Eric Cantor: Job Creation Dead on Arrival
Last week, we had a great Twitter campaign pointing out how House Speaker John Boehner is failing to create jobs.
Looks like Rep. Eric Cantor has now joined the Republican jobs fail crowd, saying President Obama’s American Jobs Act is “dead on arrival.” As AFSCME President Gerald McEntee put it:
Rep. Cantor just doesn’t get it. The country needs jobs, not another out-of-touch politician.
Enough with the grandstanding, Rep. Cantor needs to get to work. Get his party to work, to do the job they were elected to do, stand up for their constituents. It is time for politicians in Washington to come together and rebuild our economy and pass the American Jobs Act now.
Yesterday, the Republican Majority Leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said that right now, he won’t even let the jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives. He won’t even give it a vote.
Challenging Cantor’s statement, President Obama said today in Dallas:
Well I’d like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what in this jobs bill he doesn’t believe in. Does he not believe in rebuilding America’s roads and bridges? Does he not believe in tax breaks for small businesses, or efforts to help veterans?
Come tell Dallas construction workers why they should be sitting home instead of fixing our bridges and our schools.
Come tell the small business owners and workers in this community why you’d rather defend tax breaks for millionaires than tax cuts for the middle class.
Take action and tell Cantor—America Wants to Work. Tweet this:
Another #jobsfail. @EricCantor wants to kill American #Jobs Act. Tell him we #want2work.
Private Contractors Are Double the Cost of Federal Workers
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In the past year, congressional Republicans and right-wing extremists have ramped up their long-standing campaign against federal workers, claiming their pay is too high and their benefits too generous compared to private-sector workers. A new study shows how wrong they are.
According to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the federal government pays more than twice as much to private contractors than it would cost federal workers to perform the same work. The government spends some $320 billion a year for services by private contractors.
Groups opposing federal workers cooked the books and used incomplete information—comparing just salaries and not including benefits and other costs—in their studies comparing costs. But POGO General Counsel Scott Amey told The New York Times:
We compared the full compensation paid to federal government and private-sector employees to the billable rates in federal service contracts. Across the board you see that it cost government more to pay for contractors.
Seniors to Lawmakers: Protect Social Security, Medicare
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With Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid possibly on the budget cutting block, members of the Alliance for Retired Americans will celebrate the organization’s 10th anniversary this week by doing what they have done for a decade: fighting for for America’s seniors.
As part of the Alliance’s annual legislative conference which began this afternoon and runs through Sept. 9, hundreds of seniors will converge on Capitol Hill Sept. 8, just hours before President Obama’s address on jobs, to tell their representatives and senators to keep their hands off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Continuing the Fight for Freedom
The following is a cross-post from The Huffington Post by AFSCME President Gerald McEntee.
The tens of thousands of Wisconsinites who have marched and protested at the state Capitol and throughout the state this past week are American heroes. It is not often in this country that thousands gather to fight for the dignity and the rights of their fellow citizens. Yet for days now, workers and their families, students and retirees, clergy and businessmen, LGBT activists and veterans have joined together to have their voices heard. The people of the Badger State are making history happen.
The vast crowds are demonstrating their determination to fight for the God-given right of workers to have a voice on the job. They are fighting for the American values of freedom, fairness and the fundamental right of workers to speak, organize and negotiate for a better life. They are waging a battle that has been waged by workers for generations in nations across the globe, a battle for the right to participate fully in the life of their community and country and to have their voices heard.
Five New Members Named to Executive Council
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The AFL-CIO today elected five new members to the Executive Council. The Council also voted to add two seats to the council to promote and establishing diversity as well as giving a greater role to state and local labor leaders.
The council is meeting this week in Washington, D.C., to discuss plans for a major push in the fall elections, the union movement’s ongoing strategy to address the jobs crisis and efforts to reach out to young workers. President Obama will address the council today.
The new members of the Executive Council include: UAW President Bob King, UAW Vice President General Holiefield, AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders, North Carolina State AFL-CIO President James Andrews and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo.
