Unions Take Up White House $4 Billion ‘Better Buildings Challenge’
At a White House event today featuring President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, AFT President Randi Weingarten represented labor leaders in joining university presidents and corporate executives in support of the presidential Better Buildings Challenge initiative.
President Obama announced that nearly $4 billion of investments have been committed already, including $2 billion by workers’ pension funds, CEOs, mayors and university presidents for energy-saving upgrades. The labor movement committed to work to invest $150 million in energy-efficient retrofit projects in the coming months.
The goal of the initiative, which builds on work begun by the AFL-CIO earlier this year with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), is to spur job creation by harnessing private sector investment in energy upgrades in commercial and industrial buildings.
Working with the AFT, a broad coalition of public-sector unions, and the Read the rest of this entry »
Obama: Infrastructure a Top Priority
This is a cross-post from Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department.
At the President’s Columbus Day meeting, I was proud to be at a White House that wants to transform the way we think about and invest in transportation. President Obama is thinking big, and his commitment to expanding and rebuilding America’s transportation network is going to be the key to getting it done.
I’ve long said that if we’re ever going to meet the needs of our decaying transportation system and infrastructure, we need to wring the partisan politics from the debate. Transportation bills have historically enjoyed bipartisan support. Decades of history are filled with examples of Republicans and Democrats coming together around big, often transformative transportation investments.
Executive Council Focuses on Jobs, Election, Workers’ Rights
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In the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Depression, the AFL-CIO Executive Council laid out a road map for how the Obama administration and Congress can fundamentally revamp the nation’s economy so that it puts workers first. President Barack Obama, who addressed the Council on Aug. 4, seemed to get it when he said that making things in America is at the heart of the economic recovery. The Council also laid out plans for the critical fall elections.
In a series of statements, Council members reaffirmed the need for immediate adoption of the AFL-CIO’s five point plan to create new jobs and warned that reducing the deficit must come after we create more revenue-producing jobs. You can check out all the new Executive Council statements here.
Calling on All Working Americans to Stand Up and Fight
The news is out: The Wall Street bankers we bailed out are giving themselves 2009 cash bonuses of a half million dollars on average—not including stocks. Compare that with the $32,390 annual median wage for regular workers, and you find a formula for outrage.
The people who tanked our economy, took $700 billion in taxpayer money and refused to make job-creating loans are getting rewards that range into the millions.
Not bad for a year in which Main Street lost 4 million jobs.
No wonder people are mad.
When Wall Street needs help, elected leaders respond with bold and swift action. When Main Street cries for help, we get gridlock. No health care reform, no financial reform, no labor law reform, and a slow, timid effort on job creation.
Win-Win: Create Good Jobs, Rebuild Nation’s Infrastructure
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As part of the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan for job creation, we’re making concrete proposals to address the nation’s immediate jobs crisis while keeping an eye on creating a sustainable economy in the future.
Investment in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure can put millions of people to work now and improve our country for the long term. The United States has some $2.2 trillion in unmet infrastructure needs. That’s a lot of work that needs to be done, at a time when 26 million people are unemployed or underemployed.
Here are some infrastructure priorities that can create jobs now while laying out a strong foundation and offering benefits for years to come:
- Transportation, including high-speed rail, ports, transit, roads and bridges.
- School construction and repair.
- Drinking water and wastewater systems.
- Clean energy and green technology investment, as outlined by the Apollo Alliance.
- Retrofitting buildings to make them more energy-efficient.
- Improvements to National Parks.
Obama: Let’s Invest Now to Create Jobs, Rebuild Economy
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In a speech today at the Brookings Institute, President Barack Obama said restoring job growth and putting people back to work is a top priority of his administration.
Obama noted that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, enacted this past spring, prevented an even deeper crisis and added jobs at a critical time, but with unemployment at a 26-year high, more needs to be done to replace the millions of jobs lost as a result of the recession and of years of failed economic policy:
Our work is far from done. For even though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who have been swept up in the flood. There are more than 7 million fewer Americans with jobs today than when this recession began. That’s a staggering figure and one that reflects not only the depths of the hole from which we must ascend, but also a continuing human tragedy. And it speaks to an urgent need to accelerate job growth in the short term while laying a new foundation for lasting economic growth.
Trumka on MSNBC: Jobs Summit a Good Step
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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said tonight on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” he was encouraged by the White House Jobs Summit earlier today and that he’s looking forward to working on the urgent goal of job creation.
Trumka told host Ed Schultz that in the discussions among President Obama, administration officials, economists and business leaders, there was a broad consensus that we need to fix an economy that has shed millions of jobs. Trumka said of the jobs summit:
I think it worked really well. The president really does understand the urgency of job creation. He said it on numerous occasions: jobs, jobs, jobs. I think his staff and Cabinet understand the importance of job creation. A lot of good ideas came out today that are usable. If we turn them around real quick, we can start putting Americans back to work in weeks.
Watch the White House Jobs Summit Live
Today, the White House has convened a summit to discuss solutions to our nation’s job crisis. President Barack Obama has invited elected officials, academics, union leaders and business executives to talk about how to create jobs and turn our economy around.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other union leaders will take part in today’s activities. Trumka will also take part in a breakout session, “Encouraging Business Competitiveness and Job Creation.”
You can watch live coverage of the White House jobs summit here and learn more about the AFL-CIO’s proposals to create jobs here.
Job Summit Tomorrow: What Do We Need to Create Jobs?
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Tomorrow, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other national leaders will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House jobs summit, where they’ll start a much-needed conversation about what to do for the 26 million workers who are unemployed or underemployed.
Across the country, union members and Working America members are joining the conversation by holding roundtable discussions in Ohio, New Mexico and Minnesota on the jobs crisis and the need for quick action.
Trumka will be joined by union leaders, academics, corporate heads and elected officials from across the country. They’ll work to identify what we can do to create jobs and start turning our economy around. The summit will run from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. EST.
Trumka, Union Leaders Headed to Jobs Summit Dec. 3
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President Barack Obama this week is convening a jobs summit to address the urgent need to create jobs for the more than 26 million unemployed or underemployed workers looking for work in an economy in which there are more than six workers for every one job.
An economy in which one in three Americans have either lost his or her job or live in a household with someone who has.
The summit, set for Thursday, Dec. 3, will include more than 100 experts and leaders from business, labor, government and community organizations, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.
