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.

On Friday, Congress took an extraordinary step forward on efforts to curb global warming. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the first-ever bill designed to advance a clean energy economy that creates green jobs, boosts national security and protects our planet. Click here to see the ad that SEIU and coalition groups launched in Capitol Hill publications just last week, urging Congress to pass and strengthen the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).

Areas of the bill that could still use some strengthening, according to our coalition partner the Blue Green Alliance: key provisions related to the Renewable Electricity Standard, investments in clean energy, energy efficiency, worker training and fair treatment of workers. BGA Executive Director David Foster praised the passing of the legislation:

"The Blue Green Alliance and its labor and environmental partners believe that comprehensive climate change legislation is essential to creating millions of jobs building the clean energy economy, particularly in manufacturing and construction, two industries hard hit by the economic downturn."

Bright Ideas
On Sunday, President Obama sat down with a group of reporters for an in-depth interview about the climate bill and energy, saying that he thinks the clean-energy market is poised for explosive growth. One small thing Americans can do to help conserve energy as our country moves towards enacting stricter energy-efficiency standards? Buy new lightbulbs.

Obama said the Department of Energy is at work on new standards for fluorescent and incandescent lighting. "Now I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses," Obama said. Read the president's full remarks here. More details on the Waxman-Markey legislation at ThinkProgress's Wonk Room.

Between 1998 and 2007, the number of jobs in our country's emerging clean energy economy grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs, according to a study by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Study results showed that clean energy jobs grew at a national rate of 9.1 percent, while traditional jobs grew by only 3.7 percent between 1998 and 2007.

Best of all: "The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses and Investments Across America" report finds that the renewable energy industry is creating a diverse range of well-paying jobs in every single state, across all skill levels and educational backgrounds. Pew's study is the first-ever count across all 50 states of the actual jobs, companies and venture capital investments that supply the growing demand for environmentally friendly products and services.

Read the Pew report here and check out the state-by-state rankings here.

To mark the occasion of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Sierra Club President Allison Chin addressed a group of SEIU employees during a lunch lecture on the topics of grassroots activism, the Employee Free Choice Act and working together with labor in the Blue Green Alliance.

Allowing workers a democratic chance to forum unions is an important way to help ensure that that green jobs in the new clean energy economy will also be good family-supporting jobs. Recognizing that protecting workers' rights to organize is critical to the future of our green economy, the Sierra Club has stood with labor in our campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act. "Passing the Employee Free Choice is one of our most important legislative priorities," said Chin. "Because an economy that treats workers fairly is one that is fundamentally better for our planet." Watch Allison speak to learn more about our joint efforts and why a strong labor movement is crucial to a strong environmental movement:

Join the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act.

The first official quarterly meeting of the President Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) took place this morning at the White House. SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger and the fifteen other board members discussed green jobs and energy with the President, sharing their perspectives and expertise on how the U.S. can enhance the strength and competitiveness of the nation's economy through the creation of a comprehensive energy plan that will generate millions of clean energy jobs.

During the meeting, 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 SEIU Local unions that are leading the way on green initiatives within real estate commercial properties to illustrate her point.

"Now, when workers have a voice, they can actually implement their ideas about how they can do things better. Our Locals in New York and California now bargain in energy efficiency standards. They have a whole training program where they train their janitors and their engineers in terms of how to retro-fit [buildings], how to save energy. And they set a goal in their contract about saving 20 percent of the energy in their buildings through a certain set period of time." Read the rest of Anna's comments during the meeting.