Mark H. Ayers, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO Remarks in Support of Resoltion 10 - Green Jobs for All - at the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, PA
August 25, 2009
I am Mark Ayers, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department.
Our 13 affiliated unions represent over 2 million skilled men and women who build America everyday. And, we are ready to rebuild America.
I rise to express our enthusiastic and unambiguous support for Resolution 10: Creating and Retaining Sustainable Good Green Jobs. Our nation stands at the threshold of a dramatic transformation toward a clean, green and sustainable economy. This transformation is absolutely necessary in order for the United States and the world to meet the challenge of global warming.
Every thinking person must understand that climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, it threatens life as we know it, and it is reversible with determined and deliberate action. Resolution 10 articulates precisely the kind action that our nation must take to meet the challenges ahead. It also recognizes that while the climate crisis poses grave perils, it also presents great possibilities.
What are the opportunities before us and how can we seize them?
As we work to restore an environment threatened by reckless human activity…we have an opportunity to restore the American Dream for millions of workers whose lives have been torn asunder by unbridled greed. First, million of green jobs can be generated by new investment and technological innovation.
But we need to ensure that these green jobs are good jobs.
Brothers and sisters, there is nothing intrinsic in a green job that makes it a good job. To ensure that these jobs pay good wages, offer solid benefits, and are safe and secure…workers must enjoy the direct benefits of union representation and collective bargaining.
Second, to restore the American Dream and rebuild the middle class, green jobs are not enough.
We must fight for lifetime careers that offer workers new skills, portable credentials, and a deep and enduring sense of craft pride. That is what Building Trades unions have offered for more than 100 hundred years. And I am proud to work with 13 union presidents who dedicate themselves to this mission.
Third, as we create the green jobs of the new economy…we must simultaneously construct new pathways into our unions for workers of color, the economically disadvantaged, women and inner city youth…who have too often been excluded from our ranks.
This is an opportunity for us to embrace diversity and inclusion, to make the color of our unions reflect the color of our great nation, and to restore the power of the labor movement, while we restore our economy and our environment.
Brothers and sisters, the economic transformation we now face is as profound as the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society over a century ago. Any organization that fails to recognize this reality will become increasingly irrelevant to the American people.
But those organizations that fully appreciate how dramatic this moment is will be well positioned to shape the future.
Resolution 10 will help us to do that. It deserves our support.
Remember: green jobs – good jobs – green money.