December 15, 2009
The Community Action Partnership is in the 2009 Combined Federal Campaign.
Our CFC number for designating donations is 80371.
2010 MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP TRAINING CONFERENCE
JANUARY
13-15, 2010, IN NEW ORLEANS — REGISTER NOW!
Register now for the 2010 Community Action Partnership Management and Leadership Training Conference.
Begin the New Year with in-depth learning and sharing of ideas with your colleagues. Our 2010 Management and Leadership Conference will take place at the New Orleans Marriott and will include sessions on Head Start, Green Jobs, Job Creation, Board Training, and the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. Please visit our website regularly for more information as it becomes available.
Click here to download a pdf of the Conference flyer; click here to download
the Conference Registration Form.
FOR COMMUNITY ACTION
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Yolanda Butler, Acting Director of the Office of Community Services, Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services will speak at our Thursday, Jan. 14th morning opening plenary session. Dr. Butler, whose office administers the Community Service Block Grants and other federal anti-poverty programs, is a welcome guest at our Partnership conferences and she enjoys taking questions from and speaking with Community Action leaders from across the nation. Her remarks will include an overview of current OCS activities and plans for the future.
Dr. Yolanda Butler
The Partnership is pleased to announce that David Bradley, one of America’s foremost lobbyists, will share his insights and discuss pending federal activity regarding Community Action and related anti-poverty issues during the closing session on Friday morning, January 15th at the Management and Leadership Conference in New Orleans. David’s decades of sustained leadership and advocacy on behalf of programs for low-income people, families and communities is unparalleled in our Movement. In these challenging times of ARRA, weatherization expansion, and emerging new federal initiatives, you’ll want to hear David’s insights and strategies, and outlook for the coming year.
David Bradley
This is hot!!! Tim Reese, executive director of the California/Nevada Community Action Partnership, will talk about Cal/Neva’s truly exciting project that started with KPIX TV, the CBS station in San Francisco. Tim and the Cal/Neva board of directors decided that they wanted a high-impact media campaign that shows how Community Action effectively uses Recovery Act (ARRA) funds. Working with the firm of Marshall Howard and Associates and pooling funds from individual member CAAs and state resources, the “Fulfilling the Promise” (FtP) campaign includes CBS-produced 30 second vignettes that air during heavy viewing hours.
The Illinois Association of CAAs and its President & CEO Dalitso Sulamoyo, CCAP, have produced their first FtP spot on weatherization. On Friday, Jan 15th at 11:00 am to 12:00 noon, Tim will discuss plans for expanding the FtP model to other CBS-TV media markets in cooperation with our national Community Action Partnership. These 30 second vignettes have been very well received by policymakers and other key people-of-influence in Washington, DC. This session is a must for any media savvy CAA professionals and board leaders.
BONUS! The first 40 attendees at this session will receive a free CD with the 3 California and 1 Illinois “Fulfilling the Promise" CBS-TV vignettes.
Tim Reese
Audioconference to Focus on Impact of
Health Reform on Cities, Children and FamiliesA free, hour-long audioconference sponsored by the YEF Institute will focus on "Health Care Reform: How New Federal Policies Will Impact Cities, Children and Families." The call will take place Thurs., Dec. 17, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
Speakers, including NLC federal relations staff, will discuss the key provisions of pending bills. Topics will include: proposed changes to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP); subsidies to help low-income families purchase insurance coverage; and provisions designed to reduce the growth of health care costs, improve access to wellness and preventive services and expand insurance coverage to all Americans. In addition to hearing about the impact on children and families, listeners will learn about the implications of federal health proposals for cities as employers and safety net providers.
While the call is free, it is only available to a limited number of participants. Advance registration is required by close of business Tues., Dec. 15. No phone registrations can be accepted. One day prior to the call, each registrant will receive an email providing a toll-free, dial-in number to use in joining the audioconference. For questions about the YEF Institute's audioconference series, contact Michael Karpman at (202) 626-3072 or karpman@nlc.org.
