SEARCH
Trumka, ACTU’s Burrow Call for Corporate Accountability, Jobs |
|
As the G-20 Summit begins in Pittsburgh, union leaders from around the world are coming together to demand tough new rules that put people ahead of corporate profits.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today the world’s major economies need continued short-term stimulus, more progressive tax systems and serious public investment in job creation and regulation of the financial system—coordinated internationally—to prevent the wealthy few from benefiting at the expense of workers. We need to create new norms for responsible business conduct and make sure the economy is benefiting workers, Trumka said.
This G-20 Summit must be nothing less than a jobs summit, seeking solutions to our international job crisis through fundamental economic reforms.
Throughout the world, working men and women must have a voice, and a place at the G-20 table, and the global unions are prepared to fill that role….In solidarity, we can bring about an economic recovery, and we can do it now.
Sharan Burrow, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), said financial reform is essential, but not sufficient. We need serious commitment from the world’s leading economies to creating jobs and raising standards for workers everywhere, Burrow said.
We expect great things of this G-20 meeting and of the world’s leaders, because we haven’t seen great things from the corporate sector. You would expect some humility, you would expect some gratitude for taxpayer dollars that have bailed out financial institutions and corporations around the world who based their management strategy on greed and risk….But we’ve seen corporate salaries increase, we’ve seen those same corporations continue to lay off workers, to cut their hours, to put the income, the homes, the savings and pensions at risk.
Trumka and Burrow asked for recovery programs in developing countries as well as an agreement on global climate change that creates new green jobs.
In addition to demanding corporate accountability at the G-20, Trumka is continuing to fight for health care reform here at home. He’s asking for an investigation into whether political activity, including lobbying, by major insurance companies has contributed to rate hikes for consumers.
Health insurance premiums have shot up 120 percent over the past 10 years even as the insurance industry has spent $3.5 billion on lobbying activities. In recent weeks, both UnitedHealthcare and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield have attempted to raise premiums, even as they’ve spent millions this year on political activities.
The lack of accountability and the unfair practices of insurance companies are clear indicators that health care reform needs a public health insurance option—to break insurance company control of the market, create real competition and give millions of people real choices.
3 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
And yet, still no mention of shortening the working hours. The American labor movement lost track of that solution to unemployment back in the 1950s, and just can’t seem tor emember it.
Gene Lantz
labordallas@sbcglobal.net
Dear AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka,
The elephant in everyone’s living room is the high unemployment level. Sunhunterwith2’s “10-to-4 Percent Unemployment Jobs Creation Plan” eliminates the white elephant.
Here is a brief glimpse of the components. This is a full employment jobs creation program that leaves only the frictional unemployed (people in between jobs) and the unemployable without employment.
It has seventeen (17) components, including:
• Buses of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program
• Shelters of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program
• Claw-back and Re-purpose Non-essential Real Assets from Financial Institutions Jobs Creation Program
• Paths of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program (aka Sidewalks, Bike Lanes, Crosswalks, Curb Ramps, Trails and Re-purposed Roads of Opportunity)
• Bicycles of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program
• Pods of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program [Guns v. Butter tools for foreign policy]
• Centers of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program
• Educate / Preventative Health / Sustainable Living Jobs Creation Program
• Homes of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program
• Energy-Efficient Home Appliance Jobs Creation Program
• Plots of Opportunity Jobs Creation Program
• Intellectual Property Energy-Efficiency Contest Opportunity
• Recycle Natural Resources in America Jobs Creation Opportunity
• Funds of Opportunity Program
• Bold Climate Protection Initiative Jobs Creation Program – Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Jobs Creation Opportunities and Resources for All Suppliers Receiving Federal Public Funds under the “10-to-4 Percent Jobs Creation Program” to Enable Domestic Suppliers to Meet 50% of 2005 Emissions Levels
• Revised “Buy American” Program (only suppliers that meet 50% of 2005 emissions levels are eligible to receive federal public funds under the “10-to-4 Percent Unemployment Jobs Creation Program.”)
• Energy-Efficient Transportation Opportunities
I developed the “10-to-4 Percent Unemployment Jobs Creation Program” without financial support from any organization. I explained select components of this plan with a few policy people during their recent visit to Austin.
Now, I want to implement this program with the support of unions and business leaders because it helps everyone. I would like to be integral in the implementation of this robust jobs creation program.
Two weeks ago someone from Washington promised me that he would get back to me in a week. Two weeks have passed and I have not heard a word. Evidently, job creation is not his highest priority.
The AFL-CIO can make things happen. President Trumka, if you can make this happen, I will not forget it. I have a good memory.
I understand the importance of health care reform. Let’s turn the heat up on a jobs creation program that solves problems and puts people to work. People need work so that they can afford food and shelter. It gets cold in Cleveland, Flint, Elkhart, Pittsburgh and Austin every winter when one does not have a job.
We need to put people to work because U.S. consumers represent roughly ¾ of GNP. When the U.S. consumers are working, they are spending money on goods from everywhere.
Sincerely,
Sunhunterwith2
Gene:
France beat us to the punch here by adopting a standard work week or 35 hours. But there were cries about lack of productivity that forced them to at least rethink that, and there were attempt to rescind the idea. Don’t know if they were successful.
I would recommend checking out the websites http://www.timeday.org and http://www.right2vacation.org. These sites are promotion a guaranteed vacation leave law of which we are the only advanced nation that doesn’t have one, just as we are the only advanced nation without universal health care.
For all of our recent history vacation time has been tied in to years of service. And because most companies no longer let their people stay with them 25+ years which used to be pretty much the norm, that makes it more imperative than ever that we rally behind this effort. Another good read would be Juliet Schor’s classic “The Overworked American.” In that book Ms. Schor argues that one of the promises of the technology revolution was betrayed, and that was that it would lead to more free time. As we all know now, it didn’t work out that way, and the trend over the past quarter century has been that of more work and less play. Wonder if by now it has made so many Jacks and Jills dull boys and girls.