Washington, D.C.
12:38 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Hello. (Applause.) It’s a good day. (Applause.)
Thank you, Acting Secretary Su.
AUDIENCE: Thank you, Joe! Thank you, Joe! Thank you, Joe!
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. I — I had no choice. (Laughter.) My grandfather would come down from Heaven if I didn’t do this. (Laughter.)
(Coughs.) Excuse me, I have a little bit of a cold.
Folks, you know, this is an incredible honor. I really mean that. And I want to thank Acting Secretary Su and the Department of Labor for this incredible honor.
You know, I measure the importance of the — any award I ever received based on the character and consequence of the organization that’s bestowing it. And the Department of Labor is an organization of character and consequence. And I’m honored — (coughs) — I’m honored to be joined today by leaders of character and conscious, many of them sitting right here in the front row. Half of my Cabinet is here. (Laughter and applause.)I want to thank all — all the labor leaders here today, including Liz and the AFL-CIO; members of the Cabinet, including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. You know, you talked about that list that she — that the secretary brought in her pocket when she met with Trump — I mean, with Roosevelt — Trump? — Freudian slip — (laughter) — and — but I — I think she had a relative she left behind. Would you stand up, Madam Secretary — secretary of Interior? (Applause.)
I’ve been around a long time, and she’s the only secretary I’ve ever worked with or had working for me who when I say, “That’s done,” she’d — “No, no, no. We have this to do now.” (Laughter.) Thank you, kiddo.
Look, you know, former Labor secretary, who is now in the White House, senior advisor (inaudible), is Tom Perez. (Applause.) Where is he? Tom, thanks for sticking with me. And members of Congress, including Maine — Maine senator, Angus King, and Cherlie [Chellie] Pingree — where — where is Ch- — where are you guys? All over here. Okay. There you are. (Applause.)
And, by — and, by the way, last night, we were doing a — a Christmas event at the house, and I got finished talking to a group of folks from Labor, and my wife said, “And, by the way, his wife is a member of a labor union too.” (Laughter and applause.) I’m Jill Biden’s husband. She’s not here today, but she’s been a long-time union member of the National Education Association. (Applause.)
And it’s fitting, with all these powerful women here, that we’ve gathered at headquarters of the Department of Labor, named after one of America’s greatest labor leaders — and that’s not hyperbole — Frances Perkins.
You know, we’re honored to be joined by her grandson, Tomlin. Where are you, Tomlin? (Applause.) Thank you, bud.
Saturday, March 25th, 1911, Frances sat down for afternoon tea at her home with a close friend from New York City. Suddenly, they hear the sound of a distant screams and sirens. The building was in flames. Her instinct was to run to the scene.
As she approached the fire and smoke, she recognized the Triangle Shirt[waist] Factory, a company that employed hundreds of workers, mostly immigrants and women, who worked long hours crammed into tight quarters, where managers locked them inside to make clothing.
In an instant, those workers were trapped in a brutal blaze. With no safe exit, some workers forced to climb out the windows, holding on for dear life until their fingers gave out. Others just jumped — prayed and jumped.
A total of 150 lives were lost that day. It was the deadliest industrial disaster in American history.
Frances was devastated. But that fire ignited a passion in her. It strengthened her resolve to fight even harder for working Americans and working families.
In her decades of service, she became a fierce defender of unions and workers’ rights, an architect of the New Deal, the first woman Cabinet secretary — the first woman Cabinet secretary. I increased on that a little bit — (laughter) — because I know what my family is like. All of — all the really bright people in my family are women. (Laughter.) And the longest-serving secretary of Labor in American history, God love you.
And the story goes, after Franklin Roosevelt asked her to become his Labor secretary, Frances Perkins immediately responded by outlining her goals, what she wanted done. She said, “I want unemployment relief, overtime pay, child labor laws, minimum wage, worker’s compensation, national health insurance, and Social Security” — (laughs) — many of the benefits we take for granted as a consequence of Frances’s dedication to inciting courage. But that — can you imagine walking up to Roosevelt and saying, “Hey, I’ll take the job, but here’s the deal, man.” (Laughter.) “Let’s get this straight.” Like I said, a little bit like when I asked Frances to do my job.
