The union movement has been the best middle class job creating program that America has ever had, and it doesn't cost the government a dime.

I'm not running from any particular problems, I just want to take some time and figure out in my life where I can keep doing what I'm doing but in a way that I can also honor what I want to do for myself.

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.

It has no enforceable standards to stop a union from conspiring with employers to keep another stronger union out or from negotiating contracts with lower pay and standards that members of another union have spent a lifetime establishing.

In 1972, I signed a union card for SEIU. And for the last 38 years, 14 as president, it's been my life. I've seen the most miraculous, spectacular things. But there's a time to learn, a time to lead and a time to leave.

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?

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.