Workday Magazine (https://workdaymagazine.org/category/policy/page/30/)
These days, construction cranes are a rare sight above the metro area skyline. But drive west on W. 36th St. towards Lake Calhoun and you can see a giant crane towering above the hills on Calhoun’s western shore.
Minnesota construction workers – among the hardest hit nationally by the great recession – are encouraged by lawmakers’ plans to adopt a major infrastructure bonding bill.
Responding to the dramatic need to get Minnesotans back to work, the Minnesota AFL-CIO called on state lawmakers to enact a series of bold proposals to create jobs and stimulate economic growth.
Tuesday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m., Minnesotans of all political stripes will gather in school gyms, churches and community centers in towns large and small for one of the nation’s grandest exercises in grassroots democracy: the Minnesota precinct caucuses.
The AFL-CIO and the union-backed Americans for Financial Reform strongly support the Democratic Obama administration’s proposal to tax the nation’s now-very-profitable big banks to recoup the taxpayer dollars the government used to bail them out last year.
The next luncheon of the Twin City Area Labor Management Council will feature resources for laid-off workers, employers and union officials.
Speaking directly to 20,000 unemployed Americans, including an estimated 3,000 from his home state, U.S. Senator Al Franken pledged Friday to make job creation “our first priority and our second priority and our third priority” in the Senate this year.
Snyders Drug Stores, a fixture in Minnesota’s retail landscape since the 1940s, announced it will cease operations Jan. 21, closing eight stores in the East Metro area and leaving 150 workers without jobs.
The nation’s unemployment rate ended 2009 at 10% in December, unchanged from November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
Congressman Keith Ellison, Democrat representing Minnesota’s Fifth District, has introduced the Put America to Work Act to create 1 million jobs across the nation.