DSA 2001 Convention
Keynote Address

Eliseo Medina
International Executive Vice President,
Service Employees International Union

Eliseo Medina learned the meaning of a union in workers’ lives in 1965 when, as a 19-year-old grape-picker, he participated in the historic United Farm Workers’ strike in Delano, California. Over the next 13 years, working alongside the UFW’s legendary Cesar Chavez, he honed his skills as a union organizer and political strategist by running hundreds of union elections, organizing the grape boycott and negotiating farmworkers’ first union contracts.

Today, after more than 30 years in the labor movement, he is one of the nation’s most visionary leaders, whose infectious energy has inspired thousands of workers to make their dreams real. In 1996, he made history when he was elected as the first Mexican-American to a top leadership post at the 1.4-million member Service Employees International Union, the nation’s largest union.

As International Executive Vice President of SEIU based in Los Angeles, Medina has helped make SEIU the fastest-growing union on the West Coast and the largest union in California.

Medina was appointed by AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney to the labor federation’s Special Committee on Immigration Policy. Medina’s leadership was instrumental in the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s historic shift in immigration policy in February 2000. Medina’s work on immigration policy is deeply felt; when he was nine years old, his mother, insistent upon reuniting the family, led Medina and his siblings across the U.S.-Mexican border to join their father, who was an immigrant farmworker in the U.S. In Los Angeles, he’s helped strengthen ties between the Catholic Church and the labor movement to work on common concerns such as immigrant worker rights and access to health care.

He was a key strategist in the recent Los Angeles strike by SEIU Local 1877’s building service workers, who in April 2000 won the largest wage increases in the 15-year history of SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign. In addition, he helped more than 100,000 homecare workers in California—most of whom work for minimum wage to assist seniors and people with disabilities remain independent in their homes—secure $100 million in the state budget for raises and health care benefits this year.

Medina resides in Los Angeles. He is married and the father of three
children.


Let me say how much I appreciate your invitation to be here with you tonight. And I wanted to say that, when I got the invitation, I really wanted to be here tonight for three reasons. The first reason is that I wanted to thank you, the Democratic Socialists of America, for answering the call when America needed you. You know the DSA has been the consistent strong voice of progressive America, and at a time when we are facing a difficult situation in this country, you continue to stand up and speak for the issues of workers’ rights, civil rights, and for social justice. And I want to say to you how much that means to the people of America, because, thanks to you and your efforts, America is a better place for all of us. Thank you for everything you’ve done.

But the second reason I wanted to be here with you tonight is personal. You know, I came to this country when I was 10 years old as an immigrant from Mexico, and I moved to a little town called Delano in the central valley of California where, at the age of 15, I left school to go to work in the fields to help support my family. And I was fortunate to join a farm workers’ strike. And then one day Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez said to me, “We’d like you to go to Chicago and stop the sale of grapes.” I was 21 years old, never been outside of Delano. If you’ve never been to Delano, and you’ve driven highway 99, and you weren’t paying attention, you’d miss it. A very small town. A town, though, that was completely dominated by the growers’ structure. So, for most of us, we never expected to do anything but work in the fields. So when I was asked to go to Chicago and stop the grapes, I didn’t know where Chicago was. I thought it was an hour away driving, so I said, “What time do I leave?” And they said, “No, you’ve got to take a plane.” What do I know, I’m 21 years old, they say go, and so I went. I knew nobody in Chicago. Gave me one name and a bag of buttons and said, “Here, go stop the sale of grapes.”

And it was the DSA chapter that adopted me in Chicago, that got us food, found me a place to live. It was a DSA leader name of Carl Shier who took this scared kid and helped him not only to find a home but also to figure out how to stop the sale of grapes. And I remember that whenever Michael Harrington came to town, that chapter always made sure that I got an opportunity to speak about the plight of farm workers, because that’s where the biggest crowds were always gathering. And so I want to thank you, 35 years later, for what you did for me and for what you did for farm workers, because, I think, thanks to that help, we were successful, and we did stop the sale of grapes, and we did build a farm workers union.

