Steelworkers Launch Make Our Future Work Website

Original source:The United Steelworkers (USW) launched a new website, “Make Our Future Work,” to assist workers in coping with the economic crisis and mobilize to put America back to work.

The site’s main feature is the USW’s “Main Street Recovery Plan,” released last month, which calls for a major economic campaign to pass a substantial, strategic and sustained economic recovery plan. The site offers strategy suggestions to mobilize your community to fight for an economic plan that creates new, well-paying jobs.

USW President Leo Gerard joined hundreds of economists and dozens of labor and public interest leaders in releasing a statement calling for a minimum $900 billion program to revitalize manufacturing over the next two years. Says Gerard:

This plan invests in America’s future. It will get us on track to creating an economy that works for working families. I can’t imagine a successful economy that doesn’t have a strong, vibrant, forward-looking manufacturing sector, one that puts people back to work and makes the products of the new century. We need an economy that thrives on making things and creates wealth through middle class prosperity.

The site enables workers to tell their stories about how the falling economy has affected their lives and offers tips on what to do if you are laid off.

To encourage consumers to buy products that sustain family-supporting jobs, the site offers a “Buy American Toolkit,” which lists union products made in the United States and other resources to support domestic manufacturing. There’s also a guide to the Employee Free Choice Act, which, if passed, would enable more workers to bargain for better wages, health care and retirement security—a true economic recovery package.

The site also includes the latest information on the nation’s economic crisis and tips to mobilize union members to campaign for a economy that puts people back to work.