Biden Speaks to United Steelworkers

Please welcome Rob Hutchinson, Local 1219 USW member.

My father and grandfather worked union jobs at Westinghouse. They taught me how the union enabled them to put food on the table, give them a voice on the job, and keep them safe at work. They also taught me how important it is for working people to support the elected officials who support us. I know my grandfather and my father would love to be in this room today to help me welcome President Biden, who’s done more to lift up working people, empower union members, grow the middle class than any other president in history.

(01:06)
President Biden ended the pandemic and brought back the economy. He signed the American Rescue Plan, saving the pensions of more than 1,000,000 workers and retirees. His investing in America Agenda created 15,000,000 jobs so far. His commitment to Build America, Buy America unleashed demand for union-made steel, aluminum, glass, and many other products. His enforcement of trade rules ensures that American workers compete on a level playing field with their counterparts around the globe. President Biden made history last year when he walked the picket line with striking auto workers, ensuring that they got a fair contract. And now he’s standing in solidarity with us as we fight to keep US Steel from selling out our livelihoods and our communities. He has our backs, just like we knew he would.

(02:27)
President Biden likes to say that the middle class built America and unions built the middle class. He’s right, but the fight continues and his support, his leadership, his vision help us to grow stronger every day. As a Marine Corps veteran and on behalf of United Steelworkers, I’m honored to introduce Joe Biden, the President of the United States.

Hello Pittsburgh. Please have a seat. Robert, thank you for the introduction and for sharing your story about being a third generation steelworker and a Marine Corps veteran. Where are you? You are over this side? There you are. Well, I wanted to thank you for your new president, by the way, Dave McCall, who’s been a friend of mine and a friend of the former president. We miss him, but it’s great to have you, Dave. You’ve been a good friend. And we’re both longtime friends of Tom’s as well. We miss him dearly. Dave, you’re doing a great job in his footsteps and it’s just going to get better in my view.

(03:50)
There’s an expression that comes to mind. “You go home with them that brung you to the dance,” and you brought me to the dance. No joke. The Mayor and I are buddies. I told the Mayor, and I mean it sincerely, the first outfit ever to endorse me as a 29-year-old kid running in a tough year for United States Senate, make me the second-youngest man ever elected to the Senate was a guy named Huey Carcella, and back in those days, we had a big Steel Workers. We had a lot of steel workers in Claymont, Delaware where I was from because they worked in worst steel company. And I’ll never forget coming to me and saying, “We’re going to get your help.” I came out to Pittsburgh and steel workers endorsed me. It changed everything.

(04:42)
Nixon won my state. Nixon won my State of Delaware with 60% of the vote, and I won with an astounding 3,100 majority, and it’s thanks to you. I really mean it. I’m Pittsburgh and I really mean it. My love for Pittsburgh goes back to my Scranton days. My grandfather, Finnegan, always talked about Pittsburgh. Any rate, make a long story short. The bottom line for all kidding aside, is I’m president because of you guys. I really am. And I’m proud, as I mentioned earlier, I’m proud to be the most pro-union president in American history.

(05:20)
Where I was raised, it isn’t labor, it’s unions. Unions. I not going to say, Joey, you are union from belt, buckle to shoe sole. Well, I want to thank some folks who had my back and had to stay back in Washington, couldn’t be here today. Representative Summer Lee, and by the way, there are votes going on, and Chris Deluzio, and Senator Bobby Casey is one of my closest friends as his dad was, and John Fetterman who I want to stay on his side no matter what. And thank you to all the state and local leaders here, including the Mayor of Pittsburgh, Ed Gainey. Ed, you’re the best buddy. You’ve really stepped up. And a great leader, Joe. Joe Burris, an army veteran from a steelworking family. He was my guest at the State of the Union just a couple of years ago. He came back home to Washington, Pennsylvania, decided to run for Mayor, and he won. And he’s still working as a steelworker, but that’s America.

(06:31)
Look, folks, I was almost exactly five years ago that I began my campaign for president right here in Pittsburgh where I announced. I said one of the reasons I was running was to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class, and it was already mentioned, it’s been mentioned a thousand times, thankfully since then that the backbone of America has a steel spine. It really does have a steel spine. You heard me say it before. Wall Street didn’t build America, middle class didn’t build America, and you guys built the middle class, unions built it, and that’s why I’m here today to announce a series of actions that I stand by you, the American steelworker.

