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President Obama Visits Pittsburgh Local 5 to Push American Jobs Act

October 13, 2011

On October 11, President Barack Obama visited Pittsburgh Local 5’s apprenticeship training center to deliver a call for Congress to pass the American Jobs Act, which would provide federal funding for rebuilding roads, bridges and schools, extending unemployment benefits and keeping teachers, firefighters and police on the job in cities and towns facing severe budget crises.

I had a chance to take a tour of your facilities, where you’re training workers with the skills they need to compete for good jobs…It’s an example of how, if we get a good collaboration between business and labor and academia, that there is no reason why we cannot continue to have the best trained workers in the world.

“Right now, our economy needs a jolt, “said Obama, who called upon Republicans to recognize the need to rebuild the nation’s decaying infrastructure, including hundreds of bridges and schools in Pennsylvania and pass the jobs act. Responding to criticisms that he is engaging in “class warfare” by proposing to raise taxes on wealthy Americans to help fund job creation, Obama said:

So the question we have to ask ourselves as a society, as a country is, would you rather keep taxes exactly as they are for those of us who benefited most from this country—tax breaks that we don’t need and weren’t even asking for—or do we want construction workers and electrical workers to have jobs rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our schools?

Local 5 Business Manager Mike Dunleavy says:

The president was very well-received by our apprentices and was very complimentary when speaking about our training programs.

Accompanying Obama at Local 5’s facility was the President’s Jobs Council composed of corporate and labor leaders.  The Council released a report, “Taking Action, Building Confidence” outlining steps to build an economic recovery in the U.S.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images