BlueGreen Alliance, Apollo Alliance Merge To Strengthen Push for Green Jobs
The BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance today announced a merger to strengthen and unify the movement to build a clean energy, good jobs economy to fuel U.S. job creation. The newly unified organization will call on Washington to focus anew on creating good jobs, securing America’s energy future and preserving the environment for future generations.
Beginning July 1, the two organizations will combine to become the BlueGreen Alliance, which will be home to the Apollo Alliance project. United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and Sierra Club Chair Carl Pope will continue as co-chairs, and David Foster will continue as executive director.
Earlier this year, the BlueGreen Alliance launched Jobs21!, a nine-state grassroots campaign calling for a national jobs plan to put America back to work building the industries of the 21st century here in the United States. This initiative will be strengthened through coordination with the Apollo Alliance’s strong network of state and local affiliates–now dubbed BlueGreen Apollo Alliances. It will also be enhanced by Apollo’s recently-launched Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) project that calls for federal investment in clean transportation that will create 3.7 million direct and indirect jobs over six years and will save Americans up to $5,000 per family each year in commuting costs.
Bipartisan Bill Calls for National Manufacturing Strategy
During the past decade, 5.5 million American manufacturing jobs have disappeared, mostly due to bad trade and tax policies that encourage U.S. companies to move jobs overseas. Further fueling job loss has been the global economic crisis and lack of a comprehensive national manufacturing strategy.
Yesterday, U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) introduced legislation requiring the development of such a strategy. Says Brown:
If we’re going to out-compete and out-innovate other countries, it will require a national manufacturing strategy. The United States has been without one, and our economy has paid the price.
Scott Paul, executive director for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), says the United States is the only industrial nation in the world without a cohesive manufacturing strategy.
To rebuild our manufacturing base and create good middle-class jobs, our federal government needs to deploy a coordinated set of trade, tax, training, procurement, and investment policies.
The bill—the National Manufacturing Strategy Act of 2011—would require the secretary of commerce to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the nation’s manufacturing sector and submit to Congress a National Manufacturing Strategy to increase manufacturing jobs, identify emerging technologies to strengthen U.S. competitiveness, and strengthen the manufacturing sectors in which the United States is most competitive. Says Kirk:
Stopping Currency Manipulation Would Create U.S. Jobs
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Leveling the playing field by enforcing our trade laws against currency manipulation is a no-cost action that will create jobs, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today.
He called on Congress to pass the bipartisan Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act of 2011. Introduced by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Reps. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), it is same legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last September by a 348-79 margin.
Candlelight March to Save Collective Bargaining to Highlight King Day Celebration
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More than 400 union and civil rights activists will march to Cincinnati’s City Hall Jan. 14 to condemn the plan recently elected Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) has to strip Ohio child care and home health care workers of their right to bargain for a better life.
The march is part of the annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration Jan. 13-17 in Cincinnati. Through the march and throughout the conference, activists will send a message that Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of social and economic justice is not dead even in this tough political climate. Workers who provide vital services to the Cincinnati area—including home and child care providers and transit workers—will share their stories and concerns about Kasich and his allies’ attempts to blame and punish low-income workers for the state of the economy. The activists will focus on developing strategies to advance the issues of good job creation, immigration reform and economic equality.
King Day Celebration to Focus on Making Progress in New Political Climate
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During the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend next month, more than 400 union activists will remind the nation that the 2010 election results mean that civil and human rights activists will have to redouble their efforts to keep alive King’s dream of social and economic justice.
At the annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration Jan. 13-17 in Cincinnati, union members will develop strategies to advance the issues of good job creation, immigration reform and economic equality in a much tougher political climate. More than 40 years ago, King faced a similarly hostile political climate, and in his last speech, King stood in solidarity with working people seeking justice and dignity (see video above).
Read the call letter to the King Day celebration here. Check out the agenda here, and download the registration form here.