(07:09)
Look, first, US Steel has been an iconic American company for more than a century, and it should remain a totally American company. American owned, American-operated by American Union steelworkers, the best in the world, and that’s going to happen, I promise you. Second, America’s still working out, work out, compete as long as they have fair competition. But for too long, the Chinese government has poured state money into Chinese steel companies, pushing them to make so much steel as much as possible, subsidized by the Chinese government. Because Chinese steel companies produce a lot more steel than China needs, it ends up dumping extra steel into the global markets at unfairly low prices, and the prices are unfairly low because China steel companies don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese governor subsidized them so heavily. They’re not competing. They’re cheating. They’re cheating. And we’ve seen the damage here in America.

(08:10)
Back in the early 2000s, the Chinese steel began flooding the market in steel towns all across Pennsylvania and Ohio were hit very hard. Between those years, 2000 and 2010, more than 14,000 steelworkers in Pennsylvania and Ohio lost their jobs, 14,000. Let me ask you, we’re going to let that happen again? I promise you, and I’m not going to let that happen again. Look, right now, my US trade representative is investigating trade practices by the Chinese government regarding steel and aluminum. If that investor confirms these anti-competitive trade practices, then I’m calling on her to consider tripling the tariff rates for both steel and aluminum imports from China. We know that Chinese steel and aluminum are being imported in America through Mexico that avoids the tariff, and just yesterday I had a delegation down in Mexico, meeting with AMLO, the Mexican president to address this issue. Mexico and the United States are going to work together to solve it, I promise you, I promise you.

(09:12)
My administration is also taking a real hard look at the Chinese government’s industrial practices when it comes to global shipbuilding, which is critical to our economy. We depend on a fleet of commercial shipping vessels that carry American products around the world. Shipbuilding is critical to our national security, including the strength of the United States Navy. That’s why my administration takes it very seriously that US steelworkers, along with four other unions, have asked us to investigate whether the Chinese government is using anti-competitive practice to artificially lower prices in the shipbuilding industry. We’ve heard you. If the Chinese government is doing that and they want to undermine free and fair trade competition in the shipping industry, I will take action. That investigation is going on.

(09:57)
Taken together, these are strategic and targeted actions that are going to protect American workers and ensure fair competition. Meanwhile, my predecessor and the MAGA Republicans want to cross the board tariffs on all imports from all countries that could badly hurt American consumers. It’s estimated it would cost the average American family an average of $1,500 a year if they succeeded in doing that. Trump simply doesn’t get it. For years, I’ve heard many of my Republicans, even Democratic friends say that China’s on the rise and America has been falling behind. You may have noticed the last two years I’ve been the only one disagreeing with that. I’ve always believed we’ve got it all wrong. America’s rising. We have the best economy in the world, which we do. Since I’ve come to office, our GDP is up, our trade deficit with China is down in the lowest level in over a decade, and we’re standing up against Chinese government for economic practice and industrial overcapacity, and we are the strongest economy in the world.

(10:58)
In addition, and by the way, I always say to my colleagues when I meet other world leaders, I say, “Would you trade places with China? Would you trade places with their problems?” They’ve got a population that is more people in retirement than working. They’re not importing any… They’re not bringing… They’re xenophobic. Nobody else coming in. They’ve got real problems. I’m not looking for a fight with China. I’m looking for competition, but fair competition.

(11:27)
And issue we’re standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. I’ve revitalized our partnerships and our alliances in the Pacific with India, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines and other Pacific Island nations. I made sure that we have the most advanced technologies that we’ve developed and invented, and they can’t be sent to China or undermined because they’ll undermine our national security. When I spoke with Xi Jinping, he said, “Why?” I said, “Because you use them for all the wrong reasons, so you’re not going to get those advanced computer chips.”

