Join Tweet-a-Thon and Expose the Chamber of Commerce Friday
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Get set to join a tweet-a-thon Friday, at 10 a.m. EST, to help launch the #notmychamber campaign spearheaded by the worker advocacy group, American Rights at Work.
If you are on Twitter, starting at 10 a.m., sign the organization’s “Not My Chamber” act.ly petition at http://act.ly/1cc or by tweeting: RT @araw petition @chamberpost: The U.S. #Chamber doesn’t represent me. It’s Not My Chamber! http://act.ly/1cc #notmychamber (RT to sign!)
If you don’t use Twitter (and can understand nary a word of the previous paragraph), you can sign the “Not My Chamber” pledge here: www.notmychamber.org. Already, 20,301 people and 3,102 business owners have signed the pledge.
Here’s What the World Labor Movement Is Saying to President Obama and Asian Leaders
The global labor movement and the AFL-CIO are urging President Obama and other world leaders meeting in Singapore at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to take strong stands on issues of jobs, trade imbalances, currency policy, workers’ rights and climate change.
With 59 million people expected to be unemployed worldwide by the end of the year, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other trade union leaders called on the G-20 countries, which include China and Japan, to continue to press for a coordinated global economic strategy to stimulate new jobs to ensure a real recovery. China’s stimulus package has been significantly larger compared to the size of China’s economy than the U.S. stimulus and has been credited with driving China’s rapid recovery.
Bill Helps Workers, Communities Move to Clean Energy Jobs
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Workers would get assistance in upgrading their skills and communities could create good green jobs and build infrastructure under legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate last week. The American Worker and Community Assistance Act (S. 2742), co-sponsored by Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), would provide job training and support to workers and also would help communities adapt to a changing economy.
Says Casey:
There is tremendous potential in clean energy technology and manufacturing, but we must give workers the skills to succeed and employers must have access to a skilled workforce. Legislation being considered by Congress to combat global warming can reduce our dependence on foreign energy, increase our security and create a better world for our children. However, we also have a responsibility to our workers, industries and communities who may be affected by the shift in the economy.
Help Create a New Army of Progressive Journalists
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Powerful corporate interests like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are spending millions to block real change in health care, climate change policies and workers’ rights. They are aided by the corporate-controlled media and its budget slashing for reporting and investigative staff.
Workers are fighting back against the lack of real news by looking for ways to preserve investigative journalism and get the truth out to the public. Recently, the Huffington Post launched its Investigative Fund to hire seasoned journalists who have been laid off or forced into early retirement. Bloggers and citizen journalists also are valiantly trying to fill the media vacuum.
Now, the Institute for Southern Studies (ISS) is launching the Freedom Journalism School—a pioneering program to train an army of 50 new media muckrakers across the South.
Bad Climate Change Bill Could Cost 4 Million U.S. Jobs
Industries supporting more than 4 million U.S. jobs could be at risk unless lawmakers include strong provisions in climate change legislation to keep energy-intensive, trade-sensitive manufacturers competitive.
A new report says the legislation should include a system of rebates and allowances to help U.S. companies make the transition to lower carbon emissions and a tariff system, or border adjustments, to penalize countries that fail to regulate greenhouse gases in the production of goods.
The report, “Climate Change Policy,” released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), says a well-designed climate policy can support the economic recovery and green investments can support millions of new jobs, starting with the creation of more than 1 million jobs in the next two years. Click here to read the report.
Trumka Calls for Just Transition to Green Economy
The union and environmental movements must act together to reduce carbon emissions, stabilize climate change and reverse practices that put our very survival at risk, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. Trumka and the new AFL-CIO leadership team are on a multi-state listening tour, talking with workers—and taking on Wall Street and the big health insurance industry.
Speaking last night at the Jobs, Justice and Climate conference sponsored by the New York Society for Ethical Culture, Trumka said the union movement is committed to ending our dependence on foreign oil and reversing the threat of climate change by transforming the way Americans use energy.
We have much common ground—in fact, a fragile planet of common ground.
Union Sportsmen: Dedicated Funding Needed to Safeguard Fish and Wildlife
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Union sportsmen see firsthand how climate change has harmed the woods, streams and lakes, even as the rest of us are aware of the planet heating up from reports of shrinking ice shelves to holes in the Earth’s ozone layer.
In a letter to congressional leaders from 20 of the unions in the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) and the Union Sportsmen Alliance (USA), the unions write:
Union sportsmen do not need to read reports in the press to know climate change is already affecting the ways they pursue game and fish, the success of their days afield and the timing of their hunting and fishing trips.
The 20 unions urge the leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to include dedicated funding to safeguard fish, wildlife and ecosystems important to sportsmen be in Senate climate change legislation.
Global Unions: G-8 Didn’t Do Enough to Address Economic Crises
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The leaders of the world’s top economies failed to adequately address the three major economic crises facing the world—unemployment, climate change and development, according to leaders of unions around the globe who had called on the G-8 summit last week in Italy to take strong action to stimulate the global economy.
Said John Evans, general secretary of the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD) :
There are no explicit commitments to making the necessary resources available for achieving employment and social protection goals, although the focus on the need to protect the tax base represents a welcome step in this direction.
How Can Unions Fit into Industry-Driven Climate Agreements?
Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, has recently returned from Bonn, Germany, where he participated in meetings to ensure that labor’s input contributes to larger United Nations climate change discussions later this year. This report follows up on his first three blogs from Bonn here, here and here.
Climate talks in Bonn have gone slowly. Developing nations have been claiming that developed nations have all the “historic responsibility” for acting on climate change and they have none. At another level, the undercurrent was all about the major diplomatic initiative in Beijing led by Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate. Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. delegation leader, left Bonn to join him in China.
Upon his return to Bonn, Pershing said the discussions had been productive. He said they had discussed the idea of a joint research and development agenda, and although no decisions had been made, “that was to be expected for a first meeting.” It makes sense but the media tended to report it as a disappointment because there was no “breakthrough announcement.” That’s the nature of the high expectations and recognition that the U.S.-China relationship is one of the keys to achieving a global climate agreement.
Environmental Movement, Unions Come Together for Healthy Planet, Workers’ Rights
In a great piece of the latest issue of Grist, Kate Sheppard looks at the ways the union and environmental movements are working together to make sure the emerging energy economy is sustainable and fair to everyone.
Sheppard focuses on the work of the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of environmental and union groups, which is educating union members and their families about the need for green jobs to aid in the transition to a cleaner, greener economy. She also examines the rising role of environmental groups in the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, EarthAction and Green America have joined the broad coalition for the Employee Free Choice Act, as has the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of union, environmental, business and community groups focused on building a new energy economy.
