Report on Monday's Events at the AFL-CIO Convention

[Omaha Steve]

By Doug Cunningham

: "Fired Up!" Call & Response

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis from the AFL-CIO Pittsburgh convention.

: "Workers are under assault and they need a voice on the job that unions will provide. And that's why I will work with the White House so that together we make the strongest case possible for the Employee Free Choice Act."

Outgoing AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on labor's progress under his leadership.

: "We brought health care and labor law reform to the top of our national agenda. We seated a pro-working family majority in the United States Congress. We elected a champion of working class families as the first African-American president in the history of our country.Ó

Caroline Kennedy told AFL-CIO delegates that her family will carry on the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's pro-labor work.

{Caroline Kennedy]: "He believed that every worker - the nurses, the airline pilots, the teachers, the janitors deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. He knew that the fight for workers' rights is a constant struggle. It's time to build a new economy that puts the needs of working families first. It's time to ensure that each and every American worker has a voice on the job. And it's time to pass the Employee Free Choice Act."

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee.

: "We're fightin' back! And I want to say to you, sisters and brothers, on behalf of our great union AFSCME, I'm here to say to you let's pout our money where our mouth is and AFSCME pledges 500,000 more dollars to the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act!"

United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard one-upped AFSCME by pledging an extra $510,000 as ripped up a full-page anti-Employee Free Choice ad in a Pittsburgh newspaper.

: "It's about giving us the choice we should have had. It's about giving us the choice we once had. And in honor of Senator Ted Kennedy (as he rips the newspaper in half) they can kiss my ***!"

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

: "We know the importance of a vibrant private sector where workers, not corporations, can make a real choice, a free choice, about whether they want union representation, whether they, THEY want collective bargaining and whether they want a road to dignity, respect and the American Dream!"

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts says 43 percent of delegates are either women or people of color.

: "Get on your feet and give yourselves a round of applause. You are so far ahead of everybody else in our society!