Hurricane Katrina has illustrated the failed priorities of national leadership, according to top AFL-CIO officers, who called for a "new direction" for the country.

America not only must rebuild the devastated Gulf Coast region but also must redefine national priorities to focus on better jobs, stronger communities and a just economy, the 10-member AFL-CIO Executive Committee said in announcing an "America Needs a New Direction" initiative.

"The inability of our federal leaders to deal with this continuing tragedy is a failure of huge proportions. What happened on the Gulf Coast broke our hearts, but it also opened our eyes and confronted us with graphic evidence that our leaders have broken faith with the American Dream," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who, along with AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, recently visited the storm-damaged areas.

The New Direction initiative includes immediate steps to address Katrina's damage - including restoring wage protections for construction workers in the region, which President George W. Bush revoked, and demanding accountability in all reconstruction contracts ? as well as longer term nationwide efforts.

The Executive Committee's call to action said one-third of New Orleans residents were poor when Katrina hit and nationwide the poverty level has risen for five straight years. Half of the poverty-stricken work full-time. Real wages continue to decline while corporate profits and productivity grow, and the annual cost of heath care now exceeds the income of full-time minimum wage workers.

"Yet our leaders maintain a blind faith in unregulated markets and unrelenting tax cuts for the wealthy ? a faith that blinds them to the crumbling structures of our children?s schools, the decay of our community infrastructures and the decline of our nation?s transportation networks," the committee said.

Conservative leaders are urging the Bush administration to use the federal government's hurricane rebuilding plan as a laboratory for a right-wing agenda for exploiting workers by suspending prevailing wage protections and affirmative action laws, awarding no-bid contracts to politically well-connected corporations and privatizing education and other services.

"Our top priority in the Gulf Coast and in our nation has to be restoring fair play to Americans in every walk of life, rather than catering to the rich and big corporations....The priorities for reconstruction must be hospitals, nursing homes, schools, roads, bridges, levees and affordable housing, instead of the crackpot social engineering schemes of the far right," Trumka said.

Unions and union members have been critical to rescue and relief efforts in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, volunteering on the ground and contributing more than $10 million to union relief funds. Essential next steps outlined in the "America Needs a New Direction" initiative include:

* Establishing a Gulf Coast Worker Network to coordinate all union responses in the region. The network will fight to make sure survivors get the unemployment compensation, public health services, quality education and job training they need.

* A new "Coalition of Fairness in Federal Disaster Relief" made up of former federal officials and labor, religious and civil rights leaders will work to restore the prevailing wage standards and affirmative action requirements for federal contractors that the Bush administration revoked. The coalition also will promote local hiring requirements and reconstruction priority to hospitals, nursing homes, schools, roads, bridges, levees and affordable housing.

* Unions will form an investment network to marshal the power of the more than $400 billion in union-sponsored pension plans behind new capital investment in the region.

For more information
Visit the national AFL-CIO website, www.aflcio.org