Economic Recovery Package: Jobs, Jobs and More Jobs

by James Parks, Feb 24, 2009

Now that President Obama’s economic recovery package has been enacted, workers and political leaders are poring over the details of the plan to figure out the potential impact on workers and their unions.

Jeff Rickert, director of the AFL-CIO’s Center for Green Jobs, says the package will create millions of new jobs and open up opportunities for workers to gain long-term, quality jobs in areas of the economy where unions are strong—manufacturing, construction and others.

Case in point: Nearly $7 billion will be spent in Illinois alone on projects ranging from $1.6 billion for transportation infrastructure, nearly $1 billion for highways and $154 million in job training.

Several websites break down where the money is going, including the site set up by the White House, www.recovery.gov. A quick check shows the stimulus package will create or save 143,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, 109,000 in Michigan and 269,000 in Texas. Want to know how the stimulus will affect your state? Click here for a state-by-state rundown of jobs and tax breaks.

During a conference call today with dozens of local and state union leaders, Rickert and Nancy Mills of the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute pointed out several ways the new bill will help union workers. In particular, Rickert says, the bill:

• Provides good, quality job standards, including Davis-Bacon requirements for construction projects. Davis-Bacon rules ensure that workers on federally funded building projects are paid a fair wage.
• Includes a Buy American clause that will help increase U.S. production of products to use in funded projects.
• Invests in key sectors of the economy, many of which have potential to increase union membership.
• Allocates large amounts of money on job training to create a skilled workforce for green jobs.

Despite all the good that can come from the stimulus, some far-right ideologue Republican governors say they may actually refuse to accept some of the money, even though their states are reeling from the recession. Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi claim that provisions of the bill that require states to modernize their unemployment insurance (UI) programs would increase employer taxes.

Last week, Jindal, whose state is losing an average of 430 jobs per day, announced he would reject nearly $100 million in unemployment insurance funding from the federal government. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the UI payments for those who currently qualify and would not accept federal funds to expand unemployment benefits. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of unemployed in Louisiana spiked from 109,000 in November to 122,000 in December, an increase of 13,000, or 430 additional out-of-work people every day.

In South Carolina, where 830 workers a day are losing jobs, Republican Gov. Marc Sanford also is refusing to accept funds to expand unemployment insurance because he doesn’t want to give part-time workers jobless benfits.

South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna DeWitt says:

Here we could get 20 weeks of money for unemployment and here this man is not willing to do it. I’m appalled. He’s had an ongoing battle with the state employment agency, and now he’s taking it out on the workers of South Carolina.

Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), points out the bill would actually cut employer taxes while filling holes in the unemployment safety net. Without reforms, Owens says, the governors would withhold millions of dollars from struggling state economies and deny thousands of jobless working families help to stay afloat as the unemployment crisis deepens.

Says Owens:

The real cost of the refusal of Govs. Jindal and Barbour to accept federal monies to modernize their state UI programs will be borne by thousands of families and their communities that will go without a much-needed boost to their economies….Now is the time for governors and state legislatures to act in the best interests of working families and their communities.

For more on how unemployment modernizations works, check out NELP’s fact sheet here.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)