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In The News

For media inquiries, contact David Miller at (202) 942-2246 davidmiller@liuna.org

Event reinforces benefits of energy-saving equipment for homeowners, work force

Take a look at the local rank and file of the Laborers' International Union of North America and you'll see a microcosm of the rest of the country: 2,400 construction workers, 350 of whom are out of work.
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National Clean Energy Tour Comes to Indianapolis, Aims to Create Good Green Jobs

Indianapolis, IN – National, state and local leaders representing government, business, labor and environmental groups convened today in Indianapolis for the “Clean Energy Roadshow.” The Roadshow was created to find ways to spur collaborative public-private investment in the clean energy economy and create quality green jobs for American workers. Indianapolis is the Roadshow’s seventh stop in a multi-city, multi-state national tour that is expected to run through 2011.
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Construction Workers Still Experiencing Depression-Level Unemployment Despite Overall National Improvement

Washington, D.C. – Today’s U.S. Labor Department unemployment report showed a decline in national unemployment but workers in the construction industry saw another month of devastating job loss. Construction unemployment spiked to 24.7 percent as another 75,000 construction jobs were lost. Nearly 2.1 million construction jobs have been lost since the recession began.
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Worth the Investment (letter to the editor)

I am writing you because I feel strongly that our country is in serious need of investing in surface transportation, such as highways, and in school building construction. These are a top priority and need to be taken care of very soon. As a member of Liuna, as an American citizen and just as a member of society it concerns me very much.
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Union helps produce women workers

At the Community Environmental Center in Long Island City, N.Y. — and across the country — you don’t always see a lot of women in the construction business. Locating experienced female weatherization technicians to recruit had proven difficult for CEC, but 30-year-old Thalia Williams is the beginning of a new era in the clean energy economy. “Construction is something I had wanted to do for a long time,” Thalia says. “I had no way of knowing how to get into this field because I always heard it was a man’s world. I wanted in.”
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Levin, Stabenow Announce More Than $5 Million for Southeast Michigan Clean Energy Jobs Training

WASHINGTON D.C.— U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, both D-Mich., today announced more than $5 million in funding for clean energy jobs training in Southeast Michigan. The funds from the U.S. Department of Labor were made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Energy Training Partnership grant awards.
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Obama's new plan to create jobs, save energy: Call it cash for caulkers?

Reporting from Washington - Declaring that insulation is "sexy," President Obama today pushed Congress to create a program giving homeowners cash incentives to improve their energy efficiency by replacing windows, caulking leaks and modernizing heaters and air conditioners.
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President Obama on Energy Efficiency and Job Creation

When it comes to contractors, contractors all around the country know that this is work they can do, they can do effectively, they can do well, and it's a reliable business. It's not going to be subject to as many of the vacillations as home sales are in the current environment where you've got a soft housing market. So this can help fill the void in a major industry that's taken a big hit. And the workers, we have somebody who just got trained and is already on the job crawling through attics and putting all this stuff together. Over the course of six months or a year, somebody can get trained effectively. And LIUNA is doing terrific work with this -- its apprenticeship program. And what this means is that people who are unemployed right now, they can get a marketable skill that they can take anywhere.
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FACES OF JOBLESSNESS: Family struggles to make ends meet after construction layoff

Two years ago, Roberta Koskela decided she wanted a different, more prosperous kind of life. So she traded in her skirts and high heels for jeans, work boots and a ponytail. She quit her general office job at a cable company, packed up her family and moved from Lake Havasu City, Ariz., to Las Vegas, where she'd heard well-paying construction jobs were plentiful, even for those with little or no experience. Here, she joined a laborers union and quickly received training as a construction flagger and concrete core driller.
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“Retrofit Roadshow” Rolls into Las Vegas

Las Vegas, NV – Mayor Oscar Goodman and State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford were among the prominent state and local leaders who convened at the Cashman Center today as part of a “Retrofit Roadshow.” The Roadshow brings elected officials, business leaders, labor union representatives and environmental advocates together to identify ways to spur and implement collaborative public-private investment in an American weatherization industry in order to create good, green jobs and grow a clean energy economy.
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