Once, a union job at GM or AT&T was a bridge to success. Now, a nonunion Wal-Mart job is a bridge to nowhere.

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.

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.

The union is much more than me, and when you think the union is you and it's not about who you represent, I think you've sort of lost your morals and focus and the purpose of your leadership.

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.

I would say the issue for the labor movement in the United States is not structural... there is no correlation between the success of workers and how the labor movement is structured.