The Council also honored two departing members—former UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and former United American Nurses President Ann Converso for their service to working people. Former UAW Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Bunn announced her retirement from the Council in March to become AFL-CIO organizing director. Holiefield was elected to fill that vacancy.
The Assault on Public Employees
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In this cross-post from the Huffington Post and Seminal, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee writes that attacks focusing on public employees are misdirected: the real culprits for the nation’s economic mess are Big Banks and Wall Street.
For more than a generation, America’s working families have been under a constant assault from the CEO’s and extraordinarily wealthy members of our society. While median incomes in the U.S. have stagnated since the mid-1970′s, incomes for those in the top five percent have more than doubled. Since the beginning of our new century—and aided by record-breaking tax cuts—incomes for the top 1 percent have tripled, while working families scrape by, working harder and longer and taking home less than they deserve in pay and benefits.
Thousands Tell Big Insurance: Blocking Health Care Reform Is a Crime
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| AFSCME members declaring the Ritz-Carlton a crime scene. |
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| AFSCME President Gerald McEntee to Congress: “You better take our side before we arrest you!” |
Thousands of union members, community activists, religious leaders and others turned out in Washington, D.C., today to confront Big Insurance and demand insurance companies stop plotting to kill health care reform even as Congress debates bills to reform the nation’s broken health care system.
The boisterous, energetic, diverse crowd marched from the AFL-CIO and AFSCME buildings and DuPont Circle to the sound of beating drums and shouted slogans like, “Blocking health care is a crime” and “Health care can’t wait.” The crowd was so large, it completely encircled the block-long Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., where the front group for the nation’s biggest insurance companies, the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is meeting. Health Care for America NOW (HCAN) sponsored the rally and march. We live-tweeted the event here.
Nicole Varma from Arlington, Va., who has no health care insurance because she is unemployed was among those taking part in the rally.
I am unable to get my medications because I can’t afford them. We need to send a message to the insurance companies that they definitely need to listen to the people. We don’t want insurance abuses. We want real health care reform.
AFSCME Members Rally to Save Public Services
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While state and local governments and school districts across the country struggle with budget deficits, AFSCME members are standing up to tell their elected representatives that raising revenues is the best solution to a budget crisis instead of cutting critical public services just when they are needed the most.
State and local governments and school districts have a $178 billion budget shortfall this year alone.
In Illinois, more than 3,000 activists, including hundreds of members of AFSCME Council 31, rallied at the state Capitol rotunda in Springfield this month to demand that lawmakers pass legislation to increase the individual income tax rate and expand the state’s sales tax base.
Airline Pilots, AFSCME Come to Haiti’s Aid
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Wherever there is a need for help, union members are quick to respond. With estimates as high as 100,000 killed and 40,000 buried during this week’s earthquake in Haiti, three crews of pilots and flight engineers of the Canadian airline First Air, all members of Air Line Pilots (ALPA) Councils 240 and 241, are flying relief supplies to the Caribbean for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The First Air crews, who normally work in the arctic, are flying two Hercules aircraft, which have 6,000 cubic feet of capacity and can carry more than 45,000 pounds of cargo. First Air said it also will send a Boeing 767-223 Super Freighter this weekend to deliver relief provisions from Toronto to Haiti. The Super Freighter can haul 98,700 pounds.
Union Movement Rallies in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Workers
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| Thousands of workers rallied in Puerto Rico against the governor’s drastic layoffs. The sign says “Give me back my job.” | |
In states across the country, working people marched and rallied in solidarity today with their Puerto Rican brothers and sisters against draconian budget cuts and cancellation of their collective bargaining rights.
As 200,000 people march in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to protest Gov. Luis Fortuño’s plan to slash the budget deficit on the backs of workers, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a letter of support and solidarity and rallies were held in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities.
In his letter of support, which was read at the San Juan rally, Trumka said:
We are fully aware of the attacks being afflicted on the workers and their families on your island and we will do whatever we can to stop them. We are completely committed to bringing the full force of the AFL-CIO to fighting for the rights and well being of our affiliated unions, their members, and the people of Puerto Rico.
