A Union Plan for Financing Construction

Source: NY Times

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. said it would announce on Wednesday that it intends to work with pension fund managers to ensure that at least $10 billion in union pension money is made available in the next five years to finance infrastructure projects.

Richard L. Trumka, president of the labor federation, will present the plan at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago as part of organized labor’s effort to get the federal government, banks and money managers to do more to issue bonds or create other mechanisms to finance infrastructure projects.

A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials said they planned to work with Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions in the hope of coming up with hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit large commercial buildings. Many building owners are hesitating to do such retrofits because they are highly leveraged and do not have the cash to make the investments. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. hopes its $10 billion will provide an incentive for banks and hedge funds to develop financing vehicles to make such projects happen.

“America’s construction workers need work and want to work,” Mr. Trumka will say, according to his prepared remarks, noting that unemployment is 16 percent in the industry. “Never in modern times has so much construction work needed to be done.”


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/business/29labor.html?_r=1

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I seen this work very well for IBEW 595 after the Oakland Fires

A stimulous plan from Organized Labor. This is the kind of thing our government should be doing. Now who is working in the National interests?

I think it is a great idea, as long as the money is protected for the working men and women who put their money there in good faith.

sure there is need. Maybe they can build already sold projects.

Serious.

and their sycophants.

???