Bill Clinton: “Thank you. Can you hear me in the back? Good. Ladies and gentlemen, I am so glad to be here to share Labor Day with you…”

“Thank you. Can you hear me in the back? Good. Ladies and gentlemen, I am so glad to be here to share Labor Day with you, to count our blessings and to embrace our challenges. But let me just begin by thanking you for that wonderful welcome. I feel right at home, and I'm proud to be with the working families in this country. I also want to say how very pleased I am to be here with all the distinguished labor leaders and public officials who are here behind me from the State of California--some from our administration--to be here with President Donahue. You know, this is his birthday. He has to celebrate his birthday on Labor Day. He gets a two-fer today, so we ought to say happy birthday, Tom. I'm delighted to be here with Jack Henning, who still gives one of the best speeches I ever heard; with John Sweeney and Lenore Miller and Chuck Mack and George Kourpias and all the other labor leaders who are here. I thank Judy Goff and Owen Marron for having me here. And I want to say a special word of thanks to the people who represent you in Congress, two of the finest people in the entire United States Congress, Congressman Ron Dellums and Senator Barbara Boxer. They are great people. You know, we are going through a sea change in American life. You know it, and I know it. What I want to tell you is I believe that when the history of this time is written and people look back on how you and other ordinary Americans lived, they will say that this period represented the biggest challenge and the biggest change to the way we live and work and raise our families of any period since 100 years ago, when we changed from being a primarily agricultural and rural society to being an industrial society and a more urban one. All of you know the facts. We've ended the cold war. We're moving into a global economy. We have more and more competition and more and more technology. We have more opportunities and more fears. And there are a lot of good things that are going on today, but there are a lot of troubling things as well. And I came here to tell you that in the next 90 days in Washington, DC, we're going to make some decisions that will say a lot about what kind of people we are and where we're going. And I believe--I believe that if we decide to work together and work for the future, the 21st century and the global economy will be America's time. But we have to make that decision. I want a high-wage, high-growth, high-opportunity future, not a hard-work, low-wage, insecure future for the working families of the United States of America. I've worked as hard as I know how to bring the economy back. But let me ask you this: You all know what the problem is. If I had told you 30 months ago, the day I became President, that the following things would happen--just listen to this as a good news, bad news story. In our country we have over 7 million new jobs. We have 2\1/2\ million new homeowners. We have 1\1/2\ million new small businesses. We have reduced the deficit from $290 billion to $160 billion a year. We have done it while increasing our investment in education and training and technology and research to generate new jobs. We have doubled the loans of the Small Business Administration to try to create more small business opportunities. We have done all these things. In California, as hard hit as you were by all the defense cuts, the jobs that were lost in the previous 4 years have been replaced and then some. And we're overcoming the impacts of earthquakes and fires and defense cuts. And California's coming back. But you know what? In spite of all of that, the median wage has dropped one percent. That means most working people are working harder for the same or lower wages that they were making not just 2 years ago but 10 and 15 years ago. That is the great challenge of this time. Are we going to be a smart-work, high-opportunity, high-wage country, or a hard-work, low-wage country where the middle class is dividing? And that is the thing that ought to inform every decision we make. I think I know what we have to do, and I want you to stand with me because you know what we have to do. The first thing we ought to do--the very first thing we ought to do is to say we are going to do no harm; we're going to stop trying to undo the protections in the American law for working men and women. We're going to stop trying to weaken workplace safety. Let's work in partnership with managers to make it a safer workplace in America, not walk away from our obligations to the safety, health, and welfare of the American workers. Then, what is our affirmative agenda? Number one, don't cut education and training; spend more on it. And for those who say we have to do that to balance the budget, I say, that is wrong. My balanced budget plan gives the working families of America a tax deduction for the cost of all education after high school. Our balanced budget plan would give working people who lose their jobs the right to a voucher worth $2,600 a year for 2 years to take to the nearest community college or other education and training institution to get a better start in life. Increase our investment in education; don't cut it. The second thing we ought to do is to have fair as well as free trade. That's what the fight with the Japanese over autos and auto parts was all about. I'm all for more trade, but it's got to be fair. It's got to be fair to American workers. We can now compete with anybody in the world and win if we're given a fair chance to do so. The third thing we ought to do is raise the minimum wage. Let me tell you, there is no evidence to support the claim that opponents of the minimum wage always make, that it costs jobs. But we know one thing for sure: On January 1, 1996, if we do not raise the minimum wage this year, it will drop in terms of what the money will buy to a 40-year low. Two-thirds of the people making minimum wage are adults. Forty percent of the people making the minimum wage are the sole support of their families. We have children growing up on it. It is wrong to expect people to work for $4.25 an hour. Let us raise the minimum wage and do it now. In California, we have a lot of other things to do. We have to maintain the defense conversion programs that our administration has put in place. We should not cut the attempts to build people's future. I have worked as hard as I could to make sure that you knew that the defense contractors and the people that worked on the military bases, who won the cold war for this country, would not be left out in the cold when the defense budget was cut. And we have to keep working on that. Let me give you an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Today, it is my honor to announce that our Department of Transportation is going to give to Cal-Start, a consortium of California companies, $3.4 million to help them start building electric cars for the future of America. Men and women who used to weld Bradley fighting vehicles together for our national defense will now build family vehicles that will use smart technology, help the environment, and give people good jobs for a good future for their families. That's the kind of thing we ought to be doing more of in this country. They will be made at what used to be the Alameda Naval Air Station. This is the kind of thing that I want our Government to do, to work with you in partnership for the future. And just today, right before I came out of here, the head of Amerigon, Lon Bell, and George Kourpias, the head of the Machinist Union, signed an agreement that commits both sides, management and labor, to teamwork and a true partnership on the shop floor, working together, working for tomorrow. America ought to follow that model. We need more of it. Folks, this is happening all over California. Earlier today, in Monterey, I dedicated the new campus of Cal State on the grounds of Fort Ord. They had--instead of a place that is a shell, an empty shell, they're now going to have a vital university. They had 4,000 applications for the first 600 places open there. And within just a few years, they'll have thousands and thousands of people there, creating more jobs than were there when Fort Ord was running at full steam. That is the future of America, working together, working for tomorrow. In Sacramento, Packard Bell has already hired about 5,000 people, including 500 people where they've moved jobs from overseas back to the United States to northern California to assemble personal computers at a former Army depot, with more jobs there than were lost at the height of the defense production. That is the future of California and the future of America. Let me just say one more thing on this Labor Day. In the last 2\1/2\ years, we had 7 million new jobs, 2\1/2\ million new homeowners, 1\1/2\ million new businesses, record corporate profits, the stock market's gone to 4,700. I think it is time for American businesses to follow the lead of our best employers and share more of those profits with their working people. The Government can't do that; business has to do that. Thirty years ago, in the biggest companies in this country, the average executive made about 12 times what the average shop worker did. Today it's 120 times. It's time for the working people---- Audience members. Boo-o-o!”