Bill Clinton: “Switzerland June 16, 1999 Thank you very much, Director General Somavia, for your fine statements and your excellent…”

“Switzerland June 16, 1999 Thank you very much, Director General Somavia, for your fine statements and your excellent work. Conference President Mumuni, Director General Petrovsky, ladies and gentlemen of the ILO, it is a great honor for me to be here today with, as you have noticed, quite a large American delegation. I hope you will take it as a commitment of the United States to our shared vision and not simply as a burning desire for us to visit this beautiful city on every possible opportunity. I am delighted to be here with Secretary Albright and Secretary of Labor Herman; with my National Economic Adviser, Gene Sperling, and my National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger. We're delighted to be joined by the president of the American Federation of Labor, the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, and several other leaders of the U.S. labor movement, and with Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa, who is the foremost advocate in the United States of the abolition of child labor. I am grateful to all of them for coming with me and to the First Lady and our daughter for joining us on this trip. And I thank you for your warm reception of her presence here. It is indeed an honor for me to be the first American President to speak before the ILO in Geneva. It is long overdue. There is no organization that has worked harder to bring people together around fundamental human aspirations and no organization whose mission is more vital for today and tomorrow.…”