Executive Council Approves Action to Create New, Good Jobs
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Saying “We will be in the street wherever the fight for jobs is being fought,” members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council today issued a call to action for the entire union and progressive movement to put America back to work and ensure those whose reckless acts created this jobs crisis pay a price.
At its meeting in Orlando, Fla., the AFL-CIO Executive Council approved a statement saying in part:
Mass unemployment is intolerable. Action is required. The AFL-CIO calls upon the entire labor movement—our affiliated unions, our state and local labor councils, the millions of members of Working America and our allies in communities and progressive movements across this country—to come together in a great effort to create and protect good jobs. This campaign for jobs must be carried out at every level—in Washington, D.C., in state capitols and city halls, in boardrooms and workplaces and in living rooms across this country.
The council outlined an ambitious plan that targets politicians who vote to deny aid for the unemployed and against action to create jobs. It also calls for strong actions against Wall Street firms that pay bonuses but won’t pay taxes and against corporations that take the public’s money and use it to downsize and outsource jobs.
Setting Standards for Green and Good Jobs
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If the nation’s economy is to truly recover, the funds from President Obama’s economic recovery package—the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—must be spent in ways that keep working families’ needs in mind and create a foundation for their future.
To ensure the jobs created under the bill are family-supporting jobs, the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute (WAI) and its brand-new Center for Green Jobs have created standards to help community-level unionists assess the quality of jobs created under the recovery act. They also are urging the forming of new partnerships among employers, government, labor, community groups, environmentalists and other stakeholders to make sure the standards are carried out.
Green Jobs Center Director Jeff Rickert says standards are important because
we have to make sure that the idea of the green job is that it is a good job. The blue-collar job was the cornerstone of the golden era. We want to make sure the green collar job is the cornerstone of a platinum one.
Green Jobs Must Also Be Good Jobs
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Creating green jobs must be a key part of our economic future, and it holds the key to solving the dual issues of global warming and economic growth. But the jobs will only boost the economy if there are guarantees to prevent employers from seeking to make profits on the backs of workers.
For three days last week, more than 2,600 union and environmental activists and lawmakers gathered in Washington, D.C., to discuss how to create a new wave of green jobs that will both stimulate the economy and provide a clean future. Participants at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference focused on transforming the struggling economy through a range of environmental investments in green technology, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Conference organizers said the goal was to develop a “New Green Deal” that would create jobs, increase energy independence, reduce global warming and expand the clean energy and green technology markets.
In addition, the conference highlighted the potential of a green economy to build a new social agenda that lifts Americans out of poverty, improves public health and strengthens the middle class.
