Union Label Celebrates Centennial, Looks Ahead
 |
||||
|
||||
The AFL-CIO Union Label and Service Trades Department (UL&STD) celebrated its centennial earlier this month by looking forward to the future. Delegates to the department’s convention in Pittsburgh adopted new strategies to help working families cope with the new American workplace and to help them rebuild the American middle class.
The convention adopted several resolutions to prepare for the next phase of the department’s growth. A key resolution modified the department’s functions to emphasize information and communication sharing. Another resolution called on affiliated unions to help improve the quality of data on union-made goods and services, to link any product lists on their websites to the Union Label website and to regularly advise the department of goods and services made by union members.
The delegates also re-elected President Richard Kline and Secretary-Treasurer James Dunn and chose 17 vice presidents.
In his keynote address at the convention, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard praised President Obama’s decision to enforce trade laws and provide relief to the U.S. tire industry from the surge of tire imports from China.
Finally, we have a president who is not afraid to act.
[The tire decision] won’t result in the opening of a closed tire plant, but it does send the message that an American president is willing to stand up for workers.
Made in America Jobs Tour: Investing in Green Economy Creates Jobs
 |
|
Workers, union leaders and business executives joined Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson today to deliver the message that investing in clean energy not only is good for our environment but also would create millions of good green jobs to rejuvenate the economy and rebuild the nation’s middle class.
Jackson spoke at a rally in Gary, Ind., as part of the nationwide Made in America Jobs Tour sponsored by the Blue Green Alliance and the Alliance for Climate Protection’s Repower America campaign. The tour kicked off Aug. 20 in Cleveland and will involve more than 50 events in 22 states, including rallies in St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Gary.
Memo to Leaders Meeting with China: Time for U.S. Policy that Aids Our Economy
 |
|
Here in Washington, D.C., President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are taking part in a big-time summit with China. Let’s hope they have substantive discussions on economic policies that aid U.S. workers. Over the past few days, several great pieces on trade and manufacturing have been published that should feed into the discussions of U.S. participants in what is officially called the “sixth Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China.” Here’s a summary.
**U.S. “protectionism” is a myth. There’s an “untold story of protectionism,” say United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard and Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. That is, the set of barriers other governments erect to block American goods and the mercantilist measures they utilize to gain market share in the United States.
These practices range from China’s currency misalignment and massive industrial subsidies to non-tariff barriers in Korea and Japan. All these impediments have been well documented by U.S. trade officials, but the mere act of identifying these practices is now viewed as protectionism, even though taking action to eliminate them would expand world trade, reduce global imbalances and preserve the free market.
Chamber of Commerce Sides with Foreign Embassies Against Buy American
 |
|
There they go again. Those running the show at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are attacking again the Buy American provision in the economic stimulus package.
Ignoring, once more, that Buy American makes fundamental economic sense by ensuring at least some of our taxpayer bailout money is invested in American-made productions, the Chamber is siding with foreign embassies battling the Buy American provisions. In a June 2 letter to lawmakers, Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s executive vice president for government affairs, asked Congress to exclude Buy American provisions from all legislation.
More recently, the Chamber held a joint press conference June 11 with the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters to decry the Buy American provisions in the stimulus. For a trade association with “U.S.” in its name, siding with foreign corporations against those in the United States is, well, you fill in the word that best describes it.
Made in America: Corporate PR, Not Practice
|
|
Big Business wants it both ways: It wants to wrap itself in the ol’ red, white and blue while feeding the decline of the U.S. economy through its actual practices.
Here’s the latest example of such corporate hypocrisy. Over the Memorial Day weekend, J.C. Penney advertised a silkscreen T-shirt bearing the slogan, “American Made.” Yet when Joe Allen, a retired apparel manufacturer in the Dallas area, bought the T-shirt, he found it actually was made in Mexico—”of USA fabric.”
Allen didn’t just shrug off such a blatant sleight of hand. He took action, contacting Steve Capozzola at the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Capozzola sent an e-mail to J.C. Penney, saying that the ad was deceptive and asking why the shirt “was emblazoned with an ‘American Made’ slogan when it was in fact made in Mexico.”
AFL-CIO Executive Council: Economic Recovery Package Good First Step
 |
|
| IBEW President Ed Hill, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney meet with workers at an IBEW training facility in Miami. | |
In the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s first full day of meetings in Miami, union leaders today addressed vital aspects of reviving the nation’s economy for working families, including growing good jobs, reforming health care, strengthening Social Security and revising the nation’s trade practices, especially with China.
The economic recovery package is a good start to turning around America and putting workers back on the job, say union leaders, who emphasized that rebuilding the nation’s major economic engine—manufacturing—will require strong compliance with the Buy American provisions in the package.
The council also called for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act to help boost the economy by restoring workers freedom to form unions and bargain for better wages and benefits.
Meeting at the union hall of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 349, the Executive Council began the day with a video address from President Obama. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis—who on Monday night joined the council and 700 community members in a forum—spoke with the council during the morning session today.
Clean Energy, Good Jobs Should Go Hand in Hand
 |
|
Twenty-five major leaders from government, business, labor and activist organizations—including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore—met on Monday to discuss strategies for boosting the nation’s renewable energy production, reducing dependence on foreign oil and ensuring that “green jobs” are quality jobs.
The forum, titled “National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy,” was sponsored by the Center for American Progress (CAP). Participants focused on modernizing and expanding the electricity grid, rapidly increasing transmission capacity for renewable energy and reducing dependence on foreign oil by examining short- and long-term solutions to replace foreign oil with domestic resources. Click here for a video of the discussions.
As Sweeney told the participants:
The challenge of clean energy and climate change creates a rare opportunity to do two things at once—meet the challenge of a cleaner planet and at the same time use it to create the good jobs of a new economy. A new U.S. energy strategy can be the foundation of rebuilding the middle class if we ensure that the jobs we create are good, innovative jobs here in our country—and that can then become the foundation of a strong new economy.
House Passes Compromise Economic Recovery Bill
 |
|
UPDATE–Feb. 14–The Senate late last night, approved (60-38) the economic recovery package. Three moderate Republicans–Arlen Specter (Penn.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Olympia Snowe (Maine)–broke ranks with party leaders and voted for the bill. All other Senate Republicans followed the lead of House Republicans from earlier in the day and voted against the jobs-creating legislation.
All Democrats supported the recovery package. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), continuing his treatment for cancer, was unable to attend the session.
President Obama is expected to sign the bill next week.
******
Some 3.5 million jobs will be created or saved, financially strapped states will receive fiscal relief to maintain vital services, jobless workers will get improved benefits and help in maintaining health coverage, and working families will have more money in their pockets from targeted tax cuts under a historic economic recovery package passed by the House this afternoon on a 246-183 vote.
Every Republican House member voted against the jobs bill, as did seven Democrats. Republicans had called for less spending and more Bush-style tax cuts for the wealthy.
The Senate is expected to approve the bill tonight or tomorrow with the support of a handful of moderate Republicans. President Obama is expected to sign it this weekend.
