Labor & Employment Law

Rebuilding U.S. Transportation Could Create 3.7 Million Jobs

By James Parks

By rebuilding our nation?s transportation infrastructure, we could create 3.7 million jobs, 600,000 alone in manufacturing, according to a new action plan released today by the Apollo Alliance.

The Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) calls for an investment of $40 billion a year over the next six years to modernize and shore up our nation?s roads, bridges, mass transportation and advanced vehicles. The plan was developed by a bipartisan group of union members, business owners, environmental and community activists and political leaders.

For decades, the United States has all but ignored mass transit. In fact, since 2005, U.S. companies and governments have spent more than $10 billion to purchase rail cars, tracks and other mass transit equipment overseas, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said during a telephone press conference today. That $10 billion is money that should have been spent here.

Today, existing U.S. public transit bus, rail vehicle and clean truck supply chains support some 40,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. There are more than 375 existing companies that could scale up to meet expanded demand if Congress is willing to put TMAP into action, Gerard says.

This is an opportunity to rebuild the important transportation infrastructure of this country?.The benefit we get from this?the triple bottom line?is that we get to create good, family supporting jobs, we get to spend dollars in a way that?s going to grow the economy, we take carbon out of the air.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said on a conference call that the nation risks losing middle-class jobs and weakening our national defense if we don?t have a national manufacturing strategy, with rebuilding transportation as a key part of the plans. 

Gerard pointed out that those who are concerned about the deficit should back this plan:

The best way to eliminate the deficit is to put people back to work [so that] they?re contributing to the system that we?ve got. [And we have] employers who are producing something that can be sold and create some real wealth as opposed to importing stuff we used to make that is now being made in China and then borrowing money from China to pay for what we used to make. 

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka urges President Obama and Congress to use the TMAP blueprint as a blueprint for rebuilding our infrastructure ?and get America back to work.?    

TMAP will transform the legacy of our past into a practical vision and plan for the 21st century. Their plan will foster innovation and new technology while creating good jobs and ensuring that our manufacturing sector is competitive in a dynamic global economy.

Inspired by the Apollo space program, the Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders working to start a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs.

Check out the TMAP plan here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 20, 2010 (boomark / email).