America's Building Trades Unions Endorse President Barack Obama for Re-Election

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, announced today its enthusiastic endorsement of the 2012 re-election bid of President Barack Obama.  The announcement comes on the heels of a unanimous vote of the Department's Governing Board of Presidents.

"The decision reached by the Governing Board of Presidents reflects the firm belief of all of our unions that a Barack Obama presidency offers the continued, steady hand of a leader who navigated our nation through some very uncertain times when not just our nation, but the entire globe, was on the verge of economic collapse," said Sean McGarvey, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department..

"The results," said McGarvey, "are hard to argue with."

And those results include:

• The creation of nearly 3.7 million private sector jobs in the past 23 months.
• The addition of nearly 160,000 jobs to the U.S. auto industry - which means that many of our own members are back at work re-tooling and maintaining U.S. auto plants.
• The creation of 334,000 new American manufacturing jobs – which means that scores of our members are at work today building, modernizing and maintaining new manufacturing plants.
• And President Obama's middle-class tax cuts are providing tax relief for 160 million Middle Class workers to help strengthen the economy.

Further, the U.S. Department of Labor has commenced with several important initiatives that are designed to confront some of the most egregious business practices conducted by "low road" contractors in the U.S. construction industry.  Davis-Bacon Act enforcements are on the rise; new initiatives are being put into place to stem the practice of falsely misclassifying workers as "independent contractors," as well as the abuse of federal visa programs.  And President Obama has been a staunch supporter of project labor agreements that are offering value and efficiencies to federal construction projects.

"The challenges facing our nation necessitate the need for our elected leaders – Republican and Democrat alike – to work in unified fashion," said McGarvey.  "That's the way it's supposed to be; that's the American way.  And, unlike his detractors, Barack Obama has consistently been willing to put country ahead of party."

McGarvey went on to point out the intransigence of Congressional Republicans to thwart Obama at every juncture.  "Time and time again, when President Obama has put forth reasonable proposals to address the challenges confronting us as a nation – including a highway bill that has historically been a non-partisan process – he has found himself standing with only members of his own party."

The Republican Congressional leadership has used blunt force to prevent rank and file Republicans from doing anything to assist the President and, by extension, help their own constituents.

"While Middle Class America was being thrown into the despair and outright fear of economic insecurity, congressional Republican leaders have continually thumbed their noses at bi-partisan cooperation and flatly stated that it will always be their top priority to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president," said McGarvey.  "And Mitt Romney has bought into that same philosophy, a philosophy that offers nothing for the protection and strengthening of the American Middle Class."

The Building and Construction Trades Department is an alliance of 13 national and international unions that collectively represent more than 2 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada

www.BCTD.org
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www.PLAsWork.org
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SOURCE Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO