Good Jobs First Keeps Eye on Economic Recovery Spending
Good Jobs First today launched a new website, www.AccountableRecovery.org, as part of its new States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery (STAR) Coalition. STAR is a network, which promotes state and local activism to ensure the $787 billion in spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is transparent, accountable, fair and effective.
The new site breaks down economic recovery information for each state and the District of Columbia:
- An evaluation of each state’s Recovery Act website, especially with regard to disclosure of contractor information.
- Details on Recovery Act oversight policies and structures.
- A synopsis of policy debates on the issues of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act occurring in the state.
- Key data such as total funding the state is expected to receive.
- Listings of watchdog organizations, their Recovery Act publications and other resources.
On Earth Day, AFL-CIO Launches Green Initiative
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To celebrate Earth Day, the AFL-CIO, together with the leadership of its new Center for Green Jobs, announced a plan to reduce energy consumption, cut down waste and reduce the carbon footprint of its national headquarters.
With green jobs emerging as a top public policy priority, the AFL-CIO is pushing to ensure that the new green jobs created are also good jobs that provide a decent wage and benefits.
Says Jeff Rickert, director of the Working for America Institute’s Center for Green Jobs:
It’s like the old saying goes, the AFL-CIO is thinking globally and acting locally, but doing so in a way that demonstrates how to use strategic investments that help the environment while relying on high-skilled work.
Job Quality in New Green Economy
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As the nation increasingly focuses on the need to create green jobs, a new report reminds us that such jobs do not always measure up in terms of wages and working conditions.
High Road or Low Road? Job Quality in the New Green Economy, released earlier this month by the grassroots community organization Good Jobs First, outlines strategies to ensure that green jobs are good jobs.
The report found that many wind and solar manufacturing plants are receiving large economic-development subsidies from state and local governments.
Says Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First executive director:
This use of taxpayer money provides an opportunity to raise wages and other working conditions. Many states and localities already apply job quality standards to companies receiving job subsidies or public contracts. In the report, we urge wider and more aggressive use of such standards by federal as well as state and local agencies.
Double Standard: Critics of Big Three Loan Subsidize Foreign Competitors
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When Senate Republicans blocked the $14 billion emergency bridge loan needed to keep the nation’s auto industry operating, they knew it could cost between 3 million and 5 million jobs. But some of the most vociferous critics of the auto industry and the UAW reside in states that have given huge no-strings-attached subsidies to foreign auto plants. Some of those states even owe their very survival in part to the Big Three auto companies.
Good Jobs First reports that foreign-owned auto companies operating in the United States have received $3.6 billion in subsidies, mostly from southern “right to work” for less states. That amount doesn’t even count joint ventures with U.S. companies or include inflation, which would make the figures even higher in today’s dollars.
