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Union Leaders Praise Obama’s Support for Nuclear Plant
Union leaders praised President Obama’s announcement yesterday of federal loan guarantees for the construction of two advanced reactors at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia. They said it is a major step forward in addressing the nation’s energy needs as well as creating badly needed jobs. And they urged the president to ensure all the components used in the plant are made in America.
Obama made the announcement during a visit to an apprenticeship training facility in the Washington, D.C., suburbs that is jointly administered by Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26 and local electrical contractors. Check out a video of the announcement here.
IBEW President Edwin Hill said:
The loan guarantee for construction of a nuclear plant in Georgia is a prime example of what needs to be done to address the jobs crisis in our nation. The public and private sectors must work together. The jobs must go to people in the local areas so that their wages can be pumped back into the local community. And the fact that the project will help address our critical need for clean, reliable, safe energy is a major plus.
The IBEW and the other building trades unions have long supported federal loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear power facilities. Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), said the announcement is “an acknowledgment that our nation is in need of a comprehensive and sensible national energy policy that will strengthen our economic and national security.”
Our growing needs for affordable energy, combined with price volatility, dependence upon politically unstable regimes that supply much of our oil and gas, and global climate change concerns demands that nuclear power be a central part of the discussion over our national energy policy.
United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard sent a letter to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko asking that all components for nuclear facilities in the Plant Vogtle project be made in this country. In a statement, Gerard said:
…at a time of high unemployment and a continuing economic crisis, we need to utilize every policy tool available to create jobs and promote domestic economic growth. Sourcing key components from foreign nations—China, most specifically—could put in jeopardy our citizens’ safety and undermine efforts to promote economic growth and job creation.
By making the announcement at Local 26′s Joint Apprenticeship Training Center, Obama recognized the important role that skilled craft training programs will play to ensure that a revitalized nuclear industry is coupled with high-road jobs and careers, Ayers said.
Hill added that the Plant Vogtle project will help create jobs in other industries such as construction, manufacturing of parts for these plants as well as skilled personnel needed to run them.
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15 Comments
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This is the ultimate betrayal of working people and humanity by the “leadership” of organized labor. The promotion of nuclear power and the mythical “clean coal technology” is further indication, if anyone needed it, of the true nature of the Obama presidency: OBAMA IS A CORPORATIST CON-MAN.
What does this make the AFL-CIO? A corporate lackey? A “running dog” of militarism, war, and supporter of global warming.
To support nuclear power because it generates a few “middle class” jobs for a few union members, when millions of working people are being impoverished in this country, is really disgusting.
I remember several years ago the state AFL-CIO supported Joe Lieberman for election, because Lieberman pushed through the program to build two nuclear submarines instead of one.
This is not the “change” the American people wanted or hoped for when they voted for Obama.
This utterly subservience to Obama and the corporatist Democrats is not the kind of “leadership” American working people desperately want or need today.
“ultimate betrayal of working people and humanity by the “leadership” of organized labor”. . . what more needs to be said? No EFCA – Strike one; No real Health Care reform – Strike 2; Now NUKES! – Strike 3. A message to the Democrats AND our labor “leadership”, I’m going fishing on election day!
I agree with Jerry Wells. Why are the nuke subsidies are being used to fund a non-union plant in a right to work state. The taxpayer funded bailout of the multi-national nuclear industry means there is less money to develop solar, wind, geothermal and other actual clean renewable energy sources.
This is just Obama’s way of kowtowing to the Republicans and corporate interests while throwing a few jobs to the construction trades. The gung-ho pro-nuke article makes no mention of how many jobs will actually be created, nor how many will be lost by not doing more to support solar. And while labor leaders beg that components will be made in USA, there’s no promise from the Obama administration that that will be the case. The developers of nuke plants are all multi-national corporations who will reap windfall profits and be off the hook in case of an accident or failure because of taxpayer subsidies.
And labor buying the Big Lie that nuclear energy is a solution to climate change impacts is short sighted and threatens development of real alternatives. In the jobs vs environment debate (not that there was any debate on this policy), our environment should take precedence. But since Obama’s campaigns have been funded by nuclear operators like Exelon and the building trades are desperate for work, the nuke industry will be free to pollute and poison more communities.
See the Nuclear Information Resource Service at http://www.nirs.org for a reality check.
You said safe ,you are kidding aren;t you, there is nothing safe about nuc’s in the hands of republicans. it seems that the people and labor have no friends. The main problem of nuclear waste is yet to be solved and the problem of storing spent uranium is still here . withj friends like you the people don’t need any more enemies.it seems that greed is also the main ingrediant in labor these days.