Rebuilding U.S. Transportation Could Create 3.7 Million Jobs
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By rebuilding our nation’s transportation infrastructure, we could create 3.7 million jobs, 600,000 alone in manufacturing, according to a new action plan released today by the Apollo Alliance.
The Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) calls for an investment of $40 billion a year over the next six years to modernize and shore up our nation’s roads, bridges, mass transportation and advanced vehicles. The plan was developed by a bipartisan group of union members, business owners, environmental and community activists and political leaders.
For decades, the United States has all but ignored mass transit. In fact, since 2005, U.S. companies and governments have spent more than $10 billion to purchase rail cars, tracks and other mass transit equipment overseas, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said during a telephone press conference today. That $10 billion is money that should have been spent here.
Could Simpson or Boehner Pass the Social Security Test?
AFSCME President Gerald McEntee has a great idea for a reality television show. He suggested it as part of a conference call today where participants outlined efforts to strengthen Social Security and combat attempts by the federal budget deficit commission and others to raise the retirement age, cut benefits or even privatize Social Security.
The show would star three people: Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson, who has called seniors “greedy geezers”; House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) who wants to raise the retirement age to 70; and former Lehman Brothers chief executive Peter Peterson, who has bankrolled a major PR campaign to convince the public Social Security is on the brink of disaster. But McEntee admits it might be short-lived.
Give each of these guys the average annual Social Security benefit of $14,000 and make them live on it for a year. But deduct $100 a month for Medicare part B premium and $200 a month for Medigap insurance. When do you think they will stop calling for benefit cuts? Probably after the first episode. Read the rest of this entry »
Manufacturing Policy Key to Economic Recovery
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Unlike our nation’s economic competitors, such as China and Germany, which have national policies geared to increasing their economic development, the United States does not. While we admonish such countries to consume more and export less, they are figuring out ways to increase exports and consume less—and, in turn, are growing their economies far faster than the United States.
In a recent letter to President Obama, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and a group of bipartisan senators wrote that the key to turning our economy around and creating good new jobs is a national industrial policy that would emphasize long-range actions to rebuild our manufacturing base, which has been decimated over the past few decades. In short, they urged the adoption of a national manufacturing policy.
The loss of manufacturing plants and jobs has stifled economic opportunity for middle-class families and compromised our ability to compete in the 21st century economy. Indeed, for the last several decades, administrations have passed up critical opportunities to formulate a rational and comprehensive manufacturing policy. Continued apathy will undermine our country’s ability to achieve energy independence and place our military readiness at risk.
USW Members Urge Action on Clean Energy Jobs Bills
As the U.S. Senate prepares to consider clean energy legislation, a dozen United Steelworkers (USW) members are visiting Capitol Hill today to deliver letters urging senators from certain key states to vote for strong legislation that includes the investments needed to create and maintain good, middle-class manufacturing jobs in this country.
At a Capitol Hill press conference this morning, USW members announced that union members sent more than 100,000 letters to the Senate calling for comprehensive manufacturing policies that promote clean energy innovation and development. Dennis Barker, a USW member from Granite City, Ill., said:
Now is the time for the Senate to get moving on clean energy jobs legislation.
Jobs Bill: Action Needed Now
As the U.S. Senate considers a much-needed jobs bill with no certain date for a vote, the AFL-CIO union movement continues to push lawmakers to put the needs of workers and the economy before concerns over the nation’s budget deficit. Of the nation’s 15 million jobless workers, 6.8 million have been out of work for more than 26 weeks. If Congress fails to act on the jobs bill and allows federal unemployment insurance (UI) to expire, 8.2 million workers will exhaust their benefits by the end of 2010.
Over the weekend, President Obama called on the Senate to pass the jobs bill, saying the nation needs to “jump-start private-sector job creation, avoid massive layoffs in state and local government and help the unemployed. We cannot afford to slide backwards just as our recovery is taking hold. We must take these emergency measures.”
