Clean Energy Could Create 850,000 New Jobs
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With more than 2 million U.S. manufacturing jobs lost since the beginning of this recession in December 2007, a new report says developing a clean energy economy in the United States could create some 850,000 new manufacturing jobs.
The report, “Building the Clean Energy Assembly Line: How Renewable Energy Can Revitalize U.S. Manufacturing and the American Middle Class,” by the Blue Green Alliance, recommends major policy changes to build markets for clean energy and provide the financing and capacity building to create clean energy jobs.
Speaking at a telephone press conference today, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said federal policies gave a boost to the auto, medical and other industries, and they can do the same for clean energy.
Clean energy can revitalize U.S. manufacturing. Clean energy technology utilizes many of the same components manufactured for the auto industry. Done right, clean energy policy will create new demand for…manufacturing.
Burmese Refugees Battle Oppression in U.S. Plant
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Aung Oo fled his native Burma with his family to escape the brutality, ethnic violence and repression of that country’s military dictatorship.
After being allowed to legally migrate to the United States under the refugee resettlement program, he faces another kind of oppression―working for an employer that pays him half what he should make and that forces him and his co-workers, both native and foreign, to work in unsafe conditions.
So on Sept. 8, Aung Oo and a U.S.-born employee, Tim Hand, went on strike against W&K Steel on behalf of all the other 35 workers in the plant, located in Rankin, Pa., just outside Pittsburgh. They are still on strike.
In a letter to W&K, they demanded that management correct such egregious safety violations as water running down into electrical panels, frayed extension cords with exposed wires in standing water, lack of ventilation, exposure to extreme cold weather and lack of safety training. They also demanded an end to discrimination and equal pay for equal work.
Global Unions Condemn Mexico’s Move to Bust 44,000-Member Union
The global union movement is accusing Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, of systematically trying to bust independent unions and is demanding that he respect the rights of workers to form unions.
The latest example of Calderón’s anti-worker bias is the takeover last month by federal agents and police of the country’s second largest electrical power distributor, Luz y Fuerza (Central Light and Power). Calderón used an executive decree to dissolve the utility, but, in doing so, he also fired the entire 44,000-person workforce and disbanded their union, the 95-year-old Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME), a frequent critic of the government’s policies.
Highlights from ‘Building the New Economy’
Last week, leaders from labor, business and politics came together in Washington, D.C., at the Building the New Economy conference, sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Campaign for America’s Future. A new video shows some highlights from the conference and discussions on the need to rebuild manufacturing in order to strengthen our economy.
Here’s what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had to say in his address to the conference:
Our goal must be to develop the best technology and industries that will convert our economy into a greener future, fueled by good jobs right here in America.
The one good thing about the economic collapse is that it lets us—quite frankly, it requires us—to think big.
You can see more comments here from conference attendees like Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Penn.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
New Jersey Votes for Governor—More Ethics Questions for Christie
New Jersey voters are heading to the polls today in a critical and tight race for governor between AFL-CIO-endorsed Gov. Jon Corzine, a supporter of working families, and his opponent, former George W. Bush political appointee Chris Christie.
It’s a fight that will determine whether New Jersey will move forward with Corzine’s agenda that helps working families, or whether New Jersey will be taken backward with Christie’s failed ideas on health care, education and workers’ rights.
Meanwhile, even more ethics questions are emerging about Christie. An investigation at the blog Blue Jersey—complete with phone records—into Christie’s conduct as U.S. attorney, suggests that Christie used his position to aid his political party, including
slipping information damaging to Democrats to the press while holding tight to information that could hurt Republicans.
Manufacturing Crucial for Building New Economy
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Over the next decade, America is poised to invest $2 trillion in infrastructure, health care and a greener economy, but that money must be invested strategically to build a new economy, not just retool the current model, which is not working.
Speaking this morning at the Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the global economic collapse requires us to think of long-term strategies to rebuild and restructure our economy, with a revitalized manufacturing sector at its core.
The one-day conference, sponsored by the Institute for America’s Future and the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), is bringing together political, business, environmental and union leaders and economists to discuss the fundamental changes needed to create an economy that provides sustainable long-term growth and creates across-the-board prosperity.
House Health Reform Bill Would Cover Millions—Affordably
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Today, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a comprehensive reform bill that would guarantee coverage for 96 percent of the U.S. public.
Among other things, the bill, H.R. 3962, includes a public option, expands Medicaid coverage to families who earn up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, provides help for middle-class families to get coverage and sets tough new rules for insurers, making sure that no one can be denied care or be rejected from coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It’s fairly funded through a combination of employer responsibility, cost savings and a surtax on the extremely wealthy—and does not get its funding from taxes on middle-class workers’ benefits. All that, and it will reduce the deficit in the long term.
It’s the kind of change America voted for last fall. You can read the full bill here.
Trumka: Bank Bailout Language in Proposed House Financial Services Committee Bill Doesn’t Work
Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is delivering a message to Congress: The United States needs financial reform that works, and key elements of the proposed legislation covering bank bailouts fall far short of that standard.
In testimony today before the House Financial Services Committee, Trumka said while parts of the proposed bill on financial reform bring necessary changes, the elements dealing with the “shadow financial sector”—derivatives, hedges funds, private equity and bailout funds—are going in the wrong direction. As proposed, they could put even more power into the hands of unaccountable bankers without fixing the financial sector failures that led to our current crisis.
Building the New Economy
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The Campaign for America’s Future is hosting a Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C., today, and campaign staffer Mike Elk describes what needs to happen to make a new economy work for all of us.
Today, the Campaign for America’s Future is holding a “Building the New Economy” conference. As we build the new economy, it’s important we build one not based on the assets bubbles of the past but on the firm rock of manufacturing.
As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka argues:
Flawed trade and tax policies and a financial system focused on short-term profits drove good jobs offshore, led to record trade deficits, and left the economy in ruins. With the manufacturing share of gross domestic product withering to 12 percent (from 15.9 percent in 1995) and the financial sector growing to 22 percent, the structure of the U.S. economy looks more like Monaco than Germany. This growth model of asset bubbles, low wages, credit pyramids, toxic assets and unregulated out-of-control global capital has been a recipe for disaster.
AFL-CIO Outraged at Murder of Colombian Trade Unionist
The AFL-CIO is saddened and angered by news of the assassination of Honorio Llorente Melendez, a union organizer for the CUT—Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (Unitary Central of Workers) of Magdalena Medio—in Colombia.
Until he was fired recently for trade union activity, Llorente had served as treasurer of Sintrainagro (National Union of Agricultural Industry Workers) in Santander. A court hearing on his unlawful firing was scheduled to take place this week.
Llorente is among at least 25 trade unionists killed this year in Colombia, which remains the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists.
