of the Center for Labor Employment Law.

- Excuse me.

- [Sam] And our moderator this morning is Ron Checkman.

Who's a long standing friend.

He's a most distinguished graduate of this school.

And, has for many, many years,

carved out a very interesting career,

representing labor unions talent,

public and private sector.

He most recently, negotiated,

it must be a first time only,

profit participation agreement

for the original cast members of Hamilton.

Which is quite interesting.

And Ron and I, in the old days,

I don't know if you remember this,

we were on the Free Speech Committee of the ACLU.

- [Ron] I do remember well.

- [Sam] We were trying to come up with

a constitutional theory

for union political and speech rights,

a long, long time ago.

So we're very proud of Ron on many different scores,

least of which is that he's a member of our

Board of the Center for Labor Employment Law

and I'm gonna turn it over to Ron.

- [Ron] Thanks, Sam.

And it's my pleasure as we go along with introductions

to introduce the star of this morning's production,

who wants proper participation

as well. (laughing)

- I have rights in the video, so.

Everybody understands. (laughing)

- [Man] Multiplying a zero,

doesn't (mumbles). (laughing)

- [Ron] So it's my pleasure to introduce you to Andy Stern,

who is the President Emeritus, of the 2.2 million member

Service Employees International Unit, SEIU.

Representing janitors, childcare, home care,

healthcare workers, which grew by more than

1.2 million while he was President.

I had the pleasure of meeting him then,

when along with the janitors, childcare, home care workers,

he organized the and amalgamated

the largest union of attending physicians, into the SEIU.

He has been called the,

and I quote a courageous visionary leader,

who chartered a bold new course,

for American unionists.

He has been featured on 60 Minutes, CNN,

on the covers of New York Times magazine,

Fortune and Business Week.

He's on the boards of the Open Society Foundation,

the Hillman Foundation and the Broad Center.

He was a presidential appointee,

on the Simpson-Bowles Commission,

the most frequent visitor

to the White House in 2009 and '10.

You'll have to tell us what the hell you were doing there.

And a key organizer for Obamacare.

Is now the Ronald O. Perelman Senior Fellow

of the university.

His first book, "A Country That Works",

was published in 2005

and his new book, we're talking about today,

"Raising the Floor: How a Universal, Basic Income

"Can Renew our Economy and Restore the American Dream."

It calls for America to take it to (mumbles)

and take bold action in the face of massive potential,

the massive potential job disruption.

When he was interviewed this spring,

he talked about the effects of technology

and the structural changes to our economy

and how they have affected employment opportunities,

for the American worker.

He said in that interview,

talking about his book,

I quote him now and this will ring I'm sure,

poignantly to all, "As I like to say,

"this is the United States of Anxiety now,

"and it's only going to get worse."

So clearly, Andy was prescient, talking about this in June.

We wish maybe some of his advice

to a female politician, who I think just has retired.

It would've been more than helpful.

It's advice about concerns

that were clearly central

to the electorate and the presidential election

and that has clearly established

the United States of Anxiety, for yet many other reasons.

Our anxiety won't be relieved until we talk about the issues

and the proposals that Andy has thought so much about.

So, we have the pleasure this morning,

and the opportunity to hear about some of his thinking

and to see if he can help us,

relieve some of our anxiety.

- Thank you very much.

It does seem irresponsible to

speak anywhere at the moment,

and not talk about the election.

Unfortunately, Ron gave my cross over remarks.

(laughing) that this is actually

in some ways, more about the election

than we appreciate now and probably even more important,

as we think about the world going forward,

not just in and around the United States,

but around the world,

because we can all see with Brexit

and many other tensions that are existing around the world,

that some combination of you know,

race, immigration and economics are fueling

a lot of uneasiness and reactions all around the world.

So you may wonder why you got up early in the morning

to listen to someone who is Exhibit A,

of the one job in a lifetime,

20th century economy.

Who comes from an institution the American Labor Movement.

Not very well known for thinking about the future

and is gonna talk to you about an idea

called a universal basic income,

which I didn't know what it was, three years ago.

