Labor Union Blog

By Doug Cunningham

The U.S. House Wednesday passed a $174 billion jobs bill. Not a single Republican voted for it. It includes roughly $50 billion for public works projects and $50 billion more for state and local governments. The bill includes an unemployment benefits extension.The Senate won’t be able to consider this jobs bill until the New Year.

Without Senate action the Estate Tax will expire on New Year’s Eve for one year. As Jesse Russell reports, United for a Fair Economy has gathered more than 2,000 signatures from “high-wealth individuals” in the United States who support the “preservation” of the tax as “a matter of principal and responsibility.”

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By Doug Cunningham

[Alan Charney]: “We are facing a jobs crisis in this nation of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression. And we’re facign the prospects of a jobless recovery that can last for years.”

USAction’s Alan Charney announcing the Jobs For America Now coalition of 60 organizations urging Congress to enact immediate bold jobs creation legislation. The AFL-CIO’s Thea Lee says infrastructure investments should be the top jobs creation priority.

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Utility Workers President Michael Langford, right, and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.

Utility Workers (UWUA) Secretary-Treasurer Gary Ruffner and Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, write about a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Ruffner, UWUA President Michael Langford, UWUA Regulatory Affairs Director Carl Wood and Baugh are attending climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Read our previous blogs on the climate change talks here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

The long cold wait of our delegates to get into the Bella Center was rewarded by a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who spoke to the need for diversity of clean energy sources and strongly promoted the ramping up of efficiency measures.  

During the meeting UWUA President Michael Langford shared the union’s new paper on energy policy. Chu also talked about the need to return manufacturing to the United States and our need to ramp up the weatherization of homes.

The UWUA plan calls for rebuilding our infrastructure to reverse the damage done by years of neglect by the market-driven, deregulated utility industry.

Other points in the UWUA policy include:

• Training and retooling our workforce to operate and maintain the utilities of the future.   
• Maximizing existing technologies to increase efficiencies and reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants while investing in carbon-neutral nuclear power.
• Developing promising technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration, wind, geothermal, solar, biofuels and other renewable energy sources, to jump-start the next generation of power plants.
• Protecting and extending the democratic, transparent and accountable regulatory framework that secures our future by protecting consumers, encouraging energy conservation, rewarding the use of sustainable energy sources and requiring investment in the workforce and infrastructure.
• Working with our global partners to raise standards everywhere. Utility services such as water, waste, gas and electricity are fundamental building blocks of society and we must work together to ensure  quality standards globally. 

Lauren Asplen from IUE-CWA asked about the energy rebate program potentially subsidizing the offshoring of good jobs. She gave the example of an appliance plant in Indiana that is being closed while the company opens a new one in Mexico. The new facility will manufacture energy efficient refrigerators that will qualify energy efficiency rebates. Chu recognized that “the issue of companies offshoring operations existed prior to any benefits,” but he also recognized the need to “bring back manufacturing jobs.”  

He also spoke of the need for scale, saying the weatherization funding in the recovery act “will cover maybe a million homes in a nation of 130 million homes.” He said to be serious, we need to “ramp up to 3-5 million homes a year over 20 years.” He also made the point that

We don’t need fly-by-night operators; we need competent qualified people doing the work.

A spokesperson for the Laborers identified the need to do weatherization work at scale in local areas to attract good union contractors. Roger Toussaint, president of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 100 in New York City, spoke about the benefits of mass transit, noting:

In New York, 80 percent of the emissions come from buildings, when in most cities it is 40 percent. This is because they have such a large mass transit system and far less auto emissions. 

This was a good meeting. We are hopeful that this summit will result in ways to create good jobs without driving more manufacturing to countries without environmental standards. The global environment requires global solutions and standards.

In a great live Web discussion yesterday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka answered a wide range of questions on the nation’s economic crisis, setting out a vision for short-term job creation and long-term progress toward a fairer economy.

Trumka touched on trade, green jobs, the challenges facing young and older workers, unity in the labor movement and more in an hour-long conversation. More than 6,700 union members and activists took part by submitting and voting on more than 150 questions.

The AFL-CIO has offered a five-point plan to put people to work and turn around the economy. We can and must create jobs now and spur consumer demand, Trumka said in explaining the plan.

Our current economic crisis is just a symptom of larger long-term weakness and inequality in our economy, Trumka said, and good jobs are the solution:

Remember, wages have been stagnant for years, so people had to start borrowing…we got to the point where people just couldn’t borrow any more and the economy just sort of collapsed at that point…we reached the limit of that. Debt can’t continue to be the engine that fuels the economy.

When we talk about stimulating or rebuilding the economy, Trumka asks, we need to ask: “To what end?” If we’re just rebuilding the old broken economy—with an under-regulated financial sector taking precedence over the real economy—then we haven’t really gotten anywhere. We need an economy where productivity is rewarded and prosperity is fairly shared.

In particular, Trumka says that to ensure the economy is really working in the long term, we need to give workers the ability to bargain for a fair share. The freedom to bargain means we won’t just create jobs, we’ll create good jobs. That means passing the Employee Free Choice Act and giving workers the freedom to form a union—and it means training more organizers to help workers across the country form a union and get a fair contract. That will give people the wages and the economic security they need to support the economy, provide for their families and get engaged in their communities.

You can watch more of this great conversation here.

The union movement played a big role in the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. In marches, political action and direct action, the Free South Africa Movement in the United States proved that international worker solidarity works. And its ripple effects impact not only workers-but each person on our planet.

Speaking last night at the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C., in honor of the 25th anniversary of The Free South Africa Movement, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said:  

Victory over apartheid meant victory over racism, exploitation and abuse.

The anniversary served as a fundraiser for the advocacy group TransAfrica, co-founded by AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy. Said Holt Baker:

TransAfrica, you can count on the AFL-CIO standing in partnership with you as we work today to secure justice and equality for the men, women and children of Colombia, Darfur, Haiti, Zimbabwe and around the world. Like our people here in America, they cry out for jobs, justice and freedom.

The Free South Africa Movement began in November 1984, when four people went to the South African Embassy for a meeting with the ambassador to discuss the violations of human rights under the apartheid system.

 At the end of the meeting, the participants refused to leave as people gathered outside and picketed the embassy. Within a week, public demonstrations against South African consulates and corporations tied to South Africa spread throughout the nation. Over the course of a year, more than 4,500 people were arrested nationwide and grassroots campaigns developed in more than 40 cities. Union members played a significant role in the protests and local campaigns. The protests and other public pressures moved Congress to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986.

Holt Baker praised the work of many union members who stood up early in the fight against apartheid, in particular AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Lucy, who is president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU).

Trumka, who was president of the Mine Workers at the time, forged solidarity between U.S. mineworkers and South African mineworkers. Lucy, one of the founders and main catalysts behind the Free South Africa Movement, led an AFL-CIO delegation to South Africa to monitor the first democratic election in 1994.