If progressives are still questioning whether they should abandon their support of this President, they are as delusional as Bush’s supporters were. Building nuke plants will be put a few hundred people to work for a few years (and a few hundred more for years to come dealing with the waste) but it will do little to nothing to stimulate the economy. And the idea that nuclear power is carbon-free and therefore good for combating global warming is highly questionable. When the entire life-cycle of nuclear energy production is accounted for – from mining to disposal/storage – nuclear power has a very large carbon footprint. All such massive, capital-intensive projects do is enrich a handful of developers, contractors and investors with public funds.
Splitting an atom to make electricity is overkill, plain and simple. An old professor of mine said it best, “Using nuclear fission to create electricity is like using a chainsaw to cut butter.”
I am in favor of nuclear plants, if we do the following as well:
1. Exploration and drilling of natural gas and oil, with the appropriate level of environmental protections.
2. Solar energy, maybe expanding tax credits to homes and busineeses that use that technology. THE SOLAR PANELS MUST BE MADE IN USA
3. Wind energy, using tax credits for homes and businesses that use that power. THE WIND TURBINES MUST BE MADE IN USA.
With a comprehensive energy strategy, that pursues current methods, as well as alternative ones, I believe we can have energy indepence and create good paying jobs.
With the proposed nuclear power plant being built in Georgia is organized labor sure that it will be a union project?
I thought that the labor movement was supporting “green”? Nuclear energy is neither safe, green or needed! The IBEW should reconsider their position with nuclear plants and begin pushing for solar, wind and other truly GREEN forms of energy!
I thought that the labor movement was supporting “green”? Nuclear energy is neither safe, green or needed! The IBEW should reconsider their position with nuclear plants and begin pushing for solar, wind and other truly GREEN forms of energy!
In response to the comments about the Democrats, I agree. It’s time thata we seriously begin organizing our own people’s party!
This is something that the late Tony Mazzochi from the OCAW supported and it needs to be revitalized and made a reality!
Nuclear power is NOT safe. Remember Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island. Spend money to get clean energy (and create jobs) from heat exchangers, hot rocks, solar, even wind, but NOT nuclear. Saving energy (through building insulation, for example) is as good as producing it, and can also provide jobs. The problem of nuclear waste disposal has NOT been solved. This waste has to be safeguarded for thousands of years. The temporary storage sites in Germany are leaking.
I have just written a comment! That is, that nuclear power is NOT safe, because the waste disposal problem has not been solved. Dangerous nuclear waste has to be guarded for thousands of years. If the Romans had built nuclear plants, we would still be guarding their waste. The temporary storage facilities in Germany are leaking. There are lots of other ways of providing clean energy (hot rocks, solar, wind etc.) which can also create jobs.
I can’t believe the short sightedness of Union Leaders. How can anybody think a few jobs is worth more than all the costs that go along with a new plant. I have not even heard mentioned the cost of water lost to the running of a nuke plant.
Nuclear? Are you kidding?
No. We cannot go this way. Remember all the years spent on Yucca Mountain as a possible dump for nuclear waste? We cannot find a way to store nuclear waste safely. We’re going to make more? How about all the new energy and new exploration that was going to happen for alternate forms? What about jobs to allow the development of new energy sources?
I’m appalled that AFL-CIO would support anything having to do with nuclear energy. More than likely, the workers in these environments are not fully protected anyway. Remember the documentary, “Deadly Deception.” It won the academy award a number of years ago. See that and then talk to any of us about supporting nuclear energy.
There is a finite supply of Uranium, Coal, and oil. Someday (soon) they will all run out.
The sun will shine for another 5 billion years.
Any solution that does not include the sun is very short sited and shows poor planning skills.
The sun is delivered to your doorstep everyday for free.
You have to mine uranium and ship it. Most likely you are burning fossil fuels to do that.
Uranium, Coal, and oil, prices are all dependent on someone elses whim, greed, and speculation.
The sun shines for free every day!!!
Wake up America!!!
I can’t stop thinking about this one. Why would the union support an energy source that is dangerous not only to workers but to all of humanity? There is nothng at all safe about nuclear energy. Even now, a plant in New England is leaking something into the water. I don’t know if they have yet fixed it, but what was/is leaking contains a chemical combination that attaches to internal cells and doesn’t leave, if I’m recalling the article correctly. So whatever this poison is, it is now in whatever stream is near that plant.
What I love about the union is that it fights for working people. I would like to see it fight against nuclear energy because it permanently damages all life, including working people. That seems a more honorable, more important goal than saving a few jobs — jobs that will probably put the workers of those jobs at serious risk.
I’m with “Distributed Architecture.” The sun is free. Let’s use it.