So thank you for coming,

because you may find that this was an early morning that

may not have solved all your needs,

but I wanna explain how I got here in front of you

to talk about this.

As was said, I spent my entire life

in the most wonderful institution,

that I can possibly imagine.

I was supposed to go to law school.

My father is a lawyer, my brother and sisters are lawyers.

I decided at some point, along the whirl,

there was a better way for me,

in terms of someone who has ADHD

and a little bit of a juvenile delinquent,

to live his life and that was

trying to change other people's lives.

I was very fortunate.

I knew nothing about unions,

when I went, was growing up

across the river in New Jersey.

I got my first job as a welfare worker,

of all things, which will be very relevant

as we talk about the book.

Went to my first union meeting,

'cause they were serving pizza.

(laughing) That was a very principled

and profound reason.

Then spent the rest of my life,

38 years, doing the most wonderful thing

with janitors, and security officers,

and nursing home home care, childcare workers,

which is working together to make people who are

basically powerless, you know, through our union,

become powerful.

I said and I still believe that,

the union movement was the best anti-poverty program,

the best welfare program, the best job creation program,

the best benefit program, retirement program,

America ever created for the 20th century.

It didn't cost the government a dime.

In the absence of unions,

the world has changed and for me,

you know, I was very lucky to eventually become

for 14 years, President of what became

the largest union in the United States,

the fastest growing union in the world.

We ended up having offices and running campaigns

in 12 different countries.

I spent a lot of my life,

trying to hold private equity in Wal-mart

and banks and large multi-national employers,

accountable to the workers that they represent.

I had a lot of wonderful experiences with all the people

I worked with and becoming a large union,

the largest political action committee in the country.

Spending five years trying to win Obamacare,

to not our members, who already health insurance,

but so that every American had an opportunity

to have the kind of security they wanted to do.

I was the most frequent visitor to the White House.

The dirty little secret is,

every time you go on the White House tour, it counts,

so take the tour! (laughing)

A lot of you too can be a very important person,

just never tell that story, out loud.

I was on the Simpson-Bowles Commission.

I did something that people never do in Washington,

is I quit.

I retired.

I didn't retire, 'cause I didn't know,

you know, that it wasn't a good job,

or I was gonna lose my election.

I retired because I joined the labor movement,

'cause I wanted to change people's lives

and I had lost an ability to understand

in the economy, and this was 2010,

where inequality was rising,

unions were shrinking,

jobs were getting worse.

Like how to lead an organization of 2.2 million people,

when you didn't know where to take it?

I felt that was not the right job for me to be in

and there were lots of younger and more diverse

group of people who were ready to lead

and I left it, I began this journey

and I'm gonna just tell you what I found,

'cause I only learned three things.

Took a lot of time, I'm a slow learner,

but I did learn three things.

First thing I learned, is this.

This is the 20th century American economy,

I'll just explain it to you,

'cause you probably can't see it,

but in the 20th century,

everybody just talked about economic growth.

All you had to say if you were a politician is,

"The economy is growing."

What it really meant, was the economy was growing,

productivity growing, jobs were growing

and wages were growing.

It worked pretty well in the 20th century.

The market and unions and the government,

sort of combined for large numbers of people

to create what we bragged about,

which was the largest middle class in the world.

You know, there were lots of problems with capitalism.

There were lots of problems, but.

People were trying to round off the rough edges

and as you can see, these four lines grew together.

That's the 20th century economy.

For the main part.

Now the end of the 20th century,

something began to happen and that is,

this green line, which we now know,

looking backwards, which is income.

We had growth in productivity.

We had growth in GDP.

We had growth in jobs

and we didn't have growth in income.

For 20 and now almost 30 years,

American workers didn't get a raise,

at least the median, the most of them.

Very much is fueling the Trump anxiety,

which we'll talk about.

That we now know.

You know, the union movement then other progressives

and economists would say,

"You know, wages aren't growing.

"Let me say, yeah they're not growing now,

"because that's because of globalization,

"but as soon as it settles down,

"wages will grow again."

Or there's a recession.

Or some other factor and now we know

that this is a structural problem in our economy,

that you can have economic growth, productivity growth,