Jobs Council Calls for Infrastructure Action, Training, Investment to Spur Job Growth
The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness issued a 52-page report today on what it calls “Five Commonsense Initiatives to Boost Jobs and Competitiveness.”
Before meeting with the Jobs Council today, President Obama, met with a group of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka at an IBEW training facility in Pittsburgh. He told the union members:
Right now, our economy needs a jolt. Right now. And today, the Senate of the United States has a chance to do something, right now, by voting for the American Jobs Act.
The report calls for a major upgrade in the nation’s transportation and energy infrastructure. “If Washington can agree on anything, it should be this,” says the report. Read the rest of this entry »
D.C. Community Services Agency Wins Green Jobs Training Grant
This is a cross-post from the Metropolitan Washington (D.C.) Council, AFL-CIO.
The Metro Council’s Community Services Agency (CSA) Building Futures pre-apprenticeship training program has won a $900,000 grant as part of the Jobs for the Future consortium. Says CSA Executive Director Kathleen McKirchy:
This is a big deal. We will get nearly $1 million over three years in partnership with the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region and Wider Opportunities for Women to keep our pre-apprenticeship training program going.
$3 Million Training Grant Means Aerospace Jobs for Washington Workers
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Standing over the production line in Renton, Wash., where members of the Machinists (IAM) District 751 build Boeing Co.’s 737s, Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) yesterday announced that the state is investing $3 million to train hundreds of Washington workers to get the skills and certificates they need to work in the aerospace industry.
(Thanks to Kathy Cummings, communications director for the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC), for sending along the video.)
The IAM and Boeing worked together, Cummings said, to secure the funding to maintain the high-skilled workforce that makes Washington the best place in the world to build and maintain airplanes. Gregoire said the money will help:
those individuals negatively impacted by the national recession receive training to move toward a stable and good-paying career. And it ensures our aerospace workers have the cutting-edge skills needed to design, build and maintain the aircraft of tomorrow—helping our 650 aerospace companies grow and create new jobs.
White House Says No Trade Deals Until TAA Strengthened
Until Congress acts on renewing an enhanced Trade Adjustment Assistance Act (TAA) for workers who have lost their jobs because of outsourcing, offshoring and unfair trade deals, the Obama administration will not submit three pending trade deals to Congress, the White House announced yesterday.
In February, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) refused to hold a vote on extending the TAA. Because of Boehner’s blockade, the TAA program that been strengthened in 2009, reverted back to its 2002 version that covers fewer workers and offers lower benefits and fewer opportunities for displaced workers.
Capitol Hill observers said Boehner and Republicans held the TAA extension hostage to force a commitment from the Obama administration to send three pending trade deals— Korea, Panama and Colombia—to Congress.
The AFL-CIO has long-backed TAA. In February, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called it a “lifeline for working people trying to get the skills necessary to change careers after their lives have been turned upside down.”
But the AFL-CIO remains firmly opposed to the Colombia, Korea and Panama free trade agreements.
Manufacturing Decline Puts Economic, National Security at Risk
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The nation “must dig in and redouble our efforts to ‘Make It In America‘,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) at Senate hearing this afternoon on reviving the nation’s manufacturing base.
Testifying on behalf of the AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo W. Gerard told the Commerce, Science and Transportation committee:
American manufacturing is in dire circumstances and its future is in jeopardy. Our economic and national security is at risk. Despite the small uptick in manufacturing employment and production, it occurs against a backdrop of long-term decline and devastation.
He outlined several steps that must be taken to rebuild manufacturing and create jobs including: Read the rest of this entry »
Republican Budget Proposal Attacks Middle Class, Destroys Jobs
How bad is the Republican federal budget proposal? AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel describes it as an “all-out assault against middle-class Americans.”
In a letter to House members, Samuel summarizes some of the most egregious elements of H.R. 1, the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011. Among them, is a proposed funding level for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that is so draconian, it potentially would defund the agency completely through the end of the fiscal year in September. Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who as chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee wields considerable power, added the amendment to defund the NLRB.
Slashing the NLRB is just one of many examples of how the Republican-backed budget attacks the middle class and working families by taking away job safety protections, employment training opportunities and by slashing hundreds of thousands of family-supporting jobs. Here’s more: Read the rest of this entry »
House Republican Budget Plan Hits Working Families, Spares CEOs
The nation’s No. 1 priority is getting the nation’s job-creation engine running again. But House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his gang instead have unveiled a budget plan that slams working families and is a “naked payback” to Wall Street CEOs, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
The Republican plan for the rest of fiscal year 2011 slashes investments in education from pre-school to college, cuts and cancels real world infrastructure projects at the cost of 300,000 jobs, chops billions from the job training programs that help 8 million people a year and goes after workplace rights, job safety and the environment.
But they haven’t put everything on their hit list. While working families will bear the brunt of the proposed cuts, corporate CEOs are not being asked for any sacrifices at all. Nor are the lawmakers pushing these cuts proposing to cut their own pay and benefits.
Trumka says the “budget gutting” bill the House will vote on this week:
will padlock the doors to essential programs millions rely on every day and put hundreds of thousands out of work.
Trumka: To Solve Job Crisis ‘We Must Create Different Kind of Economy’
After meeting with several unemployed San Diego workers this morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke at a rally of workers, union, community and faith leaders calling for creation of a local jobs program.
What I’ve seen here this morning as I sat with some of the hard-working people of this great city—people who through no fault of their own are without jobs—is another grim reminder of the ever-present struggles of working families in this city, this state, this country.
He said the labor movement and the nation’s leaders must “respond as never before to create a different kind of economy.” Click here to read his entire speech.
Few Jobs for Young Workers Part of a Long-Term Trend
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| Algernon Austin, Economic Policy Institute |
If you’re under age 25 and looking for a job, you’re going to have a much tougher time than your older brother or sister did in 1999. Then, 60 percent of 16-24-year-olds had a job. Today, just 48 percent do, the lowest rate of young worker employment since World War II.
Young workers are twice as likely to be unemployed as the overall population—18 percent, compared with the overall unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. The jobless rate soars to 27.3 percent for young African American workers and 21.3 percent for Hispanic workers.
(For more on the economic struggles of a broader group of young workers—under age 35, see our AFL-CIO report, “Young Workers a Lost Decade).”
This morning at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing examining job and economic problems of 20-something workers, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) warned:
It is clear that the drop in employment is not just the result of a sudden shock to the system, but is part of a larger trend. You cannot ignore the fact that 20 percent fewer young workers are participating in the labor market.
The consequences of reduced work opportunities among young Americans mean fewer long-term employment prospects, less earnings and decreased productivity….If these dramatic trends are not reversed, our nation faces the potential of a generation of youth disconnected from the job market.
AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Partners with American Indian Councils
American Indians have new opportunities to learn the skills needed for long-term careers in the construction industry with a new training partnership announced today by labor and American Indian leaders.
The AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) and a coalition of Native American Indian Tribal Councils have created the Native Construction Careers Institute (NCCI). Mark Ayers, BCTD president and NCCI co-chairman, says the BCTD’s unions are
immensely proud to be a part of the NCCI and to work with tribal leaders to provide the much-needed training and expertise that will enable thousands of young Native Americans to secure careers as skilled craft professionals. We are confident that this project will foster a deeper level of understanding, respect and admiration among and between the organizations and people involved in this important endeavor.
