Bold Action Needed to End Unemployment Crisis
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America’s economy is not working for everybody and progressives must demand our elected leaders fight for economic justice—and economic justice begins with good jobs, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. This afternoon, Trumka spoke at a press conference and later on a panel at the America’s Future Now conference here in Washington, D.C.
Americans of all political persuasions are angry, and rightly so. We need political leaders to speak to that anger, to harness it to attack the plutocracy that has run our country into the ground, to build an economy that works for all. But instead our politics seems to be about a choice between apostles of hate masquerading as populists, and voices of complacency masquerading as progressivism.
In an emotional presentation, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert said he was “infuriated at the attitude” of the media and political leaders that the unemployed are suffering, “but that’s just too bad.” The nation is wasting its most valuable resource—its people, he said.
There is no real sense of urgency. The media and the government are clueless as to the scope of the problem.
Trumka: Jobs Crisis—Fix It Now
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Today at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other leaders joined together to call for urgent action to create jobs and rebuild the economy.
In a live webcast panel discussion, the consensus was clear: Without quick action, an entire generation could be mired in economic turmoil. The nation can, and must, put people back to work—while addressing critical needs for the future of our communities.
The scale of the jobs crisis is obvious: Since the beginning of the recession, more than 8 million jobs have been lost. The official unemployment rate is at 10.2 percent, with more than 26 million unemployed or underemployed. These figures are even more severe among African American and Latino communities. Young people are at risk of permanently stunted opportunity, and the jobs crisis is rebounding throughout the country with increased hunger and poverty, massive numbers of home foreclosures and diminished access to health care.
Trumka to Launch Jobs Initiative Tomorrow
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Tomorrow morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will announce a major new initiative to create and save jobs.
(Watch the live webcast at www.aflcio.org/createjobs starting at 9 a.m.)
Trumka will be part of a noted panel in “Spotlight on the Jobs Crisis” at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
With unemployment at its highest rate in more than 20 years, Trumka says America needs bold, quick action to put people back to work, in addition to longer term, structural fixes for our economy. The AFL-CIO initiative he announces will include calls to extend help for the unemployed, rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, provide aid to struggling states and communities, create federally funded community-based jobs and increase lending to small and medium-sized businesses to spur job creation.
Coalition to Ensure People of Color Have Role in Health Care Debate
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A coalition of African American and Latino groups, along with other civil rights and grassroots organizations, launched a campaign today to make sure the voices of people of color are heard in the final weeks of the health care reform debate.
A series of TV and print ads in English and Spanish will run in key states and urge viewers and readers to let members of Congress know the importance of health care reform to people of color.
In a press conference today, leaders from Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the NAACP, National Council of La Raza and Campaign for Community Change said recent studies have shown the inequality in the health care system falls most heavily on communities of color. People of color are more likely to suffer and die from diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases.
Economic Recovery Package Helps Everyone
After eight years of their go-it-alone conservative policies that created the economic crisis we’re in today, congressional Republicans still are playing partisan politics. They’re threatening to scuttle President Obama’s economic recovery package unless they get bigger tax breaks for Big Business and the rich.
The Center for Community Change, a national coalition of more than 300 grassroots organizations, joins many of us in the labor and progressive communities in a drive to convince members of the Senate to pass Obama’s economic recovery and reinvestment legislation.
