Register Now for the Summit on Jobs and America’s Future
The Campaign for America’s Future is bringing together key leaders and grassroots activists for a critical Summit on Jobs and America’s Future March 10 to tell the truth about what it will take to get America working and to discuss solutions to the economic crisis.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will deliver the keynote address. Other speakers include Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.); Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum; Van Jones, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change; and pollster Celinda Lake.
The Summit on Jobs and America’s Future begins at 9 a.m. March 10 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. To register and to get more information, click here.
Labor Heritage to Honor Trumka, Lucy and Nussbaum
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For more than two decades, the Labor Heritage Foundation (LHF) has preserved and promoted the cultural heritage of American workers through art, music, poetry, written works, theater and artistic works. Tomorrow, the foundation will honor three inspiring labor leaders at its annual “Evening of Labor Honors” fundraiser at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., beginning at 5 p.m.
This year’s honorees are AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) President and former AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy and Working America Director Karen Nussbaum.
Working America Mobilizing Unemployed Voters
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Who better to keep candidates focused on the real issue in this election—jobs—than the very people who are out of work? Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, is organizing and mobilizing unemployed workers to go to the polls in November to make sure that candidates who favor outsourcing or don’t support workers join them in the unemployment lines.
Starting with its own unemployed members who are registered voters, Working America is reaching out to everyday voters on the streets. Field organizers in 12 cities are talking with unemployed workers at unemployment offices and job training facilities. Workers at these facilities will have the chance to fill out “Help Wanted” petitions to send to Congress asking them what they’ve done to create jobs and help unemployed workers.
Working America Director Karen Nussbaum says although millions of people are unemployed and underemployed, and millions more are worried about the future:
Some politicians are willing to play politics with the survival of unemployed workers and their families. We’ll make sure that unemployed workers get out and vote, and that they know the records of the candidates on issues like extending unemployment insurance, investing in jobs and preventing outsourcing.
Immigration Policies Hurt Children, Rip Families Apart
Two weeks before Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, S.B. 1070, takes effect, immigrant children and their advocates made an urgent plea to members of Congress to review how the nation’s broken immigration system hurts children and its long-lasting effects on children and families.
At a Capitol Hill press conference and in an ad hoc congressional hearing today, two young victims of our nation’s immigration system recounted their experience of being separated from their parents as a result of Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration enforcement practices. Arpaio’s tough enforcement practices have been condemned by human rights and civil rights advocates and challenged in court.
Eleven-year-old Heidi Ruby Portugal told reporters and members of Congress that before her mother’s detention, she admired “all uniformed people that protect our country.”
It’s a pity that those thoughts are gone thanks to all those mistreatments and the arrests….They took away the most precious thing that children have, our mother. With one hit they took away my smile and my happiness.
Progressives Set for America’s Future Now Conference, June 7–9
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More than a year into the Obama administration and with November elections just ahead, progressive activists will gather June 7–9 in Washington, D.C., to forge a strategy to build a majority for real change in America.
The America’s Future Now conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), traditionally is the largest gathering of progressives in the country. There’s still time to register for the conference. Register now here or click on the America’s Future Now icon above.
Grassroots activists and policy-wonk analysts have gathered at the campaign’s conferences each year for six years to forge an economic agenda for change—and the organizing strategies for taking that agenda to the country.
2010 PayWatch Exposes Corporate Lobbying on Financial Reform
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The nation’s biggest banks helped create the current financial crisis that required a $700 billion taxpayer bailout. In return, the banks cut back on lending to consumers and small businesses but paid out a record $145 billion in total compensation in 2009.
The 2010 AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch, which launched today, shows the same Big Six banks—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo—are spending millions of dollars lobbying on financial regulations, including limits on executive pay and risky actions like the ones that caused the current crisis.
In six case studies, PayWatch examines how the companies paid out big bucks to executives and lobbyists:
- Citigroup received more than $45 billion in bailout funds—the largest bank bailout and employs nearly 50 lobbyists. Citigroup’s highest-paid executive, Institutional Clients Group CEO John Havens, received more than $11 million in 2009.
- At Bank of America, Thomas Montag, the head of global banking and markets, collected $30 million last year. And Kenneth Lewis, who retired as CEO at the end of 2009, could collect as much as $83 million over his retirement. The bank has lobbied federal officials and lawmakers on derivatives, executive compensation, oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
Ozzie and Harriet Work Outside Home: Nation Needs New Laws to Balance Work and Family
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With more women working outside the home to make ends meet in the global economy, the demands of working and caring for a family are becoming increasingly difficult.
Now as the nation decides how to cope with recession, we have a prime opportunity to take the next step and create workplace standards that are good for the bottom line and for working families, several experts told a congressional committee today.
A hearing by the Joint Economic Committee on “Balancing Work and Family in the Recession” examined the current recession’s impact on trends in the workplace that help employees meet the dual commitments of work and family life.
Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum told the committee that without enforceable workplace standards, such as paid family leave, most employers will not take necessary steps to initiate basic policies that allow workers to balance work and family.
Six Republican Governors Rather Play Politics than Aid Jobless Workers
With U.S. unemployment at the highest level in more than a quarter century, six Republican governors would rather play politics with the lives of their citizens than help them make ends meet.
President Obama’s economic recovery plan provides $25 more per week and extends benefits for those who are jobless and struggling to feed their families. But as Karen Nussbaum, director of Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, writes on Huffington Post:
If you live in Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina or Texas, you are laid off and left out.
When AIG defrauded investors and the government, employees there took home millions in bonuses. Elsewhere, people are living unemployment check to unemployment check through no fault of their own, laid off because everyone is tightening their belts and job growth is nonexistent. Shoring up the unemployment insurance safety net is fundamental fairness.