But the third reason I wanted to be here with you tonight is that I wanted to join you in saluting some of the best and bravest activists in this city as they struggle to win dignity and justice for working people in this city, and to win justice and dignity for those workers who are unable to find work because of the current economic climate. The fights that these activists have waged, and the victories that they have won, are a critical part of our common struggle as we try to figure out how we deal with the plight of low-wage workers in this country; and Philadelphia SEIU Local 36 has been working to do its part by organizing janitors who work in the wealthy suburbs yet have to live on poverty wages. In downtown Philadelphia, janitors who work for the same contractors and the same building owners as the ones in the suburbs make twice as much—with benefits like family health insurance—than do the janitors that work in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And the difference is very simple: The workers in downtown Philadelphia have a union, and the workers in the suburbs do not. So Local 36 has been working with these janitors, fighting to make sure that they also enjoy the same benefits, the same respect and dignity, as do the workers downtown; and eight days ago the janitors took an important step towards that goal. After a strike that began on August 20, janitors who worked for Shellville Services reached an agreement with the company to recognize the union and raise their wages immediately from $6.50 to $9.00 an hour and for the first time ever provide benefits, including vacation pay and holiday pay. That’s one small step towards a dream that will unite building service workers from coast to coast and border to border and it all is summed up with a very simple but very powerful three words Justice for Janitors.

Now I know later on I am going to be having an opportunity and an honor to present an award to these brave janitors, who waged a difficult fight and won, but I would just like them to stand up and be recognized along with the rest of the SEIU delegation here this evening.

Let me also once say that I want to join you in expressing my appreciation for the work of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project. Now that unemployment claims are at the highest level in eighteen years, and when two-thirds of all the unemployed workers in this country cannot qualify for unemployment benefits, the efforts of this project are more essential than ever before. And I just want to say to you, that belong to DSA, that your efforts, your insight, and your anger at the injustice that still exists in this country—the injustice in all its forms—that anger is still indispensable, now more than ever, as America’s beginning to stumble into a new century with a slumping economy, increasing inequality and an uncertain role in a world where most of the people on this planet are struggling to survive on two dollars a day. All of you are giving meaning to Margaret Mead’s words, and I quote, when she said: “A small group of thoughtful people can change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.”

But tonight I also think about the man who was America’s optimistic conscience, your founding chair, the late, great Michael Harrington. You know, one of the earliest organizers of farm workers, Ernesto Galarza, used to say that America’s conscience has a habit of flickering and dying down like a firefly. I believe that it was his classic study of poverty, The Other America, with his thousands of speeches at college campuses, at union halls and church basements, and by mentoring organizers of young idealists, Michael Harrington took America’s flickering conscience and built a bonfire of indignation, activism, and achievement. He worked with the finest leaders of our times—with Martin Luther King, with Cesar Chavez, and Robert Kennedy. He walked countless picket lines, among them picketing Jewel Food Stores in Chicago with me. And I think, twelve years after his death, he left us all educated by and indebted to him. And I believe that if Mike Harrington were with us today he would be telling Americans what you and I know all too well: These are hard times for working people in this country, because, even before the attack of September 11, the economy was slowing, living standards were stagnating and inequalities were skyrocketing. Four months ago, the Economic Policy Institute reported that 29 percent of working families in the United States with children under the age of twelve, do not earn enough to afford basic necessities like food, housing, healthcare and childcare. Today, in the wealthiest nation on earth, after the longest period of prosperity, 44 million working Americans do not have health insurance and millions more are in fear that their healthcare will be terminated or cut back. Over the past two decades, corporate chief executive officers have seen their pay increase by 536% while the average factory worker’s real wages went down by eight percent. Profits are up by 118% but the purchasing power of the minimum wage went down by 15%. You and I both know what that means, Brothers and Sisters: America is becoming a nation of extremes, where the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is disappearing. A country where parents have to work two and three jobs just to keep their children fed. Where they have to spend all their time working just to provide physical sustenance for their children, and have no time left over to provide the emotional and spiritual nurturing that they need to grow up as healthy and happy human beings, as the leaders of tomorrow. This is not the America that we all dream about.

