The Rich Are Different. They Have Jobs
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Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street firms that got the H1N1 flu shot well ahead of millions of America’s school children, sent this health tip in a memo to its pampered, out-of-touch execs: “Resist the urge to open your own car door; let your driver do it.”
Yo, Jeeves. While you’re at it, dust around the edges of those massive CEO pay packages. Because according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), top executives at four companies that jettisoned their employee pension plans received $49.5 million in retirement and severance benefits in the years before the companies filed for bankruptcy, while retirees saw their benefits cut by as much as two-thirds.
Yet Wall Street bankers are making that cash flow keeps coming: Yesterday, writes David Dayen, Senate Republicans bowed low before their corporate masters and delayed a move by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to immediately take up a bill that would freeze all credit card rates, charges and fee increases.
Canada’s Experts Skewer Shoddy Study on Employee Free Choice
Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act often claim the legislation would hurt employment. They base that falsehood on a study paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its cronies, which purports to examine the effects of majority sign-up on the labor market in Canada.
Now, a devastating new critique shows the bought-and-paid-for “study,” by consultant Anne Layne-Farrar, is “misleading and poorly supported”—and that’s the nicest thing they could find to say. Just Labour, the Canadian labor-studies journal, features a series of articles on the Layne-Farrar piece by the experts who best know Canada’s labor market.
Among them, Noreen Pupo, director of the Center for Research on Work and Society at York University, says:
We refute efforts by business lobbyists opposing the [Employee Free Choice] Act to manipulate Canadian data and experience for purposes of defeating any strengthening of collective bargaining systems in the U.S. The vested interest of these business lobbyists in the continued erosion of collective bargaining in America has led them to misrepresent the Canadian experience.
Trumka: Jobs Crisis—Fix It Now
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Today at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other leaders joined together to call for urgent action to create jobs and rebuild the economy.
In a live webcast panel discussion, the consensus was clear: Without quick action, an entire generation could be mired in economic turmoil. The nation can, and must, put people back to work—while addressing critical needs for the future of our communities.
The scale of the jobs crisis is obvious: Since the beginning of the recession, more than 8 million jobs have been lost. The official unemployment rate is at 10.2 percent, with more than 26 million unemployed or underemployed. These figures are even more severe among African American and Latino communities. Young people are at risk of permanently stunted opportunity, and the jobs crisis is rebounding throughout the country with increased hunger and poverty, massive numbers of home foreclosures and diminished access to health care.
Trumka to Launch Jobs Initiative Tomorrow
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Tomorrow morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will announce a major new initiative to create and save jobs.
(Watch the live webcast at www.aflcio.org/createjobs starting at 9 a.m.)
Trumka will be part of a noted panel in “Spotlight on the Jobs Crisis” at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
With unemployment at its highest rate in more than 20 years, Trumka says America needs bold, quick action to put people back to work, in addition to longer term, structural fixes for our economy. The AFL-CIO initiative he announces will include calls to extend help for the unemployed, rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, provide aid to struggling states and communities, create federally funded community-based jobs and increase lending to small and medium-sized businesses to spur job creation.
Obama Announces White House Jobs Summit
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This morning, President Obama announced he will invite labor leaders, business executives, small business owners, economists and other financial experts to a special White House summit on jobs next month.
Obama says the summit will explore ways to slow the loss of jobs and quicken the pace of job creation at a time when the nation’s jobless rate is at 10.2 percent, its highest point since 1983. As Obama said,
We have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country.
Just this week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council met in Washington, D.C., to outline a national jobs creation strategy that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will announce Tuesday at a special Economic Policy Institute (EPI) jobs and economy panel and seminar. (Plan now to view the live webcast from 9-11:30 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 17, at www.aflcio.org/createjobs.)
U.S. Jobless Rate Shocking: 15.7 Million Workers Unemployed
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Stunningly bad news on the nation’s jobless rate today: Unemployment worsened in October to 10.2 percent, a huge jump from 9.8 percent in September. That’s 15.7 million jobless workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Worse, the unemployment and underemployment rate is a shocking 17.5 percent—more than 27 million American workers without full-time jobs.
