National unemployment dipped below 10 percent in January, but workers in the building and construction trades have yet to feel any recovery. Today, the Center for American Progress alongside Home Performance Resource Center is releasing a report on the job-creating opportunity that the HOME STAR program can create and the scope of the "tool belt recession" in 44 states in America.

If there’s one thing Americans agree on, it’s that we need more jobs now. That reality is often twisted by conservatives, who say the one-year-old economic recovery plan has failed. But they are just wrong. The AFL-CIO is pushing for much greater investment to create the millions more jobs we need to get us out of our current hole. Check out the federation’s five-point plan to put America back to work here.

Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Steve Hunter praised the House’s passage of the jobs infrastructure bill yesterday. “This bill will provide good jobs that will support and sustain families.” “This infrastructure bill for just under $1 billion will create 21,000 to 27,000 jobs,” said Harry Melander, president of Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council.

These days, construction cranes are a rare sight above the metro area skyline. But drive west on W. 36th St. towards Lake Calhoun and you can see a giant crane towering above the hills on Calhoun’s western shore. At the corner of France Ave. So. and Excelsior Blvd., a mixed-use development funded by union pension funds is creating union construction jobs while building new market-rate rental housing and retail space. Like all development financed by HIT, 100 percent of the construction work at the Ellipse is required to be union labor.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson today sent a letter to the DNR advising the state agency to approve the draft EIS for PolyMet mining. She says, "Northeastern Minnesotan needs good family supporting jobs. The most recent data from the Jobs Now Coalition of Minnesota shows that 12 people are competing for every open job in the Northeast region. On March 16, 2009, the Minnesota AFL-CIO General Board passed a resolution opposing legislation aimed at delaying the PolyMet EIS process."

On behalf of its 50,000 members, the Minnesota Building Trades Council today announced its support for PolyMet Mining Company’s proposal to mine copper, nickel and precious metals in Northeastern Minnesota. “The Minnesota Building Trades Council is proud to support PolyMet Mining Company’s proposal,” said President Harry Melander. “This project will be built thanks to the expertise and hard work of more than 300 skilled trades people and will create hundreds of good-paying jobs."

Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. should be prime shopping time, but the vast parking lot off of Coon Rapids Boulevard is largely empty. This site formerly included a Target store and a Rainbow grocery, but both moved to the newer Riverdale Mall, leaving an under-utilized site that could be transformed with the construction of a proposed community center.

On Wednesday, Feb. 25, a “very disturbing” hearing took place in the Minnesota Senate’s Economic Development and Housing Budget Division committee chaired by Senator Dave Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm. In the nearly two-hour hearing, two former Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors testified that the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry has engaged in a number of fraudulent activities.

With both the state and federal governments putting new emphasis on “green” economic development, Ray Zeran is one of many workers ready to fill the ranks of a new “green collar” workforce. Zern recently completed training on solar panel installation at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ new facility in St. Michael.

The Department of Labor reported that in the final two months of 2008, the worst U.S. recession in decades extracted its most significant pain to date. Over 1 million jobs were slashed in that period, raising the total for 2008 to 2.6 million Americans without jobs. That is the highest number of jobless since the end of World War II in 1945.