LABOR AND DEMOCRATIC LEADERS AGREE
FORGE SECOND STIMULUS PACKAGE

Saying the nation is in recession, union presidents and leaders of the Democratic-run 110th Congress agreed on the afternoon of April 10 on the contours--if not all the details--of a second economic stimulus package, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney announced.

The centerpiece of the package will be extending jobless benefits from their present 26 weeks to 39 weeks, with an extra 13 weeks for jobless workers in high-unemployment states, they said. The package will be brought to the Senate floor “within the next month,” Kennedy said in late afternoon.

“We have to make sure working families get the security they need and have worked hard for,” he added. Workers pay into the unemployment benefits trust fund and should be able to use those dollars in hard times, Kennedy said. “We heard the calls of working families who need help, and help is on the way.”

“The administration has said ‘no.’ We say ‘yes,’” Kennedy declared, referring to anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush.

Other sections of the second stimulus package would include infrastructure money to repair the nation’s roads, bridges and airports, sending more money to states for Medicaid so they can pay for medical care, more money for food stamps, and “tax rebates for low-income and moderate-income people,” which Kennedy and Sweeney both mentioned.

“The agenda of priorities in the short-term is unemployment insurance, food stamps, the rebates and a number of other measures,” Sweeney said. “American families are suffering with this recession and it’s about time we get under way to solve some of their problems.”

Kennedy was not specific about the rebates, and aides said a senator--they didn’t say which one--floated the idea in the closed-door meeting between senators and union leaders. Though Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, made the announcement, he added the package garnered support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other leaders.

Sweeney later told Press Associates that, in a separate closed-door session, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agreed to push it, too, but gave no timetable.

The discussion on the House side went beyond the stimulus package to encompass the congressional agenda for both this year and next year, Sweeney told PAI, the sole print media representative at the session. A camera from Fox was also present.

“We got into trade, infrastructure, the Employee Free Choice Act and the rest. We knew we had similar positions on most of them,” Sweeney added. “They didn’t get into a schedule,” Sweeney said of House Democratic leaders, “but they realized some of these things are urgent.”

The second stimulus package would be similar to Democratic-proposed measure dumped from the first package--approved earlier this year--in the face of GOP opposition, Kennedy aides said afterwards. Extending jobless benefits was one provision that led Senate Republicans to threaten to filibuster the original stimulus package.

Besides Sweeney, other union leaders at the closed-door sessions with Reid, Pelosi and other lawmakers were Change to Win Chair Anna Burger, Steel Workers President Leo Gerard, Communications Workers President Larry Cohen, Service Employees President Andrew Stern, Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger, Flight Attendants President Pat Friend, Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger and AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department President Mark Ayers.

Other senators at the session were Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Joint Economic Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), whose state has the highest jobless rate in the nation.