Register for this audioconference
FOR GREEN JOBS BILL
Thanks to our colleagues at the Transportation Equity Network, the Partnership joined with the Coalition on Human Needs, National Council of Negro Women, Green for All, Wider Opportunities for Women, PolicyLink and more than 50 other advocacy organizations in calling for Congress and the Obama Administration to include provisions to insure that low-income people and communities of color can participate in any jobs recovery legislation.
Ensuring that the Jobs Bill Builds an Inclusive Economy that Lifts Up
All Workers and BusinessesA Proposal from Center for Community Change, The Conference Of Minority Transportation Officials, Green for All, National Employment Law Project, Partnership for Working Families, PolicyLink, Transportation Equity Network, and Wider Opportunities for Women
Overview
As Congress and the Obama Administration take action to address the jobs crisis in America, it is critical that any approach harnesses the skills and capacities of all of !merica’s workers and businesses and ensures that we grow quality, family-supporting jobs. An economic recovery that does not lift up those who have been hit first and worst by the recession—lower income people and communities of color—is no recovery at all.
Investing in improving our nation’s infrastructure—our transportation network, homes and buildings, schools, public facilities, and more—can rebuild our communities and make them more energy efficient, while putting people back to work. Jobs focused on building and maintaining of our nation’s infrastructure have historically been good-paying jobs, but in recent years job quality across the construction industry is declining. It is also an industry where lower income people and communities of color have historically been shut out of employment opportunities. Any new federal job creation
strategy that invests in our nation’s infrastructure should establish a framework that lifts up job standards in the construction industry, develops new recruitment and training standards that help new workers get into the jobs, and helps minority and women-owned businesses get a fair opportunity to win contracts.
This document lays out a proposal to ensure that all workers, businesses, and communities benefit from the employment and contracting opportunities associated with the building and maintaining of our nation’s infrastructure. It includes provisions that target employment and training opportunities on construction projects funded by the bill to workers and communities who traditionally have had little access to career-track jobs in the building trades, while ensuring that minority and women-owned businesses get a fair opportunity to win federal contracts. The proposal also requires community workforce agreements to ensure job quality, workplace safety, and coordination of training and hiring goals on large construction projects. This proposal benefits workers, communities, contractors, and the construction industry as a whole.
A broad coalition of civil rights, environmental, faith, and community-based organizations have partnered with the labor movement to develop and advance elements of this proposal in states and cities across the country. A provision similar to this proposal is currently included in the House and Senate climate and energy legislation.
Now is the time to take the best of what has been learned and tested at the state and local level for ensuring job quality and equitable access to employment and training opportunities and establish a national framework that can steer America towards an inclusive and shared economic recovery.
Summary of Proposal
This proposal would target quality jobs, training, and business development opportunities to workers and communities who have traditionally been shut out of employment and contracting opportunities associated with the building and maintenance of our nation’s infrastructure. !cross the country, states and cities have pioneered the use of targeted hiring, apprenticeship requirements, and minority contracting on publicly-funded construction projects, demonstrating some of the best practices for ensuring job quality and equitable access to employment, training, and contracting opportunities.
Key elements of the proposal include:• Target jobs to workers shut out of the construction industry. Contractors receiving federal dollars would have to ensure that a percentage of project work hours are worked by local workers who are lower income, people of color, women, or who are otherwise under¬represented in the construction industry. The minimum percentage is 15%, with a goal of 30%.
• Ensure quality job training opportunities by maximizing use of apprentices. Where joint apprenticeship programs are located near a project, contractors would have to maximize the use of registered apprentices. This would both generate quality training opportunities and promote use of high-road contractors.
• Support quality pre-apprenticeship training programs and recruitment. One percent of all dollars for infrastructure investment would be dedicated to creating a pipeline of workers ready to step into apprenticeship programs and construction careers. Funds can be used by pre-apprenticeship training providers with a strong record of training targeted workers, by community-based organizations to recruit targeted workers for training programs, and by community-owned contractors to participate in apprenticeship programs.