I believe that if Michael Harrington were with us now, he would be marching alongside minimum-wage workers, like the janitors who are cleaning the offices of the pharmaceutical and biotech companies on the cutting edge of progress, but whose workers live on the razor’s edge of poverty. Since September 11 many more working families in this country are living on the edge of insecurity. More than half a million workers have lost their jobs, from the hospitality to the aerospace industry. And as the recession ripples throughout the economy, more and more working people will have a hard time holding on to their jobs, much less winning pay increases or securing their healthcare coverage and pension benefits.

Now you would think, with a nation at war, and Americans being asked to join in the shared sacrifice, you might hope that corporate America and conservative politicians would show some sense of shame or a little bit of twinge of conscience; but, you know, unfortunately they have an immense capacity to disappoint everyone in this country. You know they seem to feel that the worst of times for us means that it’s the best times for them. You know, under the guise of passing an economic stimulus package, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a $100 billion plan that doles out $70 billion to the nation’s wealthiest, most profitable corporations. This so-called stimulus package is going to repeal the alternative minimum tax, which requires profitable corporations to pay at least some annual tax. The Senate bill would also wipe out the alternative minimum tax, and it will repay these companies for the taxes paid for the last 15 years, and it would allow them to invest their profits overseas tax-free. Now, you know, five years ago, the Congress also repealed the basic welfare program, AFDC (for those of you who don’t work for the government, it means Aid to Families with Dependent Children). Now, with the nation on the edge of a recession, the Republican Senate wants to pass a corporate welfare program. We should also call it AFDC—Aid to Our Favorite Dependent Corporations.
Now, who are these poor souls that need a handout from the taxpayers. Well, IBM is going to get $1.4 billion; Ford, $1 billion; GM, poor little outfit, they only get $833 million. And who else is on the list: GE, Daimler-Chrysler and Kmart. And the list goes on and on and on. Billions of dollars for corporations, and two-thirds of the unemployed workers can’t even get unemployment compensation.

Where is the sense of outrage at what’s happening in this country? Where are the editorials? Where’s Newt Gingrich to complain about welfare. You know, Robert Kennedy used to say, “We can do better.” Well, Brothers and Sisters, I’m here to tell you that, unless we organize, unless we fight back, we can still do much, much worse. And I think it’s up to all of us to demand that our Congress pass an economic stimulus program that’s worthy of the name. A program that invests in working families through expanded unemployment benefits and health coverage for the unemployed. A program that provides tax rebates targeted to low- and middle-income families, not corporations; and that provides assistance to cities like Philadelphia and states like Pennsylvania, or my own state, California, that are facing budget deficits and will be unable to maintain vital public services at a time when its citizens are suffering.

You know, I think we need to offer help and hope to working people, like those janitors who take the bus to the suburbs every afternoon. We don’t need any more windfalls for the wealthy companies or the corporations that they go to clean every night. I don’t think that human dignity should stop at the city line, or on the poverty line. You know, Michael Harrington used to tell us that our nation wasn’t supposed to be divided between the affluent society and the “other America.” We were meant to be what our children pledge every morning at school—“One nation under God with liberty and justice for all.” Justice for all—we say it, but it doesn’t appear that we mean it.

