Highlights from ‘Building the New Economy’
Last week, leaders from labor, business and politics came together in Washington, D.C., at the Building the New Economy conference, sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Campaign for America’s Future. A new video shows some highlights from the conference and discussions on the need to rebuild manufacturing in order to strengthen our economy.
Here’s what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had to say in his address to the conference:
Our goal must be to develop the best technology and industries that will convert our economy into a greener future, fueled by good jobs right here in America.
The one good thing about the economic collapse is that it lets us—quite frankly, it requires us—to think big.
You can see more comments here from conference attendees like Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Penn.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
Time Running Out to Rebuild the U.S Economy
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The unwillingness of political leaders to act boldly for the nation’s economic future has put our prosperity in danger, and it’s past time to do something about it, union leaders and lawmakers said today.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) told the closing session of the Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C., that other nations, especially India and China, have made a huge commitment to rev up development of efficient energy sources and threaten to leave the United States in the dust. Said Rendell:
Time is running out. The science and technology are there, but do we have the will? The time of American economic dominance is fast disappearing. If we have an America that doesn’t make anything, then we become a second- or third-rate power.
Rendell, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) made up the final panel for the conference.
Symposium to Tackle Challenge of Putting America Back to Work
The contrast is staggering: While Wall Street celebrates record earnings for the fat cats at the top financial firms, the reality on Main Street is that more than one in six working Americans is now unemployed or underemployed.
In the midst of this jobless “recovery,” leading policymakers and experts will gather to discuss how public policy should respond to this unprecedented unemployment crisis at the conference, “The Jobs Deficit: The Challenge of Putting America Back to Work.” The New America Foundation’s Bernard L. Schwartz Economic Symposium is sponsoring the discussion Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C.
For more information and to register for the symposium, click here.
Bargaining Wins for Public Employees in Los Angeles, Pennsylvania, Kentucky
Public employees across the country have been battling bruising attacks on their jobs and paychecks as cities and states sink into red ink. No more so than in California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger achieved through budget cuts what he couldn’t in state referendums voted down by voters in 2008, a drastic reduction in state services. Yet in Los Angeles, city workers—members of several unions—ratified a new contract that averts furloughs and layoffs. State employees in Pennsylvania and Kentucky also have good news after mobilizing successfully to protect their paychecks and turn back cuts in benefits.
The Los Angeles city budget, adopted in May, called for layoffs and 26 furlough days per worker—amounting to a 10 percent cut in services and pay for every city program and every worker. Since then, members of the Coalition of LA City Unions in Los Angeles overwhelmingly approved a new contract with the city that preserves city services and avoids layoffs and furloughs. The new agreement will save more than half a billion dollars over the next three years, primarily through a retirement incentive program and delays in scheduled wage increases.
Thinking Big About a New Economy
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Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) will headline an array of economic experts and progressive leaders as they gather in Washington, D.C., tomorrow to discuss strategies for rebuilding a new and more sustainable economy.
More than 800 people are expected to attend the Thinking Big/Thinking Forward conference, co-sponsored by The American Prospect, Institute for America’s Future, Demos, and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). In a joint statement, the conference organizers say the current economic crisis requires far more than a short-term stimulus.
The current recovery plan must be understood as a down-payment on a sustained expansion of public investment vital to building this new economy. It is time to discard the scorn for effective government that contributed to our current travails and commit to making the investments critical for our future as a centerpiece of a new economics of shared prosperity.
