The question is always 'What is the role of a labor movement?' How much is about collective bargaining, how much is about social change for all workers?

Unions have been the best anti-poverty program that actually worked and did not cost the government a dime. But as unions grow smaller- not stronger- our ability to act as an economic mechanism to distribute the gains of our work and raise all workers' wages and benefits up is disappearing.

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.

I'll never run for office. But I intend, either on the fiscal commission or on issues like immigration, to hopefully have my voice be heard.

Wal-Mart is the sewer pipe through which good jobs are being flushed.

The question is always 'What is the role of a labor movement?' How much is about collective bargaining, how much is about social change for all workers?

I was too much of a victim of the model I created. I tried Change to Win and helping Obama, and then I just ran out of Andy Stern ideas.