The construction, manufacturing and retail industries had the biggest losses, with 62,000 construction jobs lost in October, 61,000 in manufacturing and 40,000 in retail. Health care and temporary employment were the only bright spots, with health care jobs increasing by 29,000 and temp jobs by 44,000.
‘Economy Track’ Tells Story Behind the Numbers
The nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has launched an interactive tool for anyone interested in looking beneath current economic data to find out what’s really happening with jobs and the economy. The new online feature, “Economy Track,” offers easy-to-understand charts built on government statistics and enhanced with exclusive EPI data.
For example, Economy Track illustrates how unemployment is higher for African Americans and Hispanics than for whites, higher for men than for women, and much higher for blue-collar workers than for those with white-collar jobs.
Users can focus on unemployment and underemployment trends by state, race/ethnic group, gender, occupation and education level.
Shuler to IBEW: Let’s Fight for Jobs
At this week’s Electrical Workers (IBEW) conference, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said we must focus on creating jobs and building a strong, sustainable and fair economy for the future.
Shuler, who rose to leadership as an IBEW organizer, congratulated the union’s members on their efforts in mobilizing and contacting members of Congress on behalf of health care reform and other key issues.
We still have a long way to go before we can truly have economic recovery, Shuler said, noting that as she travels around the country, the word she hears most often is “jobs.” The AFL-CIO worked hard for the economic recovery package passed by Congress, but the union movement still has much to do to address the massive unemployment and underemployment around the nation, she said. The AFL-CIO is pushing for more stimulus dollars to invest in energy, transportation, communications and school construction—for investment in green jobs and for more aid to state and local governments that have been slammed by biggest budget hits in decades. Most critically, Shuler said, if the union movement doesn’t push to make this happen, no one will.
Shuler said extending unemployment benefits was an urgent priority that will prevent further damage to our economy. With 26 million people looking for work, or discouraged entirely from the job market, and long-term unemployment at its highest level in more than 25 years, it’s critical to give some relief, she said.
Green jobs and a new energy economy have the potential to revitalize the country, Shuler said, but only if those jobs are good jobs, with fair wages and benefits. We can protect the environment and build a more prosperous future, she said, by getting a headstart on new technologies and increasing energy efficiency.
Shuler also laid out her vision for the policies we need to build a stronger economy—including health care reform, the Employee Free Choice Act and financial reform.
Showdown in Chicago: Thousands Protest Bankers
UPDATE: Check out photos and a video from today’s rally.
More than 5,000 people are packing the streets of downtown Chicago this morning, chanting, marching and rallying against Big Bankers and financial institutions that have taken taxpayer money and are using it to give big bonuses to CEOs and to lobby against financial reforms that would ensure they don’t go back on the public dole.
The crowd is marching to the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, site of the American Bankers Association meeting, to protest the banking industry’s greed and irresponsibility that crippled our economy, leaving millions of workers behind.
After the house of cards they built collapsed, bankers and the financial industry took $700 billion in taxpayer funds for a bailout. But rather than reform their failed practices, they want to go back to business as usual—with the chance of again precipitating another financial collapse and need for taxpayer bailout in coming years.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who is joining union members and allies at today’s events, has a clear message to bankers: You work for us.
Let’s Foment a Green Industrial Revolution
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Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, is among several key speakers at the Building the New Economy conference Oct. 29 in Washington, D.C. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also is among the keynote speakers. Here Gerard describes why we need a 21st century green manufacturing revolution.
We need to foment a new American industrial revolution—specifically, a 21st century burgeoning of green manufacturing in the United States.
Americans going green—manufacturing windmills and solar cells—would benefit both the economy and the environment. As the Wall Street debacle that pushed this country into the Great Recession last year showed, the United States cannot depend on trading in obscure financial products to support its economy. To survive, America must be able to manufacture products of intrinsic value that can be traded here and internationally.
