Chicago Clean Air= Jobs & Needed Local Economic Stimuli

Today I received a post card from the Pilsen/Southwest Side
Green Party.

They are inviting you to come join the fight for clean air and power,
& to please help demand Chicago's Mayor Daley stop delaying the passage
of the "Clean Power Ordinance".
www.lungchicago.org

RALLY !
Wednesday, December 11th, at 4:30pm
Chicago City Hall
118 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL

As a union Sheet Metal Worker of Local 73 Chicago,
I am personally requesting both my local union and
the Sheet Metal Workers' International Assn. to
endorse this campaign.
Local 73 can be reached at 312-726-3673 mailto:smw73dmm (at) aol.com
SMWIA 202-783-5880 mailto:info (at) smwia.org
In addition,
CFL 312-222-1000 mailto:cfl (at) cflonline.org
IL AFL-CIO 312-251-1414
IBEW 134 312-474-1340

I would also like to add, that I have actually attended
forums in which I heard testimony from local residents.
We are talking about a high incidence of birth defects
and health problems in the vicinity of these coal fired
plants and industrial polluters.
The local chapters of the green party and Chicago's
Rolling Thunder Project have quite a bit of info
about these problems.

The solution to this problem is not shutting down
some of these polluters which would result in job
losses, but the installation of scrubber systems
to decrease emissions. The requirement and installation
systems would create a great number of jobs for
many different trade unions, in a time in which
full employment does not exist. By producing such
jobs, we are eliminating many individuals who may be
draining from the system by receiving unemployment
compensation, and turn the tables around providing
paychecks which contribute to a system of taxation
and create money which is spend further stimulating
the local economy to help ailing businesses.

The operators of these plants, have certainly shown
the public in their report to shareholders that they
can afford generous CEO bonuses. They can certainly
afford to fund the installation of these scrubber systems
to meet clean air requirements.

It was just recently that I and co-workers were
standing on a roof of building at a construction
site in the Hyde Park area, in which from 5 miles
away from the loop we were observing nothing
but a big cloud of haze and smog over the city.
Here is a photo I tool off of a 50 story roof at
1 N. Wacker in Chicago last year.
www.laborgroups.org/smog.jpg
You can see the smokestack in Pilsen from the
Midwest-CoGen plant emitting pollutants,
and in addition, you can smell it 5 miles away too.

I would certainly hate to think that because some of
these areas suffering from such air pollution has
such a high percentage of hispanic residents, that
hispanic folks simply do not count in the City of Chicago.

Contact Mayor Daley. Tell him let's make Chicago
the "City the Works !" not the "City the Stinks !".
Ask Mayor Daley for CLEAN AIR this Christmas !
www.ci.chi.il.us/Mayor/mayorfeedback.html

In Solidarity,
Bob Kolb

--
LaborGroups, Defenders of the Faith ! www.LaborGroups.com
Labor Activist SlideShows & ScreenSavers: www.SlideShows.us
73online, www.73.org