WASHINGTON - April 1 - A new television advertising campaign launched today by the AFL-CIO takes the message of the nation’s jobs crisis to the airwaves. The ads, airing in 11 states for one week, follow an eight-day, 18-city “Show Us the Jobs” tour sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America, which featured 51 unemployed and underemployed workers testifying about how the jobs crisis has affected them, their families and communities. The tour culminated in Washington yesterday.

The ads juxtapose the words of working Americans against the Bush administration’s characterization of the economy as “strong,” using the president’s own words from his January State of the Union address, in order to call for more aggressive policies and actions to create good jobs.

The ads point out that the nation has lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs and 544,000 information industry jobs under the Bush Administration’s watch. They point out that the nation has seen the slowest job growth under Bush since the Great Depression.

“America’s workers feel that the Bush administration has moved the country in the wrong direction when it comes to jobs and they see a disconnect between what they are experiencing in their own lives and the weak policy response from the president,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

The ads feature Myra, a high-tech worker who was asked to train her Indian replacement. Myra was also a participant in the Show Us the Jobs tour. They also feature Larry, a laid-off manufacturing worker, and John, who has been out of work for over a year.

“I thought gee, well, I’ll have a job again within a few weeks. Here it’s over a year,” says John in the ad.

The ad directs viewers to tell Bush that we need jobs and new policies that create good jobs. It includes the "Show Us the Jobs" website address, www.showusthejobs.com, where viewers can find economic facts, personal stories about the jobs crisis and various ways to take action, including contacting President Bush and contacting their Senators to oppose pending tax legislation that would foster more job outsourcing.

The ads are part of the AFL-CIO’s continuing outreach program to inform and mobilize America’s working families to exercise their collective clout to influence government policy around issues central to their lives and future. The AFL-CIO is the umbrella organization for America’s unions and represents 13 million working men and women.

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