"The Job's Not Done Tour" Comes to Virginia

by: lowkell

Thu Sep 02, 2010 at 18:56:36 PM EDT

SPRINGFIELD, VA - A bus tour highlighting the potential to create good American jobs by passing comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate stopped by the Re/Build Warehouse in Springfield, Virginia, today to urge Senators Warner and Webb to support action on comprehensive legislation that will create and save millions of American, clean energy jobs, including up to 50,000 jobs in Virginia.

"Nearly 1 out of 10 Americans are still out of work and we need action now to create and preserve millions of jobs across the country," said Lindsay Patterson, President of USW Local 404 of Philadelphia. "We have a solution right at our fingertips - we can create good jobs here in Virginia with clean energy."

Re/Build Warehouse was formed in 2008 to receive and sell reclaimed building material donations in order to provide funds to train unemployed and underemployed unskilled workers for "green collar" jobs and to educate the community in affordable ways to live sustainably.

"We can rebuild America, and we can ensure that we train workers for the next generation of green-collar jobs, if we get to work now," said Paul Hughes, a founder of the Re/Build Warehouse.

The Job's Not Done tour is traveling to 17 states - with more than 30 stops along the way - and features clean energy workers, union members and environmentalists urging Senate action on important job-creating clean energy legislation. Workers on The Job's Not Done Tour worry that China will take the millions of potential jobs that will result from the transition to a clean energy economy.

"Instead of importing clean energy technologies, we should develop and manufacture the technology to harness American energy here at home," said Leon Weeks, a member of USW Local 5965 out of Freeport, Michigan. "We can't afford to let other countries like China take the millions of jobs that could be created in America by transitioning to clean energy."

The tour will continue to Charlottesville, Virginia, and wrap up in Richmond, Virginia on September 3. For more information, visit www.bluegreenalliance.org.

"This tour is a reminder that millions of people are out of work, and clean energy will jumpstart the American economy. We need the Senate to get back to work and get the job done - for our families, the economy, our environment, and the future," said Annette Osso of the VA Sustainable Building Network.