Hard-fought battles and — with Teamsters and, you know, at her — look, a real testament to her skill as an advocate for public servants.
An example that, through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she cemented the idea that if you’re working a full-time job, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty — a simple proposition. If you work a little extra, you should have extra money for overtime. Not a crazy idea. Even — some even argue about it now.
Frances understood what my dad taught me, and I — you’ve heard me say this a thousand times, but it — he really would say this. He said, “Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in the community. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay,’ and mean it.” That’s my dad.
In fact, during her 12 years in office, she accomplished everything on her list, except expanded health care for health insurance. It took 65 years later and a guy named Barack Obama and I to get the Affordable Care Act passed. (Applause.) And thank God all of us here have protected and expanded the Affordable Care Act.
Look, it’s clear that Frances Perkins and a generation of activists and labor leaders laid the groundwork for much of what we’ve accomplished in the last four years.
We’re fundamentally transforming the economy by breaking an economic orthodoxy that has failed this nation for generation after generation, in my view: trickle-down economics, the notion that if you — every — the wealthy do very, very well, a little will trickle off — off their tables onto our kitchen table.
My dad used to say, “Nothing ever trickled on my table, honey.” (Laughter.) No, I’m serious.
My dad was a really well-read man who didn’t get to go — he went — accepted to Johns Hopkins, but during the war, he never got to go. But my dad was a well-read guy.
Well, you know, the primary benefits to the very wealthy and the biggest corporations were trickle-down economics, and that didn’t do much for working people and the middle class and left too many people behind.
Together, we built an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, and because we know this simple truth: Wall Street didn’t build America; the middle class built America, and u- — (applause) — and unions built the middle class. (Applause.) Un- — and that’s a fact. In fact, as th- — as the secretary of Treasury will tell you, I asked her to do a study because I was going to get hit, because I knew they’d say by having unions increase in their numbers and their wages go up, we were going to cost people thing. Guess what? The study the Treasury did showed that when unions do well, all workers do well -– union and non-worker [non-union], across the board. (Applause.)
It matters. It works. It’s fair.
Kamala and I are so proud of the great job creation record of any — actually, the greatest job correction [creation] of any single president in a single term: over 6 [16] million jobs so far, including over 1.5 million manufacturing and construction jobs — good-paying jobs you can raise a family on and don’t have to require a four-year degree. And get this: There are more women, especially mothers, in the workforce than ever before in American history. (Applause.)
We’re so damn proud to have protected pensions of millions of union workers and retirees — (applause) — when I signed the Butch Lewis Act. You know, think about that. Imagine what the average American would say if you were going to do that with their Social Security, which this guy wants to do. Imagine if he said, “Your pension, you can’t count on it anymore.”
In addition, we’ve recovered more than $1 billion in back wages and damages for over 600,000 workers here in America. (Applause.)
We wo- — we’ve pushed for a right to a living wage and your right to overtime pay.
Jobs and factories are coming back home to America because we invested in the American agenda. We’re modernizing American infrastructure. Last time, this guy had — last guy had the job, he had “Infrastructure Week” every week — didn’t build a damn thing. (Laughter.) Well, guess what? We’re — we built a lot. And guess what’s coming?
Look, folks, one of the things that is frustrating — I knew this was going to happen because I’ve been around a long time, and I talked over to the secretary of Agriculture and other places. Guess what? All the things — we have $1.4 trillion in economic — in — in infrastructure growth. That’s thousands of good-paying jobs.
The CHIPS and Science Act investing billions of dollars — billions of dollars — building these fabs that are going to house hundreds of people working, thousands, and they’re going to be ba- — getting paid about average of $102,000 a year and don’t need a college degree.
So much — so much is going on. But it’s going to take a little bit of time. But we got to make sure to ...
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