(11:58)
Finally, for all this tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do any of that. The bottom line is I want fair competition with China, not conflict, and we’re in a stronger position to win the economic competition of the 21st century against China or anyone else because we’re investing in America and American workers again, finally. You know There’s a law back in the 30s that passed, whether unions could exist? There’s a provision that very few presidents ever paid attention to. If a president has sent money from the Congress to do something for the public, he must use American products and must use American workers, unless you couldn’t find them. Well, guess what? A lot of them didn’t find them, except me. And I mean it, not a joke. Everything we bill, we bill with American product and with American workers, period. And it doesn’t violate any trade agreement. Thanks to my Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we announced over 51,000 new infrastructure projects all across America so far. We’re just getting started, including roads, bridges, ports, airports, clean water systems, high-speed affordable internet, all across America.

(13:24)
You may remember, my predecessor promised infrastructure week after week after week, for four years and never built a damn thing. Nothing. No, I’m serious. Nothing. And by the way, these projects are going to be using American-made material like American Steel, American Concrete, creating good-paying American jobs, union jobs. Why? As I said, I’ve already said it, but since the 30s, the law said we could do that, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. And we’re buying American, we are selling American. It’s all about America. We buy America and past administrations, including my predecessor, failed to uphold that Buy America provision, not anymore. That’s over. American products and American workers.

(14:14)
Look folks, I signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant law taking on climate change ever anywhere in the world, anywhere in the world. We didn’t get anybody to vote for it other than my Democratic friends. Okay? Well, guess what? That includes billions of dollars in investments in industries of the future, including clean American steel. It’s clean because the way we produce it here emits much less carbon and steel made in China. Last month, my administration announced the largest investment ever in clean manufacturing in American history, in all American history. That included up to $1.5 billion in six clean steel projects across America, $1.5 billion. It’s going to create and support thousands of union jobs, including at Butler Works and over in Lyndora, Pennsylvania. My predecessor and his Republican friends in Congress want to repeal that law that would cut those jobs and it would cut the jobs and repeal the law. I’m serious.

(15:16)
I know when I say these things, you wonder, “Can they possibly be that stupid?” I shouldn’t say it that way, but I’m serious. Think about it. Just check it out. That’s what they want to do, but that’s not all. My predecessor rolled back protections for American workers. He opposed the increase overall federal minimum wage. He put union busters in the National Labor Relations Board, for real. Well, he did. Think what the board looked like before I became president. Not a joke. Not a joke. Meanwhile, since I was sworn in as president because of you, look at what we’ve achieved together. Through my American Rescue Plan and enacted the Butch Lewis Act, the most significant law for union workers, retirees in 50 years. Think of what would happen if we didn’t get that passed? And none of them wanted to help me, but we got it done. It protected the hard-earned pensions of more than 120,000 steelworkers.

(16:16)
Folks, you’ve had my back and I promise I have your back. We made that happen while my predecessor never lifted a finger to help. I also increased the federal minimum wage for federal contracts. People appointed the National Labor Relations Board actually care about American workers. So far, we’ve created 15,000,000, as mentioned earlier, new jobs, a record in a term of a president. 492,000 new jobs so far in Pennsylvania alone. Under my predecessor, who’s busy right now, Pennsylvania lost 275,000 jobs. Let’s look at the facts. On my watch, unemployment hasn’t been this low for this long in 50 years. That’s 50 years.

(17:18)
Wages are rising, American manufacturing is booming. We’ve created close to 800,000 new manufacturing jobs since I became president, including 28,000 manufacturing jobs right here in Pennsylvania. We’ve attracted $680 billion, let me say it again, $680 billion in private sector investment in advanced manufacturing and clean energy here in America, including $4 billion just here in the State of Pennsylvania so far.

(17:46)
Folks, instead of importing foreign products and exporting American jobs, we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs. Think of the last years where corporate America wanted to go find the cheapest labor in the world, send the jobs overseas and import the product home. Not anymore. Together we’re doing what’s always worked best for this country. We’re investing in all of America and all Americans. We’re building an economy from the middle-out and the bottom-up, not the top-down because when we do that, the poor have a ladder up and the middle class do well, and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well. No, for real.

