared to fight against the big banks and Wall Street. And he is the candidate that will stand with working people in this country.

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[applause]

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It is my pleasure, brothers and sisters, to introduce to you the next President of the United States of America. Senator Bernie Sanders.

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[cheers and applause]

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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Bernie!

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[applause]

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Chris, thank you very much. My brothers and sisters, let me thank the executive board. And most importantly, let me thank the 700,000 members of the Communication Workers of America for their strong support.

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It means an enormous amount to me. You have a history of one of the great unions in the United States of America. For decades, you’ve been standing up and fighting for the rights of working families and I am so proud to be with you today in that fight.

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[cheers and applause]

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And what I know about the CWA is that your endorsement is not just a paper endorsement, it’s not just a press release endorsement.

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That we’re going to have thousands of people on the ground knocking on doors, making phone calls, and helping us as we do what needs to be done in this country and that is create a political revolution.

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So that the government of the United States is responding to the needs of working families and the middle class and not just a handful of billionaires and wealthy campaign contributors.

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[cheers and applause]

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Everybody in this room knows that the American people are angry, they are frustrated, and they have every reason in the world to be angry and to be frustrated.

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But the challenge of our time is to make sure that we do not allow demagogues to use that anger to divide us up. Our job is to bring our people together to attack the real issues, the real problems facing this country.

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[cheers and applause]

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Now, why are people angry?

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People are angry because at a time of exploding technology and a huge increase in worker productivity so that all of you and the members of the CWA, workers all over this country, they’re producing more.

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But are they gaining the benefits of that increased productivity? The answer is they’re not.

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All over America, workers are working longer hours for lower wages. In some cases, they’re working two or three jobs just to bring in the income and healthcare their families need to survive.

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If you are the male worker, male worker, in the middle of this economy in real inflation account for dollars, you’re making $700,000 less than you made 42 years ago! That’s why people are angry.

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If you're a woman worker, you’re making $1,000 less in real wages than you made in 2007.

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And yet while the middle class continues to disappear, almost all of the new wealth and income being created in America today is going to the top 1%. That’s not what our economy should be about.

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So my pledge to you is working with the CWA, working with the unions throughout our country, working with the working class and working families, we’re going to create an economy that works for the middle class and working people of America, not just the billionaire class.

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[applause]

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And you and I know that the middle class does well when trade unionism does well.

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And you and I know how difficult it is for workers around this country to try to come together and form a union because they are attacked illegally, unfairly, by employers who are making it so difficult for workers to exercise their constitutional rights.

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And that is why we are going to pass legislation which makes it easier for workers to form unions, not harder.

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[cheers and applause]

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The United States, the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee healthcare to every man, woman and child. You know what we’re going to do together?

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We’re going to change that. We’re going to pass a Medicare-for-All single-payer program.

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[applause]

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The American people, whether they’re Republicans, Democrats, Independents, understand that our trade policies for decades: NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, the TPP, has been a disaster for working families.

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Corporations wrote those pieces of legislation and they are designed to do what, in fact, has happened.

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They’re designed to allow corporations to shut down in America, throw American workers out on the street, move to China, move to other low-wage countries, and bring their products back into this country.

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Together, we are going to end those disastrous trade policies, we’re going to create trade policies which work for the working people of this country and workers abroad, not just CEOs of multi-national corporations.

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[cheers and applause]

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Real unemployment in America is not 5%. If you include those people who have given up looking for work and people are working part time when they want to work full time, real unemployment is 10%. Youth unemployment is off the charts, much, much higher than that.

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What together we are going to do is put the unemployed and the underemployed back to work...

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[cheers and applause]

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through a massive federal jobs program. We have an infrastructure today: our roads, our bridges, our broadband, our rail system, our airports, our levies, our dams, our water systems, our waste water plants.

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In many states throughout this country, that infrastructure is crumbling. We’re going to invest at least $1 trillion over a five year period to rebuild that infrastructure, to make it cutting edge, and when we do that, we’re going to create 13 million good paying jobs.

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[applause]

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This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but nobody knows it because all of the wealth and income is going to the top 1%.

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You got millions of people out there who are trying to get by, support a family, on $8, $9, $10 an hour.

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And you know what? You cannot support a family on $8, $9, $10 an hour, let alone the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. That is why together we are going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

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[cheers and applause]

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And that is $15 an hour over the next few years. It is not a radical idea to say that, in America, if somebody works full time, that person should not be living in poverty. And, by the way, we’re also going to pass pay equity for women workers.

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[cheers and applause]

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And at a time when the very, very wealthy are getting wealthier and a time when the multi-national corporations, most of them are enjoying record breaking profits, what we say to the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations, “You are going to start paying your fair share of taxes."

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Yeah!

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[cheers and applause]

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You’re not going to stash your profits in the Cayman islands and not pay a nickel in federal income taxes. The wealthiest people will pay more in taxes and you know what we’re going to do?

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In a highly competitive global economy, we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition free. We are going to lower interest rates on student debt and that’s going to be paid for by a tax on Wall Street speculation.

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[applause]

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So let me conclude by simply saying we are living, right now, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.

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And when we stand together and when we do not allow opponents to divide us up as whether we’re white or Black or Hispanic, whether we’re gay or straight, whether we were born in this country or not, men or women.

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When we stand together, we can, in fact, create a nation, create a government, which works for all of us and not just a handful of the wealthiest people.

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That is what this campaign is about and along with the CWA, we are going to win this election and we are going to transform America. Thank you all very, very much.

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[cheers and applause]