Now, let me also say that building one America also asks us to address one issue that I think is critically important to America and to each and every one of us here tonight who believe and fight for social justice. I believe that the terrible events of September 11 should serve to unite Americans, not to divide us between immigrants and native-born. You know the attacks in New York were against all of us. The heroes and the victims at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the four hijacked airplanes were a cross-section of working Americans. Now, we’re never going to know for sure how many of those who died that day, or even how many of those who performed extraordinary acts of courage were foreign-born, but we do know—we do know—that the victims came from over 50 countries and every continent on earth. We’re never going to know how many of those foreign-born heroes and victims were undocumented, but we do know that people that work in those buildings were building service workers, janitors, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, delivery workers and security guards, and that they pitched in when they were needed. Two of our members—SEIU Local 32BJ—had left work and, when the planes hit, they came back to help bring people out, and the building collapsed on them, and they died. And we know, that when people were rushing to get out of the building, they didn’t ask people who were helping them what their immigration status was. And what we do know is that, for the families of the undocumented workers, this was a double tragedy. They not only lost their loved ones; the families of these workers were left totally unprotected because of their legal status. You know, for these workers, they lived in the shadows of society. They died in the shadows. And their families will continue to live in the shadows, fearful that, if they go and ask for public help, they could be deported.

I don’t know about you—I believe that’s unfair. I don’t think that’s who we are in America. We don’t abandon people in their hour of need, and that’s what’s happening [drowned out by applause]. I think that, in America, when people come to help build America—they come to contribute, they pay taxes, they go to work everyday to support their families—they should be treated fairly, they should get an opportunity, they should get an opportunity—they should get an opportunity to legalize their status in this county. They should not continue to live, as I said, in the shadows. So, I’m asking you tonight, I’m asking you that, together with all the things that you fight for and you advocate for, that you join in the campaign to fight for fair immigration laws, following the same principles that are supported by the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, and other mainstays of the coalitions of conscience. We need to make sure that we don’t allow exploitation of workers because of their legal status. We cannot allow workers to have their rights violated because, as long as their rights are being violated, ours are not secure. I believe that the answer is to legalize hardworking, taxpaying immigrants who are already in this country and we should do it as soon as possible.

One other thing: I do believe also, I do believe that we need to find real solutions, not easy answers, to our nation’s problems. In a lot of our cities, and especially here in Philadelphia, that means fixing the public schools, not selling them to the highest bidder. Now, I just got into Philadelphia last night but I learned very quickly that Governor Schweiker wants to turn over management of the Philadelphia public schools to Edison Schools, Inc., a private, profit-making business. And the company says, we’re going to save 30% of the school system’s budget by downsizing and privatizing. We will take more parents who are making a living wage and make them poorer and expect that their children are going to do better. Now this program does mean a brighter future for Edison’s owners. I don’t believe, though, that means a brighter future for Philadelphia’s children. I don’t think that that’s what the parents of this city want. I don’t think the children need a downsized school system. They need schools that are up to the task. Schools that are clean, that are safe, properly painted, with plumbing that doesn’t leak, ceilings that aren’t collapsing, and wiring that you can connect to the Internet. And they need the best teachers and the timeliest textbooks. Now, what that means to me, is that means keeping the public schools public. And I’m proud that in Philadelphia our locals are part of a coalition to keep our schools public. To me, that means keeping the public schools accountable to the parents and the taxpayers, caring for all of our kids, focused on nobler ends than just the next quarterly corporate profit statement.

Now, you know, come to think of it, that’s the kind of America that we’re all fighting for through our coalitions of conscience, just like the people that are gathered here tonight. We remember the lives, the lessons and the legacies of those who have brought us this far, and, like the janitors in the suburbs of this city, we are resolved to keep moving one step forward, one day at a time, but keep moving forward we will, because that’s the way we will make progress. And I know that, whatever the injustice, we can hear Michael Harrington urging us never to give up on the America he loved; whatever the obstacle we can hear Dr. King reassuring us that we shall overcome; and whatever the challenge, we can hear Cesar Chavez telling us, “Si se puede,” “It can be done.”

I want to thank you all of you again for what you did for me 35 years ago but, more importantly, for what you will do for my children and my grandchildren in the future. Thank you very much.

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