Labor & Employment Law

Got a Question on the Jobs Crisis? Ask Richard Trumka

By Tula Connell

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?

DC Proud points out: “In some urban areas, unemployment rates exceed 20 percent.”

Yet the particular plight of these communities is barely on the radar screen of many policymakers and even less so the mainstream media. What plans are there to target help to these areas?

Per-plexd, Tim and DC Proud have each submitted questions for AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who will hold a live webcast Dec. 15 to answer the top-ranked questions. I hope you will submit a question or vote on your favorite. The webcast, and the online tool to submit a question and vote on questions, is at: www.aflcio.org/open.

(Sign in here to participate if you have a Google account: http://bit.ly/7uk5gZ.)

The AFL-CIO has proposed a five-point plan to immediately address the nation’s jobs crisis, and Trumka took our message to the White House last week at President Obama’s Jobs Summit.

But we need to keep the heat on. It’s up to the grassroots to outshout Wall Street.

Also, be sure to stop by for the live online video discussion on Tuesday, Dec. 15, at 4 p.m. EST.

Because, as one person noted in the questions, “We can’t just flip burgers for one another.”

We need an economic game plan that creates jobs which support families.

This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on December 11, 2009 (boomark / email).