(18:32)
Look, let me close with this. I just came from my hometown, Scranton, Pennsylvania. A place like Pittsburgh that climbs into your heart and never leaves you, and it really doesn’t. My mom didn’t live in Scranton since she was 1954, but when you’d ask mom, where is she from? She says, “Scranton, Scranton.” Well, were you learn basic value set like you do here. “Money doesn’t determine your worth,” I would always be told. Everyone’s entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. My dad used say, “A job’s worth a lot more than a paycheck, pal. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about being treated with respect.” And you’d say, “I give my word. These are phrases always use.” He’d say, “Not only being able to have respect, being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay,’ and mean it, mean it.”

(19:22)
Look, everyone, everyone deserves a fair shot, just a fair shot, and we’re going to leave no one behind. Folks, that’s my view of the economy from Scranton, from Pittsburgh, from thousands of working middle-class neighbors all across America. It’s a future we’re building together. As I said, I always think of my dad, I really mean it. My dad, during the war, he didn’t get to go to college. He was from, as they say in Baltimore, “Ballmer.” He was from Baltimore and his father then worked for American Oil Company, moved to Wilmington, then to Scranton, opened up business, opened up stations, but he always would come home and he’d go back and close the business. He didn’t own it. He was a manager dealership. And he’d say, “A job is a lot more than a paycheck,” and it really is. It’s about treating people with dignity. It’s about treating them with respect.

(20:15)
And look, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay folks. Because of you, the American work, I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future, and I mean it, I really truly am. When my son died, I decided I would… He spend a year in Iraq and he… Unfortunately, his hooch was next to a burn pit and he went with one of the most fit guys in his regiment. And he came home with stage IV glioblastoma, more brain injuries for folks fighting in Iraq than any other place in the world. Remember what happened to all those firemen and 9/11? Same thing happened because these burn pits are just awful. They put everything from human waste to… And so I wasn’t going to run, but what happened was when he passed, you remember that right after that… Well, you don’t remember when he passed, in 2015. And I wasn’t going to run. I was going to write a book about inflection points in American history, where the actions we take in a short period of time determine what happens in the next five or six decades.

(21:32)
Well, that’s one of the places we’re at right now. And when those folks came walking out of those fields down in Charlottesville, Virginia, carrying Nazi banners, singing the same garbage that they sang in Hitler streets in Germany in the 30s, carrying torches, accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan, and a young woman was killed, I decided that I had to run. I had to run. Our democracy is a stake, and it really is. But you know what changes it? When you make the economy grow, when you stand up and ordinary people have an even shot, and they’re not at all susceptible to the garbage that’s fed from these guys, and it’s pure garbage.

(22:17)
I’m supposed to stop. I should keep going, but folks, look, look, you got to just remember who we are and I can’t… Well, when I left Scranton today, I wanted to go to the War Memorial that has the names of all the Scrantonians who died in World War II etched into a granite wall, because I wanted to see where my uncle, Uncle Bozey Ambrose J. Finnegan, where his name was etched back when D-Day occurred. And on Sunday, the next day, my mother’s four brothers all went down to the recruiting station and joined the military. Every one of them volunteered, and my uncle, they called him Ambrose, [inaudible 00:23:08] they called him Bozey. My uncle Bozey was a hell of an athlete, they tell me when he was a kid. And he became an army Air Corps before the Air Force came along. He flew those single-engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones.

(23:24)
He got shot down in New Guinea and they never found the body because there were a lot of cannibals for real in that part of New Guinea. And then my son volunteered to go to Iraq for a year, and he came back with stage IV glioblastoma, and they gave, like many of you, risked your lives and you people who gave their lives to the country, they’re heroes. But one of the things that as I was doing that today, I was reminded of what my opponent said in Paris not too long ago. They asked him to go visit American grave sites. He said, no, he wouldn’t do it because they were all suckers and losers. I’m not making that up. Staff will listen and acknowledge it today, suckers and losers. That man doesn’t deserve to be the Commander-in-Chief for my son, my uncle.

(24:27)
So folks, we got a lot of work to do, but I’m confident we can do it, and I mean it. I’ve never been more optimistic about our possibilities as a nation, so let’s go out and get them. Remember, for the United States of America, there’s nothing beyond our capacity. Nothing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.