 We're here today to formally endorse the next president of the United States, Senator Bernie Sanders. This has been a long process for CWA. This morning our executive board who is meeting here today and is here right now unanimously endorsed Senator Sanders for the presidency, but before that happened for the last three months we have been conducting a grassroots poll of our members and tens of thousands of our members voted in this poll more than we've ever had vote in a presidential or any other kind of poll before. And our members decided and in September when we started this poll I said that this union would do whatever it was that our members decided we should do and that is the action that our executive board affirmed today. Our members unanimously voted decisively for Senator Sanders in this poll they voted first for us to endorse because we asked them both things whether they wanted CWA to endorse a candidate in the presidential primary and then who that candidate should be and we had every candidate that's currently running for president included in that poll and some of our members voted for every single one of those candidates but they voted decisively for Bernie Sanders. And I believe that they voted for Bernie Sanders and I got to say that the executive board stayed out of this we did not want to influence what our members decided they decided this on their own none of us had anything to do with how they decided and this is absolutely a democratically come to decision and if you look at the members of CWA they are a cross section of working people in the United States of America so Bernie Sanders just won the first election that's happened in this country for president. You know we've heard enough from our members to know that they decided that it should be Senator Sanders because he is the candidate that they believe will fight for working families the most of all the candidates that are running for president of the United States and that is why they chose to vote for Bernie Sanders in this election. It is the political and the economic time to do away with politics as usual and we know our members know that Bernie Sanders is the candidate that is prepared to do that. He is the candidate that is prepared to fight against the big banks and Wall Street and he is the candidate that will stand with working people in this country so it is my pleasure it is my pleasure brothers and sisters to introduce to you the next president of the United States of America Senator Bernie Sanders. Chris thank you very much my brothers and sisters let me thank the executive board and most importantly let me thank the 700,000 members of the communication workers of America for their strong support it means an enormous amount of money you have a history as one of the great unions in the United States of America and for decades you've been standing up and fighting for the rights of working families and I am so proud to be with you today in that fight. And what I know about the CWA is that your endorsement is not just a paper endorsement it's not just a press release endorsement that we're going to have thousands of people on the ground knocking on doors making phone calls and helping us as we do what needs to be done in this country and that is create a political revolution so that the government of the United States starts responding to the needs of working families and the middle class and not just a handful of billionaires and wealthy campaign contributors. Everybody in this room knows that the American people are angry and they are frustrated and they have every reason in the world to be angry and to be frustrated but the challenge of our time is to make sure that we do not allow demagogues to use that anger to divide us up our job is to bring our people together to attack the real issues, the real problems facing this country. Now why are people like, people are angry because at a time of exploding technology and a huge increase in worker productivity so that all of you and the members of the CDA but workers all over this country they're producing more but are they gaining the benefits of that increased productivity? The answer is not, all over America workers are working longer hours for low wages some cases they're working two or three jobs just to bring in the income and healthcare their families need to survive. If you are the male worker, male worker in the middle of this economy in real inflation accounted for dollars you are making $700 less than you made 42 years ago. That's why people are angry. You're a woman worker, you are making $1000 less in real wages than you made in 2007 and yet while the middle class continues to disappear almost all of the new wealth and income being created in America today is going to the top 1%. That's not what our economy should be about so my pledge to you is working with the CWA working with the unions throughout our country working with the middle class and working families we're going to create an economy that works for the middle class and working people of America not just the billionaire class and you and I know that the middle class does well when trade unionism does well and you and I know how difficult it is for workers throughout this country to come together and try to form a union because they are attacked illegally unfairly by employers who are making it so difficult for workers to exercise their constitutional rights and that is why we are going to pass legislation which makes it easier for workers to form unions not harder. The United States the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care every man woman in trouble you know what we're going to do together we're going to change that we're going to pass a Medicare for all single payer program the American people whether they're Republicans Democrats independence understand that our trade policies for decades NAFTA CAFTA PNTR PNTR with China the TPP has been a disaster for working families corporations wrote those pieces of legislation and they are designed to do what in fact has happened they are designed to allow corporations to shut down in America throw American workers out on the street move to China move to other low-wage countries bring their products back into this country together we are going to end those disastrous trade policies we're going to create trade policies which work for the working people of this country and workers abroad and not just the CEOs of multinational corporations real unemployment in America is not 5% if you include those people have given up looking for work and people are working part-time when they want to work full-time real unemployment is close to 10% youth unemployment is off the charts much much higher than that what together we are going to do is put the unemployed and the underemployed back to work through a massive federal jobs program we have an infrastructure today our roads our bridges our broadband our rail system our airports our levees our dams our water systems our wastewater plants in many states throughout our country that infrastructure is crumbling we're going to invest at least $1 trillion over a five-year period to rebuild that infrastructure to make it cutting edge and when we do that we're going to create 13 million good-paying jobs this is the wealthiest country in the history of the world but nobody knows it because all of the wealth and income is going to the top 1% you got millions of people out there who are trying to get by support a family on eight nine ten bucks an hour and you know what you cannot support a family on eight nine ten bucks an hour let alone the federal minimum wage of seven and a quarter an hour and that is why together we are going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage and that is 15 bucks an hour over the next few years it is not a radical idea to say that in America if somebody works full time that person should not be living in poverty and by the way we're also going to pass pay equity for women workers and at a time when the very very wealthy are getting wealthier and at a time when the multinational corporations most of them are enjoying record breaking profits what we say to the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations you are going to start paying your fair share of taxes you're not going to stash your profits in the Cayman Islands and not pay a nickel in federal income tax the wealthiest people will pay more in taxes and you know what we're going to do in a highly competitive global economy we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition free we are going to lower interest rates on student debt and that's going to be paid for by a tax on Wall Street speculation so let me conclude by simply saying we are living right now in the wealthiest country in the history of the world and when we stand together and when we do not allow our opponents to divide us up it's whether we're white or black or Hispanic whether we're gay or straight whether we are born in this country or not whether we're men or women when we stand together we can in fact create a nation and create a government which works for all of us and not just a handful of the wealthiest people that is what this campaign is about and along with the CWA we are going to win this election and we are going to transform America thank you all very very much