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Archive for February, 2009

More Green Jobs Coming to Michigan Soon

The same week that automakers sought billions in aid to avoid bankruptcy, two states, including Michigan, announced huge alternative power industry investments, with one site being built on land once set aside to lure auto manufacturers.

Manufacturing strongholds hardest hit by job losses years ago began laying the groundwork to land green jobs and may now be poised for the biggest gains, depending on federal economic stimulus funding.

The $900 billion economic package before Congress has more than $50 billion in energy-related incentives.

Obama Turns Up the Heat and Slams Republican Ideals

Republican proposals are “rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems, that government doesn’t have a role to play, that half measures and tinkering are somehow enough, that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges,” the president said in an address at the Department of Energy Thursday.

“Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed.”

IBEW Wins Rat Court Case

In a case that pitted an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union local against a central Jersey town, the high court ruled unanimously that the rodent is protected speech under the First Amendment.

The super-sized rat, sitting on its hind legs and bearing fangs, is a national symbol used by organized labor to signal a labor dispute.

Wayne County Sheriff Halts  Home Mortgage Foreclosure  Sales

DETROIT – Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans announced today that his office will halt all mortgage foreclosure sales.

Evans said a review of federal law has determined that to continue foreclosure sales would conflict with a recently enacted law that provides protection for homeowners.

“To proceed with sales without assuring that homeowners have been able to avail themselves of those protections would put me in a position of violating federal law,” Evans said during an 11 a.m. press conference.

“I cannot in clear conscience allow any more families to lose their homes through foreclosure sales until I’m satisfied they have been afforded every option they are entitled to under the law to avoid foreclosure.”

Obamas Executive Orders Help Unions and the Middle Class

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama signed a series of executive orders Friday that he said should “level the playing field” for labor unions in their struggles with management.

Obama also used the occasion at the White House to announce formally a new White House task force on the problems of middle-class Americans. He named Vice President Joe Biden as its chairman.

Union officials say the new orders by Obama will undo Bush administration policies that favored employers over workers.

“I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it’s part of the solution,” Obama said. “You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement.”

Signing the executive orders was Obama’s second overture to organized labor in as many days. On Thursday, he signed the first bill of his presidency, giving workers more time to sue for wage discrimination.