SOLIS;"Lets Roll Up Our Sleeves and Work Together to Get America Back to Work"

Creating good jobs that offer affordable health care and retirement security is the Obama administration’s top priority, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis today told members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Solis, who met with some of the workers who spoke at a forum Monday night, said:

I wake up every morning worried about the millions of Americans out of work—about the millions of Americans who have given up even looking for the jobs that aren’t there. None of us expected this and we did not create this crisis—but each and every one of us is called to do more.

While President Obama’s economic recovery package saved or created at least 2 million jobs, we still have a long way to go, she said. The first steps must be to pass long-term extensions of emergency unemployment compensation, full federal funding of extended benefits and the COBRA subsidy so the nation can keep in place the much-needed safety net that the Recovery Act established.

Solis called a filibuster by Sen. Jim Bunning “shameful” because he caused millions of working Americans economic hardship—just to make a political point. After Bunning relented, the Senate last night passed an extension of unemployment benefits and COBRA for jobless workers.

We cannot let obstructionist partisan politics get in the way of these fundamental programs that we owe to Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. 

Solis said the administration’s job program also includes:

• Fiscal relief for state and local governments, which are facing a $178 billion budget shortfall this year alone.
• More large-scale infrastructure projects. This is the most direct way to bring jobs to people.  
• Aid to small businesses—an important engine of economic growth—through tax cuts and a Small Business Lending Fund, using $30 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The Labor Department also is working to address unemployment by focusing on training programs that bring workers into contact with employers—such as expanding on-the-job training, prioritizing training in emerging industries where we know there are jobs, such as clean energy, Solis said.

Saying she meant it when she told the council a year ago, “There’s a new sheriff in town,” Solis said the department has accomplished a lot in its first year, such as restoring worker protection agencies staffing to 2001 levels and hiring 710 enforcement personnel. Last year, the department recovered more than $171 million in back wages for workers, she added.

This is the most worker-friendly administration in years, Solis says, but their record is not perfect,

and of course there are bumps in the road but we’ve got a responsibility—no one promised us this would be easy.

Big changes that really matter are never easy. Let’s roll up our sleeves and work together to do what working people in this country need us to do.