Wed. June 15, 2011
JOBS Now! must be the rallying cry of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections says Leo Hindery, Chairman of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation.
“We intend to ask every candidate running for federal office in 2012, especially Mr. Obama and whomever the Republicans nominate for President, one simple question,” said Hindery in remarks to nearly 600 IAM delegates and guests at the 2011 IAM National Staff Conference in Toronto, Ontario. “What is your agenda to create 22 million jobs, eliminate our trade deficit, bring ‘tax fairness’ back to the middle class, enact the Employee Free Choice Act, and stop union-busting?”
Hindery provided a six-point action plan for putting America on the road to recovery, including a manufacturing and industrial policy that mirrors the mercantilist practices of our major trading partners, especially China; a major long-term public investment program to upgrade and rebuild our nation's major infrastructure; and an end to tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.
“For our country to be ascendant again, American workers everywhere must be treated as the highly-skilled, enormously-productive and wealth-producing ‘assets’ you are,” said Hindery. “When you strive to protect American jobs and eliminate unfair trade practices, you are not being anti-growth and protectionist. What you are being is patriotic.”
