So I'm sitting here in the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco watching the preparations for John Kerry's arrival. His advance team is setting up an area for the traveling press, and Secret Service bomb dogs are sweeping through the center.
Now, a year ago today, a year ago right about now actually, I was standing on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont watching Howard Dean announce that he was seeking the presidency of the United States. It was a beautiful day -- warm and sunny, with a giant throng crowding Church Street, hooting and hollering. Dean's speech, The Great American Restoration, was fantastic. I remember how proud I was and how excited I was about the possibility that we really could transform politics in the way that Dean wanted.
We came so close too. So close.
I've had this website for many months, and this blog for a few weeks now, but I've been waiting for the right moment to start it. I was waiting for something worthy of a new blog. I was waiting until I had something to add the Great American Conversation, as we used to call it on the Dean campaign. Today, I have that.
Fifty years from now, if unions exists in America--if there's a labor movement to speak of--it will be because of the vision laid out in the speech I watched today. I am in San Francisco for the quadrennial convention of SEIU, the Service Employees' International Union. And today their president, Andy Stern, threw down an impressive gantlet.
It's the fourth day I've been here in San Francisco. Another day, another day of the purple people. Today, though, was something else. If I was impressed by the four miles of purple people at Saturday's Bridgewalk, it didn't hold a candle to the very base way I was moved sitting among them today as they celebrated and plotted for the future.
In fact, this morning's opening session moved me like nothing else I've seen since I stood in Bryant Park on the Sleepless Summer Tour rally. It opened in a fashion befitting the most fly organized labor gathering ever--hip hop groups performed as dancers raced across the stage and then through the audience. Multi-colored club lights gyrated around as SEIU got its groove thang on. Andy Stern even uttered the word "booty" in his remarks.
My photos from the day, by the way, can be found here.
Anyway, a little history lesson not up on your SEIU history: 32 years ago, SEIU had its quadrennial convention here in San Francisco. It then represented 450,000 workers and the whole convention fit in one hotel. Now, Andy Stern announced today, SEIU will represent 1.8 million workers by the end of the year--that's an increase of over a million workers since 1996. The convention spreads across five hotels, fills the entire three-story downtown conference center, and has over 8,000 delegates.
That growth came during a time when the number of the 65-odd unions in the AFL-CIO that are gaining membership can be counted on one hand with some fingers left over.
The morning was about celebrating the past four years and looking ahead in a big way. We saw videos from some of the main organizing victories--Boston's janitors, Ohio's nursing homes, and Georgia's public workers. Nancy Pelosi got everyone fired up about the election and there was wild chanting of "George Bush has got to go."
But certainly the big thing today was the big thinking.
In her speech here today, Nancy Pelosi called SEIU the "biggest, baddest, and boldest" union out there. And it's so true. Andy Stern isn't willing to mess around with irritating actions or scattershot organizing. He's going methodically industry-by-industry, organizing to win.
The members are loving it, and obviously have a huge level of confidence and love for their officers. It's not hard to see why Dean did so well in this union because they are all Sterniacs -- the energy, the edge, and the enthusiasm is all there in a really serious way.
We're on the cusp of something really exciting. Andy Stern and SEIU is going to single-handedly save the labor movement or die trying. I wanted to give you a taste of some of the most visionary quotes from his keynote address today. It'll be online tomorrow, and is worth reading in its entirety, but I wanted to pass along some of the choice ones:
On the future of the labor movement:
"Sisters and brothers, it is time and it is so long overdue that we join with our union allies and either transform the AFL-CIO or build something stronger that can really change workers' lives." (Read this one again and realize what he's saying: this is a true revolution, the end to half-a-century of organized labor as we've known it.)
On globalization:
"Today's global corporations have no permanent home, recognize no national borders, and salute no flag but their own corporate logo and take their money to anywhere where they can make the most--and pay the least... So today I am asking you, SEIU’s 21st century leaders, to decide to go where no union has ever gone before to authorize SEIU to pursue alliances that will build the first truly global union in world history.”
"Today I send this message to every emerging global corporation: 'justice; family, community, and union' are the same in every language and wherever you go and whatever you do a new global labor movement is coming to find you." (This was perhaps my favorite line, and very well received.)
On politicians:
"Thank you. You know, as proud as we all are of our political work, there is still one key missing link. How to hold our public officials accountable to us--to working people. Too many politicians are after our vote the day before the election and after our throat the day after and they think we can't do anything about it. So I am asking you at this convention to set up a new political action fund to be used solely for two purposes. First, to support elected officials who our members say have shown unusual courage in standing up for working people. And second, to take those who looked us in the eye and said they were for us but then went out and betrayed us. It’s time, no matter who they are or what party they come from, to pay them back. Whether it is exposing them publicly in their districts--or finding and supporting a worthy opponent for them, we want to make sure they hear the new SEIU accountability theme song, 'Hit the road, Jack, and don't ya come back no more.'"
And lastly, on SEIU:
"All of us alone are hard working but just ordinary people but together we offer each other the most extraordinary gift -- a purple fighting union called SEIU with the power every day to change people's lives."
His closing is also worth quoting in full:
"Over the next 3 days we have a chance to make changes that will help working people win not just in our union but around the world.
"We can bring to earth a new world from the ashes of the old because our union transforms us the powerless into the powerful. And I ask you to join together in using all that power--all that strength to make the dreams of all workers and communities around the world come true.
"And if not us, then who?
"And if not now, then when?"
Folks, after being with SEIU for the last three days--and getting a preview of what the next two days will bring, it's obvious that this was the beginning of an important chapter of our nation's history. This is where it'll happen. The next ten years will either see a labor phoenix rise from the ashes of the modern day AFL-CIO or we'll see Wal-Martization happen on a scale that no one can imagine. The role that my firm will play here is not a minor one, either, and that's pretty damn exciting.
In many ways, SEIU exhibits the same traits of the Dean campaign -- this is a historical moment, and we're being given a chance to make an important contribution. The biggest difference, though, is that I have a much higher confidence that they--that we--will succeed here.
And success here is really important. I've long believed in the labor movement, but today what fell into place for me was that it's much bigger than that. We're not just fighting for workers with SEIU. The nurses and nursing home workers are fighting to provide their patients with a high level of care. The public sector workers are fighting to provide quality government services--better schools, better social work, better libraries. The building services workers are fighting for better security for our workplaces and livable wages.
This is everyone's fight. I rewrote the opening of the PurpleOcean.org to reflect some of my feelings today, and I think it better captures that what we want to spark with our organizing is not just support for organized labor -- we want to build a movement for social and economic justice larger than anything anyone has ever seen in the United States. That's the only way we can combat Wal-Mart. That's the only way we can combat Sodexho. And ultimately that's the only way we'll protect our quality of life.
Make no mistake: SEIU is doing some of the most important work of our generation. And I'm quite excited that they've asked me and my firm to help them take the lead.