Labor & Employment Law

Senate?s ?First Step? Jobs Bill Moves to Vote

By Mike Hall

The U.S. Senate cleared the way last night for a vote this week on a jobs bill that must be just the first step in closing the nation’s staggering 10 million jobs deficit created by years of Wall Street recklessness and failed Bush-era economic policies.

By a 62-30 vote, the Senate broke a filibuster against the bill. Five Republicans voted to end the filibuster and one Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), voted against the cloture motion.

The bill includes a one-year extension of the federal highway program, aid to state and local governments for school, energy and other infrastructure projects and tax incentives for employers to hire workers. But AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that without “bigger and bolder actions” the $15 billion legislation:

is merely a Band-Aid on an amputated limb. [Majority Leader] Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said this bill is just the first step and more actions need to be and will be taken. We couldn’t agree more….We need 10 million jobs and Wall Street and the rich?who have benefited for years from Bush’s economic policies?need to pay to rebuild the economy and middle class they destroyed.

Following last night’s vote, Reid told reporters that the bill:

is not the only jobs bill that we’re going to be dealing with. We have a jobs agenda, not a jobs bill. We’re not going to stop until every American who wants a job can get one.

Trumka says the AFL-CIO’s five-point jobs program is the model around which effective jobs legislation should be built. It includes:

• Extending unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, food assistance and health benefits;
• Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and investing in green jobs;
• Increasing aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services, especially schools and public safety;
• Increasing funding for neglected communities to match people who want to work with jobs that need to be done;
• And using leftover bank bailout funds to get credit flowing to small businesses for job creation.

Says Trumka:

America’s workers need jobs now. We need action from Washington now. The Senate should bring big and bold jobs bills to the floor. It’s time to let the American people know where their representatives stand on the most crucial issue of our time?and it’s time for action, not excuses.

Republicans voting to end the filibuster were Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Scott Brown (Mass.), George Voinovich (Ohio), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Christopher Bond (Mo.).

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 23, 2010 (boomark / email).