It's great to be with you.

I've been looking forward to joining you to recognize the good work you're doing, and to talk about the big challenges we all face.  

This is a convention where you're focused on exactly the right things.  You came to Las Vegas to work on the issues that really count -- from organizing to immigration, from trade to wage theft.  And the actions you take will have a profound impact on the decisions that are among the most important in the country.  

I want to get down to business, and this is going to sound very serious – but I want to talk with you about a life choice you're going to be making on Election Day this year. What date is it? 87 days away!!  You're going to make a choice -- a choice for you and everyone else in the country.  

I'm not talking about True Blood versus NCIS, or who should be the next judge on American Idol. Sadly, that's what a lot of Americans think about – escape from reality TV - not you.  You're thinking about what life is going to be like in the years to come -- for you, your children, your loved ones.  

The life choice I'm talking about has two options: going backward to the Bush years, back to the days when corporations and Wall Street ran wild, wrecked the economy, made themselves richer than ever, and cost the rest of us millions of jobs, homes, and our hope for the future.  

Remember what happened?  Of course you do -- it's like a bad dream we'll never forget.  Real Latino families' income actually fell almost 9 percent.  The number of Latinos in poverty grew by more than 3 million, rising to nearly 11 million altogether.  

That was bad enough, but then the Bush recession piled on to everything else.  It made a disaster into a major crisis -- Unemployment generally 9.7%.  It nearly doubled the Latino unemployment rate -- that's right, doubled -- from 6.3 percent in late 2007 to 12.3 percent. And, one of my biggest concerns is young workers, so it infuriates me that Latino workers from 16 to 24 years old -- those incredible young women and men who are just starting out in life -- got hit the hardest.  Their unemployment rate went all the way up past 23 percent.  

Now, I may be missing something here, but – I bet that if you or I had done this much damage to the country, we'd be hiding in the Nevada desert somewhere.  

Well, that's not the case for the political leaders who helped get us into this mess, and who are doing everything they can to obstruct the solutions we need.

I did a Google search for "obstructionist" – and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's photo came up!  

Seriously, time after time, a lot of what we've been fighting for has been blocked by a solid wall of Republican opposition.  

Now, I don't like to look at the world as every Republican being evil and every Democrat being perfect.  The world isn't that simple.  For one thing, there are some Democrats that union members helped elect who've cast some votes with the obstructionists. Right?  

And not so long ago, there were quite a few Republicans who were real heroes when it came to workers' rights, and civil rights, and women's rights.  

It happened before -- and it can happen again.  I hope it does.  But we have to face the fact that right now, congressional Republicans are united in a solid bloc to oppose anything and everything working people need.  For them it's all about politics, and they're trying to stop anything that could look like progress.  They're hard at work trying to seize the Senate and House in the November elections, so they can bring back the same old Bush administration policies the second time around.  

That's option one. So, what's the second option?  Our other option is to move forward and make the economy work for everyone, not just Wall Street, and bankers and CEOs.  

We took the first steps on the right path in 2008.  When the Bush administration brought us right to the brink of a second Great Depression, Latino voters and union voters went to the polls.  We helped elect a President and a Congress who are on our side.  Each one of you made that happen.  

What are the results?  We have the most progressive, pro-working family, President in two full generations.  We got the largest economic stimulus in history, and it's already responsible for nearly 3 million jobs, including teachers, and police, and firefighters.  

We're not yet back to where we need to be, but it saved us from a full-scale depression and got us going forward on the right path. And even more help is on the way with the bill the Senate finally passed yesterday.   

We won health care reform.  And, for the first time since the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1787, as Linda Sanchez said, we have a Latina on the Supreme Court -- Sonia Sotomayor -- who is going to make her mark as one of the greatest justices in history.  

That's just the start. We need to follow that example in the labor movement!  

Because of what you did in 2008: we have safer workplaces with OSHA doing its job, for a change; with Hilda Solis in charge of DOL, we have Wall Street reform to prevent another financial collapse; we have a boost in the Pell Grants that will give more young people access to an affordable college education; and the list goes on.  

Does all this mean that we've finished the job of repairing America?  No way -- we're not even close.  Is it frustrating that there's so much more that has to be done?  Of course it is.  You and I know how that feels.  But the big danger is that some people on our side are letting their frustration dampen their activism.  They're disaffected -- they're giving up -- they're turning their backs on one of the most critical elections in our lifetime.  Because there's so much more to do, they're using that as an excuse to sit back and do nothing.  

The truth is that it's absolutely critical for us to keep on fighting and struggling as hard as we can.  You and I and the rest of the country have to make the right choice this year -- or is it left? -- and we have to give our hearts and souls to struggle for that choice.    

And what's at the top of our agenda?  You already know the answer.  

It starts with the jobs crisis.  It began during the Bush administration, but each of us is still living with it every day.  

Since the recession started, we should have created more than 2 million jobs just to stay even.  But that didn't happen.  Instead, we've actually lost over 8 million, so we're now more than 10 million jobs or more in the hole.  Good jobs have evaporated all around us.  It's been generations since so many workers have been out of a job for so long.  

If we were just dealing with short-term unemployment, that would be bad enough.  But the long-term unemployment we're seeing today hasn't been this grave since the Great Depression. Everyone here probably knows someone who's unemployed.  

