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National AFL-CIO President Shuler ‘Condemns’ Trump Administration ‘Killing Energy, Manufacturing & Construction Jobs’

Published Friday, June 6, 2025
by National AFL-CIO News
National AFL-CIO President Shuler ‘Condemns’ Trump Administration ‘Killing Energy, Manufacturing & Construction Jobs’

National AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler has issued the following statement in response to the Trump Administration cutting $3.7 billion in funding for energy projects: The Labor Movement condemns the Department of Energy’s decision to cut $3.7 billion in funding for new energy projects and take away tens of thousands of good Union jobs from America’s Workers. President Trump promised a new era of American dominance in energy and manufacturing, but his Administration is now taking away the jobs that are critical to making that happen. In States like Alabama, Ohio and Texas, Workers have lost their jobs, their families have had the rug ripped out from under them and we will all lose out on the environmental, economic and national security benefits of the cutting-edge technology they were going to build. Their work would have boosted the economies in those States, provided consumers with affordable energy, developed our fast-growing clean energy economy and advanced America’s technological competitiveness on the world stage. The Trump Administration must reverse course and bring back these energy projects, for the good of America’s Working Families, our communities  and our global competitiveness.

To Directly Access This Labor News Report, Go To: AFL-CIO President Condemns Trump Administration Killing Energy, Manufacturing and Construction Jobs | AFL-CIO

Comments

The main focus of the AFL-CIO needs to be on restoring our heavy industrial capacity, namely getting our steel, iron, aluminum and power generation industries back in gear after decades of unfair predatory foreign competition, not on the Green New Deal (note that two ocean freighters arrived in the Buffalo Lackawanna Metro Port recently all carrying foreign made wind mill farm parts - with no American made parts). In WNY we have lost over 150,000 good paying Union jobs in the steel, coke, auto and power generation industries. That is not acceptable. We have lost additional thousands of jobs in rail, truck and lake transportation industries that service these plants. We have lost thousands of additional jobs in subcontractors that rebuild these plants. This is not acceptable industrial policy from the AFL-CIO. In WNY we have lost our power generation plants (all Union) in Huntley-Tonawanda, Somerset-Barker, Dresden-Penn Yann, Dunkirk-Dunkirk - costing thousands of Union jobs. We lost the Chevy Forge Plant, Bethlehem Steel, Tonawanda Coke, Donner-Hanna Coke, Republic Steel, Allegany Ludlum Steel, etc., etc. - costing Union jobs. We are now dependent on foreign energy resources from Ontario and Quebec Hydro and unreliable and expensive wind and solar farms - not acceptable. We need steel, coke, aluminum, cheap power, iron ore, bauxite, coal, ng, and petroleum in order to provide the cheap energy and resources to be self-sufficient in this country and WNY. Building wind and solar farms and destroying prime agricultural land, and open space simply does not cut it. We need Jeffersonian self-sufficiency and we need it now. Time to reject the Green New Deal nonsense and get back to creating heavy industry jobs for American Workers - Craig E. Speers, Delegate - Buffalo Central Labor Council (CLC) AFL-CIO & Past Buffalo CLC Executive Board Member Posted by Craig E. Speers on June 9, 2025 at 8:43 am

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