• Utilize Community Workforce Agreements to raise standards and create access. The Secretary of Labor would be authorized to ensure that public agencies and contractors receiving federal funds utilize Community Workforce Agreements (also referred to as Project Labor Agreements) that establish uniform labor standards across all contractors and labor organizations working together on projects, which are the most effective means to achieving project stability, meeting targeted hiring and training goals in the community, and maintaining consistency with President Obama’s Executive Order.
• Facilitate minority participation in contracting opportunities. The construction contracting and subcontracting opportunities generated by this bill shall provide for the inclusive participation by socially and economically disadvantaged businesses.Key benefits of the proposal include:
• It’s good for workers. Job quality has declined significantly in the construction industry over the last three decades. A renewed and high-quality industry must be based on a model that prioritizes safety and job training, offers family-supporting wages and benefits, and creates opportunities for new job-seekers, including women, residents of low-income areas, and people of color, to get into construction careers. This provision represents the best thinking and lessons from across the country toward achieving those goals.
• It’s good for the industry. Industry experts know a looming labor shortage threatens to undermine the construction industry. This provision creates a framework for developing a new workforce and connecting contractors to workers, and the training programs needed to help them succeed.
• It’s good for communities. People of color and women are underrepresented in middle-class construction careers, but overrepresented in any measures of poverty. And, low-income people across the country are suffering during this economic crisis. Helping them get access to quality training and good-paying construction careers means a better quality of life for their families, decreased reliance on public assistance, and shared prosperity across high-poverty communities.
The Partnership is joining forces with the Center for Community Change, Economic Policy Institute, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the AFL-CIO and other prestigious national organizations in advocating for programs to create jobs in low-income communities. The Partnership will participate in this campaign and describe its progress and achievements ion subsequent issues of our eNews.
National Organizations:
Sign on to An Urgent Call for Action to Stem the U.S. Jobs Crisis
On November 17, 2009, the leaders of the AFL-CIO, Center for Community Change, Economic Policy Institute, Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and National Council of La Raza sounded the alarm on the need for Jobs NOW!
Many others have since joined the call, and we need you, too.
Please click here to sign. Then, please send this Urgent Call to Action to your partners, affiliates e-mail lists. We welcome national, state and local organizations to sign on. To become involved in the campaign, email svonesch@usaction.org.
The U.S. unemployment rate exceeded 10% in October for the first time in a quarter century. Nearly 16 million Americans who are able and willing to work cannot find a job. More than one out of every three unemployed workers has been out of a job for six months or more. The situation facing African American and Latino workers is even bleaker, with unemployment at 15.7% and 13.1%, respectively.
These grim statistics don’t capture the full extent of the hardship. There are another 9 million people working part time because they cannot find full-time work. Millions of others have given up looking for a job, and so aren’t counted in the official unemployment figures. Altogether, 17.5% of the labor force is underemployed — more than 27 million Americans, including one in four minority workers. Last, given individuals moving in and out of jobs, we can expect a third of the workforce, and 40% of workers of color, to be unemployed or underemployed at some point over the next year.
Despite an effective and bold recovery package we are still facing a prolonged period of high unemployment. Two years from now, absent further action, we are likely to have unemployment at 8% or more, a higher rate than that attained even at the worst point of the last two downturns.Joblessness on this scale creates enormous social and economic problems—and denies millions of families the ability to meet even their most basic needs. It also threatens our nation’s future prosperity by casting millions more children into poverty, foreclosing educational opportunities for many, limiting the investment and innovation that will fuel future growth, and dimming long-term labor market prospects, especially for younger workers.
The president and the Congress have already taken significant steps to stop the economy’s nosedive. Their efforts have already created over a million jobs and led to renewed economic growth in the third quarter of 2009. But it’s clear that much more must be done to generate millions more jobs to assure a robust recovery that reaches all Americans.