Those are the statistics, but what they're really about is our friends and families and neighbors who are struggling just to stay alive, and because of the jobs crisis, America is not only hurting.  It's more unequal.  The burden is crashing down the hardest on Latinos and African-Americans than on whites.  

In this recession, the wealth of non-Latino white households has gone down 9 percent.  But for African American households, it's gone down by 30 percent, and for Latino households, it's down by 52 percent -- more than half.  

So what are the things we need to do to restore and create good jobs?   

It's no big mystery.  We have to invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure—our schools, our roads, our bridges—and in the green jobs of the future.  

We have to provide more funding for our state and local governments so they can keep teaching our kids, policing our streets, and fighting our fires.  We have to boost funding for neglected communities, and match people who want to work with jobs that need to be done.  And we have to get credit flowing to Main Street.  That's what it means to go forward, not backward. Hear the President? D = drive, R = reverse.  

Another area where we have to move forward is serious, solid, comprehensive immigration reform.  

Here's the bottom line: we as a nation can't keep on doing what we're doing.  We can't afford to have millions of hard-working people with no legal protections, no ability to send their kids to college, no real right to form a union, no economic security, and no way to turn all their effort, and all that they give this society into the right to vote.  

Is the broken system we have now inefficient?  Is it wasteful?  Sure it is -- but more than that, it's unjust and it's wrong.  It's wrong that 12 million undocumented immigrants should have to live in the shadows.  It's wrong to criminalize 7 million workers, and make them vulnerable to abuse every day they go to work.  

So why is it such a struggle for us to win the immigration reform we need?  The truth is we have powerful adversaries.  There are people who hate the idea of equality for immigrants and they want to keep them down.  These are the same people who discriminate against African Americans -- or women -- or the LGBT community.  The politics of hate is always the same, wherever it is.  

They already won their big victory with SB 1070 in Arizona.  Even though a federal judge has blocked some of the worst parts of that law, the supporters of SB 1070 are trying to repeat as much of it as they can in more than 20 other states.  

What is it that makes SB 1070 so dangerous? So many things -- but the most damaging is it's designed to divide us when we should be united. It's distracting us in order to keep us from seeing and solving our real problems.  

Some of the supporters of SB 1070 say that immigrants are "taking our jobs" and "ruining our country."  But when I hear someone say that, I want to ask them, Did an immigrant move your plant overseas?  Did an immigrant take away your pension and cut your health care?  Did an immigrant destroy the right of American workers to organize into unions?  Of course not.  

But let's be clear.  It's not only the haters and the immigrant-bashers we're up against.  There are lots of employers who are happy with the broken immigration system.  They'd be delighted to keep it in place.  They like a system where the borders are closed and open at the same time, because it means they have a big supply of workers who can be underpaid and cheated.  For employers, that's money in the bank, isn't it?  

With opponents like this, it's not going to be easy for us to win comprehensive immigration reform.  It's going to take all our energy and effort, and then some!  We realize that, but we're going to do whatever it takes to win this struggle.  We have to.  

So what are we aiming for?  

We start out with the principle that workers deserve to enjoy a fair share of the wealth we create.  When productivity goes up, wages should move up too.  

We're fighting for a fair path toward legalization for every undocumented worker who's trying night and day to make the American dream come true. Speaking of dreams -- We're fighting for the DREAM Act, so that tens of thousands of young people have a chance to become citizens if they finish a college degree, or serve in the military. And we just passed an Executive Council resolution yesterday to get it passed!  

And we're fighting for the freedom of every immigrant to assert their rights, including the right to organize into unions without fear of retaliation.  

It's time for action, not excuses, on immigration, on the jobs crisis, on other life-and-death issues.  But who will make that happen?  Who will lead America out of the disaster we're in?  Who?  It's us.   

The union movement has to lead the way.  We have to reach out and build coalitions with our partners and allies and friends.  We have to be the voice and the collective strength of every working person in this country -- both those who belong to our unions and those who don't yet have the chance.   

We have to do everything we can so that America makes the right choice.   That's where LCLAA comes in.  

Hold your political leaders accountable when they're voting on bills that affect our lives.  Speak out -- let them know how you feel.  

And from now through Election Day, you need to ramp up the great voter-education work you're doing.  Volunteer at phone banks, lead the phone banks, hand out flyers, raise funds -- get out the vote especially those young voters – afraid to do it wrong.  

And spread the word to your friends, your family, your union sisters and brothers and your community about the real issues in this election.  

Your mission is clear.  Register them to vote -- give them the information they need -- get them to the polling place -- and they'll make the right choice in the voting booth.  

In the midst of the greatest jobs crisis of our lifetime, in a time when comprehensive immigration reform is urgent, will you do your part? What?  Absolutely you will!  With leaders like Milton and Hector, and all of you in this room – how can we go wrong?  

The slogan of your convention is "Honoring the Past, Building the Future." So appropriate -- because you are building the future, because you are creating a better life for millions of working Latinos, because you are making the American dream of justice and fairness come true.  

I congratulate you, I thank you, and I'm proud to be fighting alongside you.  

Now let's get out there and get to work!!