As the Wisconsin recall election approaches — it’s next Tuesday — Democrats are pulling out the big guns to overcome the millions of dollars in outside money that Republican Governor Scott Walker is using to stay in power and double down on his anti-labor crackdown. Bill Clinton visited Milwaukee today, and the ex-president came out with a strong defense of unions.

“Everywhere I go in the world, the only thing I see that works is when everyone works together and treats everyone with respect,” he said. “That’s how you get out of the ditch.”

Clinton said that the GOP would use a victory to justify even more “divide and conquer” tactics that would further shatter possible coalitions for change:

“I can just hear it now Wednesday … All these people who poured all that money into this contest…will say ‘See, we got ’em now. We’re going to break every union in America, we’re going to break every government in America, we’re going to stop worrying about the middle class. We don’t give a rip whether poor people get to work their way into it. We’ve got our way now. We’ve got it all. Divide and conquer works.”

Walker’s main challenger in Tuesday’s recall election is Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee.

Here’s Clinton’s speech: