SEIU COMMUNICATIONS
Issued August 25, 2008
SEIU Local 1 President Tom Balanoff to Address Democratic Convention Tonight
Labor Leader Will Discuss Obama's Background and Personal History Standing Up for Men and Women Struggling
Denver, CO-Tonight, Tom Balanoff, President of SEIU Local 1, will address the nation during the 2008 Democratic National Convention between 7:00 and 8:00 pm MDT. Local 1, which represents 40,000 janitors, security officers, building service and industrial workers in four states, has a long history working with Barack Obama, going back to his days as a community organizer on Chicago's Southside. Local 1 has proudly endorsed Senator Obama in each of his campaigns.
Balanoff has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Obama for decades, fighting for access to quality health care that everyone can count on, economic fairness, an end to this needless war and the freedom of all workers to join a union without intimidation.
WHAT: President of SEIU Local 1 and Illinois State Council Tom Balanoff to Addresses Democratic National Convention
WHEN: Tonight between 7:00 and 8:00 pm MDT (9:00 and 10:00 pm EDT)
WHERE: Democratic National Convention
Pepsi Center
Denver, Colorado
The full text of his speech follows:
I was born in 1950. My father was a steelworker in South Chicago.
Like millions of other industrial workers in this country, he believed in the American Dream: if you worked hard, you could build a good life for yourself and your family and create better opportunities for your children.
My parents, like millions of other working families, were able to own a home and a car and put their children through college.
Back then, in that city of big shoulders, the Chicago of the 1950s and 60s and 70s, the American Dream was a reality.
By the early 1980s, the steel industry was in decline, and industrial plants were closing all over our country.
It was into this disintegrating American Dream that Barack Obama arrived in 1984.
On the south side of Chicago, in the aftermath of steel plant closings, this enormously accomplished man-who undoubtedly had many other options-chose to begin his political career at the grassroots level:
As a community organizer, he devoted his considerable talents to helping displaced workers and their families try to rebuild their lives.
He worked with church-based groups to bring job training programs to poor neighborhoods.
He organized tenants in successful efforts to remove asbestos from public housing.
He committed himself to improving the future of hard-working people devastated by the decline of the manufacturing sector.
It was this experience as a community organizer that has greatly influenced Barack Obama's political perspective and which is at the core of his identity.
He understands the challenges that working families face. He knows that they are the strength of this nation, and that in the current economic climate, many of these families struggle despite how hard they work every day.
Barack Obama believes that if you go to work in the United States, you should not be poor. He believes that hard work should be rewarded with a living wage, healthcare, and a secure retirement-and that these rewards will build stronger families and communities and a stronger America.
John McCain looks to Wall Street and says the economy is okay. Barack Obama looks to Main Street and knows that it is not.
The working families of this country cannot afford four more years of Bush-McCain economic policies.
Barack Obama offers the change we need to revive the American Dream for millions of America's workers and their families.
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Updated Jul 15, 2015