AFL-CIO Announces Infrastructure Investments
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined AFT President Randi Weingarten at the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting yesterday to announce progress in the labor movement’s commitment to investing in infrastructure, clean energy retrofitting and job training.
A broad coalition chaired by AFT, and including SEIU, AFSCME, National Education Association (NEA), Fire Fighters (IAFF), the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) and investment funds affiliated with the labor movement have worked with other partners to advance a set of goals announced in June at CGI America. At that meeting, the AFL-CIO committed to work with member unions, union pension funds, their investment professionals and government at every level to invest $10 billion in job creating infrastructure as well as at least $20 million in specific energy retrofits over the next year, a retrofit of AFL-CIO headquarters and training tens of thousands of workers in the skills necessary to work on 21st century infrastructure.
Republicans Use ‘Extortion Tactics’ to Shut Down FAA
The Republican shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has thrown 4,000 FAA employees out of work, and some 70,000 construction workers employed on airport improvement projects can’t go to work because Republicans have blocked funding for the agency and the projects.
In a letter to House and Senate Republican leaders, Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), says he is outraged by the “extortion tactics” and “political brinkmanship” that are creating even more “hardship for building and construction trades families” in an industry already suffering high unemployment.
Our members expect their elected leaders to resolve their differences without resorting to ultimatums. Once again, our members are frustrated that an extreme minority has succeeded temporarily by using extortion tactics to undermine the jobs of my members.
300 Join Labor College Fundraising Gala
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Lara Manzione of the National Labor College reports on last night’s “Time to Build” fundraising gala at the college.
Following the first day of the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting held at the National Labor College (NLC) in Silver Spring, Md., the college hosted a “A Time to Build” gala last night. The gala honored Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), and the presidents of five entertainment unions: Ray Hair, American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM); Ken Howard, Screen Actors (SAG); Matthew Loeb, Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE); Roberta Reardon, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA); and Nick Wyman, Actors’ Equity (AEA).
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says he selected the NLC as the location for this Executive Council meeting because “education is such an important part of the future of the labor movement, and a key way for us to transmit labor’s values during a time of change in our economy and our society.”
From Honolulu to Savannah, We Are One Actions Continue
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We Are One solidarity actions in support of workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and everywhere middle-class jobs are under attack continue throughout the nation this week. The events coincide with the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn., 43 years ago this week when he was helping sanitation workers fight for justice, workers’ rights and a voice with AFSCME.
Speaking with more than 2,000 delegates to the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, “Just about every bill imaginable that undermines working people and our unions has been piled onto a legislative calendar somewhere.”
But, he said, instead of breaking the will and spirit of working people, those attacks created “a massive groundswell—a true working class and middle class uprising—demanding basic rights for workers, and a fair share of America’s economic bounty.”
This spark, this uprising hasn’t happened because one union called on members to turn out. It isn’t because the AFL-CIO made the call. It isn’t the Democratic Party, or the Obama organization. This is a bottom-up, grassroots movement with its own momentum, a true spontaneous outcry against our winner-take-all political culture.
BCTD’s Ayers: Come Together to Save the Middle Class
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Working people have been pulled into a brutal struggle for the very soul of our nation and our democracy, but we can win that struggle if we stand together and tell our story, AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) President Mark Ayers said.
In his keynote address to the BCTD Legislative Conference, which began April 3 in Washington, D.C., Ayers said:
The attacks we see today on unions all across America are being instigated by an ultra-radical conservative movement. Yes, their initial focus is to shred public employee unions under the guise of fiscal responsibility; but make no mistake about it their real purpose is the eradication of all unions from the American landscape. Read the rest of this entry »
Project Agreements: Best Value for Construction Dollars
At a time when construction owners are looking to get the best value for their dollar, they are increasingly turning to what they know works—project labor agreements (PLAs)—to ensure the work is on time and on budget.
The AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) reports that this year alone nearly 100 major public and private construction projects worth more than $80 billion have used PLAs, including the first two U.S. nuclear power plant construction projects in more than 40 years.
PLAs are pre-hire agreements between labor and management. The agreements require all construction jobs to be filled by local workers, includes diversity requirements, establishes wages and work rules covering overtime, working hours and dispute resolution and ensures that safety guidelines on the job site are enforced.
Real Issue Behind Immigration: Corporate Race to the Bottom
The ongoing debate about immigration never seems to effectively address the real problem-our collective national addiction to cheap labor and low wages, says Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD).
In a column on BCTD’s website, Ayers says the enactment of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law has revived efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform at the national level. But before Congress rushes to pass immigration legislation, it must take into account that “in America today, it’s all about next quarter’s profits and the bottom line.”
While exploitative businesses and their apologists hide behind empty slogans like “free markets,” we know the only freedom they are fighting for is the freedom to exploit workers, steal wages and cut corners.
Ayers points out that certain industries, such as construction, rely heavily on undocumented labor. In recent years, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, undocumented workers accounted for as much as 25 percent of the entire U.S. construction workforce. And in the residential construction sector, that number is even higher.
Trumka: Building ‘Real’ Things—Not Financial Fantasies—Creates Jobs
America’s working families “need an economy that’s based on building—not bubbles,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the 3,000 union activists and leaders at the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department’s (BCTD‘s) legislative conference this morning.
Trumka, speaking as the conference wrapped up its third and final day in Washington, D.C., said that while President Obama’s economic recovery program has created or saved 2 million jobs and put a dent in the nation’s hole in our labor market, “It’s not enough.”
As the economy tanked during the recession that started in 2007 under George W. Bush’s watch, construction work on power plants, office buildings and factories stopped and are still stalled. Trumka said the fingerprints of Wall Street’s greed are all over the economic crime scene.
For eight years or more, people on Wall Street who couldn’t or wouldn’t tell you what they did all day if their lives depended on it made their livings destroying other people’s lives and livelihoods. They gambled our money on phony financial instruments like subprime mortgages and derivatives and choked off the credit the construction industry depended on.
Biden: Growing Construction Jobs Grows the Middle Class
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Pointing to an unemployment rate—nearly 25 percent—for construction workers that is “unacceptably high,” Vice President Joe Biden yesterday told some 3,000 delegates to the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) legislative conference:
We are waging a way to get you back where you belong, not just for your sake but for the sake of the middle class, because if you do not grow, the middle class will not grow, and without a growing middle class our ability to lead to the 21st century is diminished.
BCTD President Mark Ayers opened the three-day Washington, D.C., conference for union activists and leaders saying, “Putting our members back to work is our number one priority.” He also slammed
the poisonous and reprehensible behaviors of Wall Street and eight years of an administration that had hopes of eradicating unions. Together they have torn a gaping hole in the financial fabric of our nation and our very existence as the stalwarts of the middle class.
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.
