Fort Valley, GA
7/19/2024
Thank you, Dee, for the introduction. Your story is why we're all here today and I hope that you will keep on telling it.
Some of you heard Phil say she got to tell her story to President Biden himself. We had invited a group of worker-leaders and organizers who were doing the hard work of actually choosing a union in workplaces that had not been unionized before to the White House to sit down and talk about why what they were doing was important. And Dee just spoke so powerfully on behalf of all of the workers who are here, and I got to see that.
So, I want to share with you just how much it meant to me, to the President and obviously to all of you here at Blue Bird. So, thank you again, Dee, for what you did there and for your leadership.
So, I also want to thank Mayor Lundy, the mayor. Thank you for hosting me in your beautiful city and for your leadership here as well. We cannot do what we do, the federal government, without our strong local partners and mayors to really lead that effort, so thank you very much. It means a lot that you are here.
And I want to say something also to Phil, to the CEO here. I've learned so much about Blue Bird since my first visit here: the hundred-year history, the fact that Blue Bird really industrialized Fort Valley nearly a century ago now, and I realize that you said three years you will celebrate 100 years, which is also when you'll be renegotiating that contract. So, it sounds like a great time and a great cause for celebration.
That is the bus that my children, and I think children around the country used to learn about the word "bus." So, you truly are an iconic part of the American story. And for us to prepare the future of this country and make it place where we build buses here, we build electric buses here. We need Blue Bird in our corner. Thank you so much for leading that fight.
And to my friend and sister Yvonne Brooks, we are following each other all around the great state of Georgia. And to James Williams also. James, for all that you guys are doing, you know that the President and I have your back for everything that you are pushing for, that you are fighting against, and that you are fighting to make happen here and to create a strong economy with strong workers here in this great state. So, thank you very, very much.
And to the Blue Bird workers, this family here that has welcomed me: You all did it. So, congratulations.
Who says workers in the South cannot unionize?
They haven't met Dee. They haven't met Patrick. They don't know the USW, and they haven't met all of you. And so, we're here today to be clear that everybody does know all of you. And again, what you did oftentimes at the end of a journey like this, people start to forget about how hard it was in the beginning, what risks you had to take to do it, what vision you had to see that other people could not see. And so, I come to honor you and the vision that you had and thank you for your kind words. You all made this happen so congratulations.
And the people here know, I think the mayor will echo this, Fort Valley, cities across this country, Georgia, and states across this country have been battling two crises.
The crises of climate change and the crises of not having enough good jobs that allow people to live a decent life. And right here, what we are talking about is how we can solve both of those crises at the same time.
In fact, how we have to solve them both at the same time. And Blue Bird recently received, as you just heard, almost $80 million from a Department of Energy investment that is going to allow them, as already you heard as well, to expand, to build out, right here behind us, and to create 400 new union jobs right here in this great city.
Those jobs are going to uplift the entire community.
Now your CEO, Phil Holland, talked about the mission of keeping children safe, and I just want to expand that a little bit to how we keep children safe is making sure their moms and dads have good jobs. Making sure that they come home to a house in which they feel secure, in which they know that they're going to get a full meal in their belly, in which their families don't have to choose between paying for medication and paying for food and paying for rent. Those things happen when you have a good union job.
And so, you are keeping those children safe, which have been part of your mission for 97 years, even safer now with the announcement of the contract that you were signing today. And again, I salute you for all of that.
And we know that when those children step off of that school bus, that Blue Bird bus, strap on their backpack, tie their shoes, they're going to be able to take a deep breath and breathe in some clean air.
And all of those things are how you are building the future of this community and this country and leading the way. Who says also that here in Georgia, you're not leading the way? You are leading the way with what you are doing right here at Blue Bird.
And so, as has been said, the last time I was here with all of you was in March and at that time I challenged you to get to a contract within one year. And at that time, that was not promised, right? These were not empty challenges. This was not like it was definitely going to happen and we just decided to make an announcement out of it. At that time, it was not certain, but you all made it certain. You all made it happen. And because of what you did here, I am here to announce that I am extending that challenge to every single company and every single union that is negotiating a contract right now. There's no reason why a union contract cannot be achieved in under a year when a worker says that's what I want in my workplace and we're going to make sure that this model spreads to every single company, every single industry, every single state around this country. So, thank you all for that.
And you all said it well, reaching the first contract is important because if you don't get there, you don't get workers' voices. Those workers who took a risk in taking that vote get silenced. Workers start to wonder, what was the point of me taking that risk to begin with. And honestly, the relationships that get frayed during that time period are also not healthy for anybody not healthy for the workers, not healthy for the company either. So this challenge is also going to be good for companies across this great country for employers. I'm just so proud to be able to extend that to more workplaces, to more people, and to more workers. What you have done here should be celebrated. It should be emulated, is a partnership that's going to put this company and your workers on the path to success in the next 100 years and beyond.
Some of what's happened in this contract has already been mentioned, right? For some workers, it was an immediate 40% pay raise. 40%.
It's also job security, right? So, we talked about safety for children. We mean real security, right? And a secure job for their parents is so much a part of real security. And it means, for this company, a best-in-the-business workforce, right? Not only are you an employer of choice now, but your employees are also going to be the best recruiters for the good jobs that you're building right here. And so, I imagine you have no trouble hiring those 400 people who you want to come work in the new facility that's going to happen right behind us.
And so I just want to close by saying a little bit about good union jobs and why Union Joe, sitting in the White House, matters so much to this country. When President Biden says that the middle class built America and unions built the middle class, he's talking about all of you. He's talking about how you will build the middle class in this country for decades to come. He's talking about how a good union job is what allows somebody to go home, look their children in the eye, say everything is going to be OK, and actually mean it. That's what we want for every single worker, in every single community, all across the country. And the right to join a union belongs to workers, full stop. It is up to the worker without interference.
And that happened here: respecting that right. And that interference should also be barred from elected leaders and from anybody else, from politicians who try to threaten workers against making the best choice.
And so we, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and I stand with you. We stand with workers and in the Blue Bird family, we stand with workers across the great state of Georgia. And at this moment in time, when we're creating good jobs all across the country. We know that when you want the work done right, you want a union worker to do it.
That is what's happening right here. And we know that no worker ever organizes in the workplace because they hate their employer. No worker ever organizes because they don't want their employer to succeed. It's quite the opposite, right? So now with this new partnership that you have going forward, I know we've had this conversation, I've had this conversation with all the Blue Bird leadership that's sitting here under this beautiful tent with me today too, we know that you will continue to build that going forward and it is going to benefit all of you in ways that maybe we don't even see so clearly sitting right here today. I look forward to hearing that story about all the good things that are going to happen here.
So, I am now going to invite both Patrick Watkins, the president here of the USW worker family, and CEO Phil Holland up to the table to sign this historic first contract, achieved in less than one year.
So, pay attention, America, a first contract coming in less than one year to a community near you.