Generating millions more jobs in 2010 is an urgent need, but doing so alone will not fi x an economy that has failed working people for at least three decades. New policies should aim to maximize job creation and lead us to the new economy that we need. That economy must be one of shared prosperity, with growth based on robust, broad-based wage gains, not on asset bubbles or consumer debt. An economy in which the finance sector services the real economy rather than the reverse. An economy in which equity is seen as central to growth and pursues a low-carbon future.
A first step is to provide relief through continued and expanded unemployment benefits, COBRA, and Food Stamps. This directly helps the state and local governments that are putting the brakes on growth as they curtail programs in order to balance their budgets.
Second, extending substantial fiscal relief to state and local governments will not only preserve needed services, but will also provide millions of jobs in both the public and private sectors (as many private firms deliver public services from health to infrastructure).
Third, we can directly create jobs that put people to work helping communities meet pressing needs, especially in distressed communities facing severe unemployment. These initiatives are critically important and can be carefully crafted so they do not displace existing jobs or undermine labor standards.
Fourth, there are opportunities to invest in infrastructure improvements in schools, transportation, and energy efficiency that can provide jobs in the short run and productivity enhancements in the longer run.
Last, we should explore spurring private-sector job growth through innovative incentives and providing credit to small and medium-sized businesses.
These initiatives will cost money, and we will need to tolerate higher deficits in the next few years. However, a jobs initiative can be coupled with a revenue stream, such as a financial transactions tax, that can take effect in the third year and more than pay for these efforts over a 10-year period.
Americans are confronting the worst jobs situation in more than half a century. This is not a situation we must continue to tough out. A robust plan to create jobs in transparent, effective, and equitable ways can put America back to work.Signed,
5MillionGreenJobs.org
AFL-CIO
Americans for Democratic Action, Inc.
Campaign for America's Future
Center for Community Change
Coalition on Human Needs
Community Action Partnership
Demos
Economic Justice Coalition
Economic Policy Institute
Every Child Matters Education Fund
Hispanic Federation
Insight Center for Community Economic Development
Japanese American Citizens League
Jobs with Justice
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Legal Momentum
NAACP
National Association of Social Workers
National Association for State Community Services Programs
National Community Reinvestment Coalition
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of La Raza
National Council on Aging
National Employment Law Project
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Women's Law Center
ProgressNOW
Project Community, Inc.
SCLC
SEIU
Student Association for Voter Empowerment
The National Advocacy Center
Sisters of the Good Shepherd
The Workforce Alliance
United States Student Association
USAction
Wider Opportunities for Women
WiLL-Women Legislators' Lobby
Women's Action for New Directions
Working America
YouthBuild USA
The Partnership participates in the Climate Equity Alliance and we've signed on to this letter advocating that climate and clean energylegislation does not make low-income families worse off and asks that electric utility companies make a significant investment in energy efficiency to create jobs, generate consumer savings, and lower the price of carbon. Our thanks to Megan Emiko Scott of Green for All for her great work in pulling this letter together.
December 8, 2009
The Honorable John Kerry, Chair
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
419 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Joe Lieberman, Chair
Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Lindsey Graham
290 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
RE: Require Efficiency Investment of at least 1/3 of Allowance Value Given to Electric Utilities
Dear Chairman Kerry, Senator Graham, and Chairman Lieberman:
Congratulations on your decision to draft legislation that will allow the U.S. to lead the world on reducing climate pollution and build our green economy. As you work to draft legislation and toward passing the bill out of the Senate, we urge you to include a crucial element that is necessary to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, enhance consumer protection, and lower the cost of the climate program.
We are writing to request that the climate bill require an investment in energy efficiency equivalent to at least 1/3 of the value of the total allowance allocation given to electric utilities. Such an efficiency investment will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs retrofitting millions of buildings nationwide, and benefit consumers by lowering electricity costs by billions of dollars, as residential, commercial, and industrial consumers typically save in the range of $2 to $4 for every $1 invested in energy efficiency. It would also help decrease greenhouse gas emissions and thus reduce the market clearing price of carbon.
