Obama Signs Jobs Bill
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Just hours after the House put finishing touches on a state aid/jobs bill that will prevent the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, public employees, police officers and firefighters in cash-strapped states, President Obama signed it into law.
Bet this doesn’t make John Boehner’s photo album.
House Passes Jobs Bill for States, Obama Set to Sign
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After months of Republican obstruction in the Senate, vital aid to states facing massive budget shortfalls and layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, public employees, police officers and firefighters is on its way to the White House for President Obama’s signature. The bill just passed the House by 247-161 a few minutes ago. A pathetic number of Republican representatives–two, count ‘em, two–voted to support working families. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
Simply put, this vote keeps us on the path to economic recovery….Republicans who continue to fight for tax cuts for the super rich did everything in their power to defeat funding for teachers and firefighters, adding to the laundry list of anti-jobs votes they’ve taken.
Read Trumka’s full statement here.
BTW, it’s fully paid for in part by closing costly corporate tax loopholes that allow corporations to ship American jobs overseas. Works for us. Too bad so many Republicans think it’s a bad idea.
Senate Sends State Aid, Teachers’ Jobs Bill to House
By a 61-39 vote today, the U.S. Senate put its finishing touches on an aid to state and local governments bill that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others. The measure is fully paid for, in part because it closes tax loopholes for multi-national corporations that send U.S. jobs overseas.
The bill provides $16 billion for a Medicaid funding assistance program known as FMAP and $10 billion for teachers’ jobs. Without such funding, the states facing huge budget shortfalls will be forced to begin massive layoffs that could cost nearly a million workers their jobs.
Now it is up to the House to take the final vote before sending the bill to the White House for President Obama’s signature. Click here to tell your representative to vote for the bill and support Medicaid and teacher funding to save jobs. Read the rest of this entry »
Senate Breaks Republican Filibuster on State Aid, Teachers’ Jobs
The Senate today voted 61-38, to end a Republican filibuster of aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others.
The bill provides $16 billion for a Medicaid funding assistance program known as FMAP and $10 billion for teachers’ jobs. Without such funding, the states facing huge budget shortfalls will be forced to begin massive layoffs that could cost nearly a million workers their jobs. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) put it this way: Read the rest of this entry »
Senate Postpones Vote on Jobs-Saving Aid to States
The U.S. Senate yesterday postponed a vote on crucial aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly 1 million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others.
The vote is now expected Wednesday evening and Republicans likely will filibuster the bill, even though without such funding, the states that are facing huge budget shortfalls will be forced to begin massive layoffs that could cost nearly a million workers their jobs.
The bill would provide $16 billion for a Medicaid funding assistance program known as FMAP and $10 billion for teachers’ jobs.
‘The Horror! The Horror!’—McConnell Stars in AFSCME Guerilla Video
It’s not quite as scary as looking up and seeing Godzilla lurking over the city skyline, but a two-story-tall Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) staring down from the side of a downtown Louisville office building caused a few surprised gasps Monday night.
In a bit of guerilla theater, AFSCME projected a 30-second silent video reminding passers-by about McConnell’s role as chief architect of the Republican’s obstructionist battle plan. The Party of No’s obstructionist tactics cost more than 2.5 million long-term jobless workers their unemployment insurance (UI) and blocked aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others.
Ensuring Workers’ Voices Are Heard in State Legislatures
Across the country, states are confronting a vast array of critical working family issues, from budget crises and health care to job creation and workers’ rights. This weekend in Louisville, Ky., some 150 union activists and leaders from central labor councils, state federations, affiliate unions and allied organizations are mapping a state legislative battle plan.
The annual AFL-CIO Workers’ Voice Conference sets the stage for union action in the upcoming 2011 legislative sessions. Through workshops and seminars with policy and political experts and activists, the conference will develop the AFL-CIO’s 2011 Working Families State Agenda. It also examines the state-level victories and challenges working families faced in state capitols this year.
Retired Teacher Marches for California’s Schools and State’s Future
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Gavin Riley taught in California’s public schools for 37 years. Today, the retired California Federation of Teachers member is in the 40th day of a 48-day, 250-mile March for California’s Future. Riley wants nothing less than to save the school system that educated him in the 1950s and 1960s, and where he in turn taught thousands more.
Sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), AFSCME and a coalition of labor, education and faith groups, the march is drawing attention to the state’s budget crisis and the devastating impact of budget cuts on Californians now and into the future.
Union Members Keep Marching for California’s Future and Economic Justice
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On March 5, Irene Gonzalez, a Los Angeles juvenile probation officer and AFSCME Local 685 member, set out with a diverse group of other union members for 250-mile, 48-day March for California’s Future.
Sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), AFSCME and a coalition of labor, education and faith groups, the march is drawing attention to the state’s budget crisis and the devastating impact of budget cuts on Californians now and into the future.
Last week, Gonzalez writes on the California Progress Report, that as the march entered Fresno
we came upon a 10-block long area of homeless people sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk flanked by rows and rows of tents, their only possessions being their sleeping bags and the clothes on their backs.
They are surrounded on all sides by boarded up homes. The empty, unoccupied houses, the foreclosed properties that many of these men and women once occupied, look down on them daily and seem to taunt them. Read the rest of this entry »
On the Hill, Fire Fighters Push for Bargaining Bill
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Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other congressional leaders told more than 1,000 members of the Fire Fighters (IAFF) yesterday that legislation protecting the freedom of firefighters in all states to join unions and bargain for a better life will be approved and signed into law.
Today, IAFF members are on Capitol Hill shoring up support for that bill and other vital working family legislation as part of the union’s 2009 Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.
In his opening remarks, IAFF President Harold Schaitberger said that it has been 74 years since the National Labor Relations Act—which covers private-sector workers, but not firefighters and other first responders and public employees—became law.
We’re not going to allow our members to wait any longer. We’ve waited long enough. It’s time for passage of our collective bargaining bill. It’s been 74 years that we’ve been waiting on the outside looking in for that federally guaranteed right.
