Trumka Dissents from Jobs Council Report
The 72-page report, issued yesterday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, makes many solid suggestions for how to address our nation’s jobs crisis, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. But Trumka says the fundamental focus is so flawed that, as a member of the council, he issued a dissent to the report. In sum, Trumka writes:
I believe the report downplays the need for a proactive role for the U.S. government in many of these areas; fails to address the significant additional revenues needed to address the challenges identified on an appropriate scale; and in many cases erroneously identifies the root causes of the underlying structural problems.
While agreeing with the report’s support for a vibrant and growing manufacturing sector, Trumka says the report does not address the fact that “our government’s own policies with respect to trade, taxes, and currency have created enormous competitive disadvantages for American-based producers.”
And while Trumka shares the report’s goal of attracting more investment and good Read the rest of this entry »
1,000 Rally for Immigration System that Protects All Workers
Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs and Jennifer Angarita in AFL-CIO Field Mobilization send us this report.
More than 1,000 working families, Latino civil rights activists, students, faith leaders and union and community allies rallied yesterday in Lafayette Park across from the White House to demonstrate disapproval of the White House’s record on immigration reform. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) was among a dozen protesters who broke off from the crowd and sat down next to the White House’s perimeter security fence.
Erupting into chants of “Yes, We Can!” a multigenerational coalition of working people, including military veterans and high school students, held banners and megaphones calling for an end to our nation’s broken immigration system. The event marks the fact that 1 million people have been deported under the Obama administration. The record-high number of deportations has torn apart America’s working families—separating parents from their children and expelling college students from the only country they know.
President Calls on Americans to Honor Triangle Fire Anniversary
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire March 25, President Obama issued a proclamation in honor of this day and is calling on ”all Americans to participate in ceremonies and activities in memory of those who have been killed due to unsafe working conditions.” The president recognized the nation’s continued need for job saftey and collective bargaining a century after the disaster that killed 146 young, mostly immigrant women.
Despite the enormous progress made since the Triangle factory fire, we are still fighting to provide adequate working conditions for all women and men on the job, ensure no person within our borders is exploited for their labor, and uphold collective bargaining as a tool to give workers a seat at the tables of power. Working Americans are the backbone of our communities and power the engine of our economy. As we mark the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, let us resolve to renew the urgency that tragedy inspired and recommit to our shared responsibility to provide a safe environment for all American workers.
Saying that the fire “was a galvanizing moment” that called on American leaders “to reexamine their approch to workplace conditions and the purpose of unions,” Obama said the tragedy ”strengthened the potency of organized labor, which gave voice to previously powerless workers.”
A century later, we reflect not only on the tragic loss of these young lives, but also on the movement they inspired.
Snow? Oh, No. It’s Still the Economy
Here are a few tidbits worth noting from around the nation’s economic scene.
Bob Herbert at the New York Times puts the sorry U.S. unemployment rate in clearer–and more painful–perspective today, pointing out how the workers losing jobs are those who had almost no income to begin with.
The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during that quarter of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.
Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. That’s more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression.
Health Care Tax: Union Leaders Outline Big Improvements for All Working Families
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Following two days of intense negotiations at the White House, union leaders believe they are on the verge of winning significant improvements for working families in the pending health care reform legislation.
In a conference call this afternoon with leaders from AFL-CIO unions, Change to Win unions and the National Education Association (NEA), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters the final health care bill he expects to emerge is ”a milestone.”
“We’ve been fighting for health care for over 60 years, and we are on the threshold of a significant achievement….But we don’t look at this as the end of the fight, but another step in the quest for real reform.”
Unemployment Insurance Extended, But States Face UI Disaster
In the “good news, bad news” category:
President Obama on Saturday signed an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits that were set to expire Dec. 31. The two-month extension of the emergency UI also extends health insurance subsidies so that individuals now have 15 months to pay the reduced premiums related to the COBRA extension.
The only reason the bill made it to his desk without being blocked by anti-worker (i.e., the majority of) Senate Republicans is because the extensions were included in the fiscal year 2010 defense appropriations bill.
Now the bad news:
The recession’s jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks.
Currently, 25 states have run out of unemployment money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government to cover the gaps. By 2011, according to Department of Labor estimates, 40 state funds will have been emptied by the jobless tsunami.
Got a Question on the Jobs Crisis? Ask Richard Trumka
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Per-plexd wants to know:
What ever happened to those infrastructure jobs? Not the supposedly shovel-ready ones but the long-term ones. The ones that were going to help rebuild our roads, bridges, storm and sewages water systems ad nausem? You know, WPA, CCC, TVA style.
Tim in Sacramento says, “Green jobs present an enormous opportunity for our future.”
However, there’s concern that federal funds are subsidizing a low-road green economy. How do we ensure that green jobs are good union jobs that will help rebuild America’s middle class?
Jobless Rate Still Bleak, with 15.4 Million Workers Unemployed
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The nation’s unemployment rate moved from 10.2 percent to 10 percent in November, with 15.4 million American workers unemployed, according to U.S. Department of Labor data released this morning. But when both unemployed and underemployed workers are counted, there still are some 26 million people without jobs or full-time work. At the start of the recession in December 2007, there were 7.5 million jobless workers and the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Director Larry Mishel says he would not interpret this decline as the beginning of a ongoing reversal in the unemployment rate. In fact, the jobs situation likely will worsen for up to the next 12 months, he says. One reason: There is a backlog of people who dropped out of labor force who will come back in—up to 3 million jobless workers. And when they start looking for jobs again unemployment will rise.
Unemployment rates for adult men now is 10.5 percent, 7.9 percent for women and 26.7 percent for teens. The jobless rate for white workers is 9.3 percent, 15.6 percent for African Americans, 12.7 for Hispanics and 7.3 percent for Asians.
Trumka, Union Leaders Headed to Jobs Summit Dec. 3
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President Barack Obama this week is convening a jobs summit to address the urgent need to create jobs for the more than 26 million unemployed or underemployed workers looking for work in an economy in which there are more than six workers for every one job.
An economy in which one in three Americans have either lost his or her job or live in a household with someone who has.
The summit, set for Thursday, Dec. 3, will include more than 100 experts and leaders from business, labor, government and community organizations, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.
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.