In light of these tremendous benefits, over 300 labor, business, civil rights, community-based, and environmental organizations below support allocating 1/3 of the electric utility allowances toward energy efficiency.
S. 1733 and ACES both include a 1/3 efficiency investment requirement for natural gas utilities, which ensures that more than $3 billion per year will be invested in natural gas efficiency. This will yield more than $15 billion in gas efficiency investments by 2020, generating consumer savings of approximately $45 billion, and creating more than 100,000 new jobs. We strongly support this provision.
As you prepare to pass climate legislation out of the Senate, we urge you to include a similar 1/3 efficiency investment requirement for the electric utility allocation, which would:• Generate $100 billion in electric efficiency investments;
• Create more than 900,000 new construction, energy service, and building maintenance and operations jobs by 2020, and many more additional jobs at plants that supply these sectors (based on analysis by Green Economy, 2009), and;
• Reduce consumers’ energy bills by $300 billion.We thank you for your assistance on this important issue, and we look forward to working together to pass climate legislation that will create new clean energy jobs across the country, protect consumers, and strengthen our economy.
Sincerely,National Organizations:
Green For All
Building and Construction Trades Department,
AFL-CIO
Center for American Progress
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
NAACP
CERES
Apollo Alliance
Change to Win
Environment America
Sheet Metal Workers' International Association
Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors
National Association
Sierra Club
Laborers International Union of North America
(LiUNA!)
International Association of Bridge, Structural,
Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers
Energy Action Coalition
Community Action Partnership
League of Conservation Voters
United Association of Journeymen and
Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting
Industry
National Wildlife Federation
Color of Change
Johnson Controls
American Council for an Energy-Efficient
Economy
Union of Concerned Scientists
Rock the Vote
Voto Latino
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Wider Opportunities for Women
Earthjustice
League of United Latin American Citizens
Clean Water Action
The Partnership for Working Families
United States Student Association
League of Young Voters
U.S. Green Building Council
Conservation Services Group
Energy Future Coalition
1 Sky
National Audubon Society
Gamaliel Foundation
Transportation Equity Network
Center for Community Change
National Employment Law Project
Hip Hop Caucus
Global Exchange
Social Venture Network
YouthBuild USA
Investors Circle
Electric and Gas Industries Association
Izaak Walton League of America
Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2)
Wellstone Action
Generational Alliance
The Wilderness Society
Faiths United for Sustainable Energy
The Keystone Group
The Corps Network
Environmental and Energy Study Institute
Center for Biological Diversity
SEEED: Students Endeavoring for Enlightened
Environmental Decisions
Energy Federation Incorporated
Serious Materials, Inc.
Focus the Nation
Courage Campaign
TRC Energy Services
Better World Telecom
The Pax Group
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
Democracia AHORA
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice
blackEnergy, LLC
DC Project
ESCO Energy Services Company
Efficiency First
International District Energy Association
Unitarian Universalist Association of
Congregations
Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth
New Voice of Business
Levi Strauss & Company
The National Graduate School
Approximately 270 state and regional organizations also signed this letter.
CC:
The Honorable Max Baucus, Chair
Senate Committee on Finance
The Honorable Jeff Bingaman, Chair
Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources
The Honorable Barbara Boxer, Chair
Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works
The Honorable Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader
ILLINOIS ASSOCIATION OF CAAs
John Colgan, CCAP, Vice President for Public Policy, Illinois Association of Community Action Agencies (IACAA), has been appointed to the State Commerce Commission. To see the news release that the Governor's Office issued on the day of the appointment, go to: http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/PressReleasesListShow.cfm?RecNum=7955
Governor Patrick Quinn introduces John Colgan to the Chicago media while appointing him to a seat on the Illinois Commerce Commission. The news conference was held at the Thompson Center in Chicago on October 26th, 2009. Commissioner Colgan's appointment became effective November 15th, 2009.
