Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
Clinton: The Evidence is on Our Side
Speaking at the Legislative-Political Conference, former President William Jefferson Clinton told CWA members that working families have all the evidence they need to take back the country from corporate forces in the 2004 election. Here are some excerpts from his well received speech:
I remember when you helped me pass the Family and Medical Leave Law, which had been vetoed in the previous administration. Now it was the first bill I signed and almost all the Republicans voted against it, but to be fair to them they honestly thought it was a bad bill. They thought it would hurt the economy, it was so terribly burdensome. And the evidence that 170 other countries already gave workers some time off when there was a baby born or a sick parent was utterly irrelevant to them. I never will forget, I said, look there're 172 other countries that already do this. We're in the stone ages.
So we signed the Family and Medical Leave Law, and 35 million people took advantage of it when they had a baby born or a sick parent. We had more jobs created in eight years than in any period in our history. The evidence is, we were right and they were wrong.
I say that because one of your jobs is to keep bringing up the evidence and then when we have these elections as we occasionally do, to try to make sure that whenever possible that the elections are based on the evidence.
You look at the things you're concerned about today. Concentration in the media, something that will dramatically affect what the American people know and their ability to make good decisions. Was that a big issue in the last election? No. But it's a big issue about how we're going to live in the future.
The assault on overtime pay, was that in the last election? No. With us winning by 500,000 votes, you could never make the case that the American people voted for an assault on the environment, voted for an assault on the labor movement, voted to get rid of the surplus and replace it with a massive deficit. You can't make a case that they voted for this.
Now, here's what I want to say to you: These guys usually win. They've got more money than we do. They've got more access to the media than we do. And the media, which was never as liberal as they said, has moved way to the right in the last decade. You know that, right? So they usually win.
So you've got two choices. You can sit around and bellyache about them beating us, or you can figure out how to win. Because there's no question now that the majority of the people agree with us on most issues if they really understand what the deal is here. So you have to think of yourself as trying to communicate through the fog and the smoke and the static. It's like you're trying to repair the telephones and the radios and the televisions of America so they can hear again. And that's the way you should look at this."
I remember when you helped me pass the Family and Medical Leave Law, which had been vetoed in the previous administration. Now it was the first bill I signed and almost all the Republicans voted against it, but to be fair to them they honestly thought it was a bad bill. They thought it would hurt the economy, it was so terribly burdensome. And the evidence that 170 other countries already gave workers some time off when there was a baby born or a sick parent was utterly irrelevant to them. I never will forget, I said, look there're 172 other countries that already do this. We're in the stone ages.
So we signed the Family and Medical Leave Law, and 35 million people took advantage of it when they had a baby born or a sick parent. We had more jobs created in eight years than in any period in our history. The evidence is, we were right and they were wrong.
I say that because one of your jobs is to keep bringing up the evidence and then when we have these elections as we occasionally do, to try to make sure that whenever possible that the elections are based on the evidence.
You look at the things you're concerned about today. Concentration in the media, something that will dramatically affect what the American people know and their ability to make good decisions. Was that a big issue in the last election? No. But it's a big issue about how we're going to live in the future.
The assault on overtime pay, was that in the last election? No. With us winning by 500,000 votes, you could never make the case that the American people voted for an assault on the environment, voted for an assault on the labor movement, voted to get rid of the surplus and replace it with a massive deficit. You can't make a case that they voted for this.
Now, here's what I want to say to you: These guys usually win. They've got more money than we do. They've got more access to the media than we do. And the media, which was never as liberal as they said, has moved way to the right in the last decade. You know that, right? So they usually win.
So you've got two choices. You can sit around and bellyache about them beating us, or you can figure out how to win. Because there's no question now that the majority of the people agree with us on most issues if they really understand what the deal is here. So you have to think of yourself as trying to communicate through the fog and the smoke and the static. It's like you're trying to repair the telephones and the radios and the televisions of America so they can hear again. And that's the way you should look at this."