Last week, we learned that the swift action by the President and Congress to pass an economic recovery package earlier this year helped stave off a global economic recession, put our economy back on the path of growth, and helped save hundreds of thousands of jobs.
SEIU was a major proponent of the economic recovery package and we believe we need to continue to make progress on a number of other economic initiatives to build long-term sustainable economic growth--these include passing meaningful financial reform, investing in green jobs, using public pension funds to build a 21st century infrastructure, and creating a new retirement system to protect our future.
Passing Meaningful Financial Reform
Anna Burger writes on New Deal 2.0 about the need to fundamentally change the way we value wealth and work in our country and act now on meaningful reforms to protect our families from future economic crises.
To build long-term economic progress we must:
- Create a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency to serve as a watchdog against predatory and reckless banking products;
- Crackdown on out of control executive pay that rewards short term risks over long term results;
- End too big to fail once and for all by separating commercial banking from investment banking and raising capital requirements back to levels that promote safe and sound banks;
- Empower shareholders to act on executive pay and break the excessive power of executive-controlled boards;
- Force banks to expand lending to small businesses and state and local governments to create jobs and save critical services;
- Demand banks stop foreclosures and help families keep their homes;
- Reregulate the shadow financial markets--including derivatives, hedge funds and private equity; and
- Investigate, and if necessary prosecute, the big banks and Wall Street for crashing our economy.
In case you missed it--more than 5,000 Americans from 20 states--converged on the American Bankers Association convention in Chicago to demand banks stop fighting reforms that would help protect our families from future crises. It was the beginning of a national movement to hold banks and Wall Street accountable for their reckless behavior.
Investing in Green Jobs
During the first meeting of the President's Economic Recovery Board, Anna Burger shared her perspective on how business, labor and government can work together towards creating a low-carbon, green economy and a movement into sustainable good, green jobs--citing the work SEIU and other Change to Win unions are already doing on the community and national level to lead the way on green initiatives.
SEIU locals in New York and California now negotiate on energy efficiency standards and created training programs on retrofitting buildings to save energy. They set a goal in their contract about saving 20 percent of the energy in their buildings. SEIU also helped form the Blue Green Alliance to build a national coalition between labor and environmental groups.
In addition, SEIU strongly supports:
- Fully funding The Green Bank, or Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) which will lower the cost of investing in a broad range of critical green technologies and jumpstart private investment. By acting now, we can vastly accelerating deployment of smart grid technologies, renewable energy generation, and creating green manufacturing jobs.
- Expanding federal funding for retrofit jobs. The $5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program in the stimulus bill was a good start, and we estimate that it will lead to 43,000 full-time jobs. We are supporting calls for more energy efficiency and retrofit funding in the climate/energy bill.
« Building a 21st Century Infrastructure
For more than two years--before our current economic crisis even began--SEIU has been working with business groups and states on an innovative concept to use public pension funds instead of Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs to fund badly needed infrastructure projects in our states.
"Public pension funds, which are responsible for the retirement benefits of more than 18 million Americans, have more than $3 trillion in assets, and a long-term investment approach consistent with the stable returns that infrastructure assets generate," wrote SEIU President Andy Stern and then-Governor Kathleen Sebulius in a Christian Science Monitor op-ed.
Pension funds could pool their assets and invest directly in projects to build new roads and bridges in multiple states. These pooled pension direct investment vehicles would:
- Provide the much needed capital infusion sought by governors and state legislatures to improve their states' infrastructure;
- Ensure that billions of dollars stay in our communities instead of going to big financial firms;
- Create a multiplier effect, generating jobs, economic activity, and new tax revenue for states;
- Achieve strong investment returns and stable long-term cash flows that meet or exceed actuarially required levels; and
- Support "green" infrastructure projects that are environmentally sustainable. SEIU has been stimulating discussions about this with financial professionals for the past two years and this progress is a good sign.
Read more about SEIU's plan in the The Nation.
« Protecting Retirement Security
Earlier this year, SEIU partnered with The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and the Pensions Rights Center to launch Retirement USA, an initiative working for a new retirement system that, along with Social Security, will provide universal, secure, and adequate income for future retirees.
Anna Burger addressed a Retirement USA conference last month, saying: "We know what a 21st century retirement system needs to look like. It needs to cover everyone, it needs to provide adequate benefits to all workers, and it needs to be secure and not linked to the volatility of the market. Our retirement assets must be invested in markets that are transparent, accountable and fair."
View Retirement USA's 12 principles for a new retirement system.
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That’s great. However, there is already a question of whether the government has to intervene or not during the recession. Some believe that government should do nothing, and scale back as far as possible, especially taxation, so that the market can take care of itself. Others believe the government should launch huge works projects, or works projects that pay as little as possible, so that there's at least a fall back. However, government butting in on every action does no good save for those doing the butting, and for every action has a consequence. If there's too much government intervention for debt relief – we cripple ourselves to save ourselves, and empower the wealthy over the working.