Obama: We Need Strong Unions for a Strong Economy
 |
|
 |
|
| President Obama greets convention delegates, including Alliance for Retired Americans President Barbara Easterling. | |
President Barack Obama had a strong, inspiring message for delegates to the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention: We’re going to make this country work again.
In a speech punctuated by chants and standing ovations, Obama said he’s committed to the same goals as the union movement: restoring the economy, getting health care for everyone and passing the Employee Free Choice Act:
“These are the reforms I’m proposing. These are the reforms labor has been championing. These are the reforms the American people need. And these are the reforms I intend to sign into law.
“Quality, affordable health insurance. A world-class education. Good jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. A strong labor movement. That’s how we’ll lift up hardworking families. That’s how we’ll grow our middle class. That’s how we’ll put opportunity within reach in the United States of America.”
Throughout, the enthusiastic crowd gave him multiple standing ovations—when one woman shouted “I love you,” he responded: “I love you, too, sister.” In turn, Obama showed he understands the needs of working people and the unions that represent them:
“When labor succeeds—that’s when our middle class succeeds. And when our middle class succeeds—that’s when the United States of America succeeds.”
Setting Standards for Green and Good Jobs
 |
|
If the nation’s economy is to truly recover, the funds from President Obama’s economic recovery package—the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—must be spent in ways that keep working families’ needs in mind and create a foundation for their future.
To ensure the jobs created under the bill are family-supporting jobs, the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute (WAI) and its brand-new Center for Green Jobs have created standards to help community-level unionists assess the quality of jobs created under the recovery act. They also are urging the forming of new partnerships among employers, government, labor, community groups, environmentalists and other stakeholders to make sure the standards are carried out.
Green Jobs Center Director Jeff Rickert says standards are important because
we have to make sure that the idea of the green job is that it is a good job. The blue-collar job was the cornerstone of the golden era. We want to make sure the green collar job is the cornerstone of a platinum one.
133,000 Ohioans Get Jobs, Despite Boehner Tantrum Over Recovery Bill
The economic recovery bill signed by President Obama this afternoon in Denver is the same bill that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) literally trashed by throwing it on the floor of the U.S. House on Friday during a debate tantrum against the bill.
His anger was directed at a bill that will create or save 133,000 jobs in Boehner’s Buckeye State, provide tax cuts for 4.5 million Ohioans and boost unemployment benefits for 666,000 jobless workers in the state. The bill has similar impacts on all states and nationally creates or saves 3.5 million jobs.
But Boehner, along with every House Republican and all but three Senate Republicans, loudly and vehemently heaped scorn on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. They obviously don’t give a whit about the tens of millions of Americans who are jobless, facing foreclosure or loss of their health care. Apparently, bipartisanship is defined as “my way or no way” in the lexicon of Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
