Everyday people are the power

From remarks by Sal Rosselli
President, SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West, at the JFK Profiles in
Courage Awards dinner of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party when
accepting the Miguel Contreras Leadership Award, February 28, 2008
http://www.lacdp.org/2008/02/15/jfk-profiles-in-courage-awards/  For more info

Thank you, Maria Elena, for all you do to carry on Miguel¹s powerful legacy
of organizing and mobilizing working families here in Los Angeles County and
across the country. His legacy lives on every day in the inspiring
leadership you provide to advance our movement.

I am especially grateful to Eric Bauman. Eric, I want to acknowledge your
outstanding leadership here in Los Angeles.

To my long-time friend, Art Torres, I¹m delighted to share this evening with
you - thank you for making it happen. I'm also honored to be here with
Yvonne Burke and Debra Bowen - your commitment to the people of California
and your achievements on our behalf have earned our admiration and our
thanks.

And James Duff, please know that you and all of your fellow writers - the
members of the Writers Guild of America - have set an example for union
members everywhere to follow.

The Writers stood on principle, we stood with you on the picket lines, and
you lasted one day longer than the producers because you were united and
courageous...and of course, always creative.

You used your creativity to arouse America¹s deep sense of justice, in the
streets and on the blogs, in the community and on YouTube. You fought for
your rights and showed us how by standing together we can win against even
the most concentrated corporate power.

I am humbled and our union's leaders are deeply grateful to be honored by
the LA County Democratic Party as this year's recipients of the Miguel
Contreras Leadership Award.

I am just one of many rank-and-file and staff leaders of UHW here tonight on
behalf of the thousands of frontline caregivers fighting to win affordable,
quality healthcare for all Californians. UHW leaders, please stand and be
recognized.

Everyone here knows the incredible focus Miguel Contreras placed on putting
workers in motion and the tremendous success that focus produced in
advancing progressive causes.

Miguel helped workers build power from the bottom up, growing the
grassroots, broadening the base and strengthening the ranks of both the
labor movement and the Democratic Party.

Miguel¹s model showed us how by acting together for principled purposes,
ordinary people could do extraordinary things, changing their communities
and setting an example for the entire nation.

The power Miguel wielded was never self-centered. His life, from his first
years with the Farm Workers to his last years leading LA's labor movement,
was dedicated to lifting the voices of the powerless and protecting the
rights of the underprivileged, from new immigrants striving for a better
life to retirees struggling on Social Security.

Miguel understood that the labor movement must lift workers' voices to
improve their lives and that unions must be the workers' own vehicles for
change, on the job and in the broader society.

A strong, democratic labor movement - democratic with a small ³d² - is
necessary not only to improve wages and benefits for working families, but
to build a lasting progressive majority and achieve the best of the big "D"
Democratic agenda - health care for all, improved public schools, fair
trade, and a just and humane foreign policy.

I want to stress with you that unions are essential democratic institutions
and building blocks of American democracy exactly to the extent that they
are organizations of workers, by workers and for workers.

if we do not emulate Miguel's example and build democratic unions, we are
not really building unions at all.

I¹m sure many of you are aware of the dispute that's emerged within SEIU
about the role of workers within our union.

Some leaders within SEIU - going all the way to the top - believe that
democracy is for leaders only. Their actions make plain their belief that
what a small group of them decide is all that matters and that they don¹t
really need to involve and empower the caregivers who heal the sick, the
janitors who clean our buildings or the public employees who provide vital
community services.

We at UHW have different prinicples and have learned different lessons from
our experience. We believe firmly that we cannot reverse the decline in the
labor movement by pursuing a path to growth that comes at the expense of
democracy and real improvments in workers' lives.

We cannot unite more workers in the labor movement, we cannot win the
improvements we need from our employers, and we cannot achieve healthcare
reform or home foreclosure relief or a global warming treaty or an end to
the Iraq war or any other progressive goal without empowering people and
deepening democracy, within our unions, within our Party, and within all the
institutions of our society.

Our power - the power of our union and the power of the Democratic Party -
lies in trusting everyday people to make decisions for ourselves, not in
having someone make them for us.

It is our goal to make SEIU more democratic and to become better allies for
all of you by building a political program that represents our members¹
unified vision and empowers them to drive it.

Democratic. Unified. Empowered.

Together, we will win and change the course of the country.