Former President Bill Clinton yesterday singled out the efforts of the union movement in creating massive numbers of jobs through union pension fund investments. Speaking yesterday at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), Clinton praised the AFL-CIO and AFT for already providing $1 billion in pension fund investments to improve infrastructure and increase energy efficiency. (Watch the video of the event here. )

He also called on financial institutions  and corporations–which are sitting on $2 trillion in cash without creating jobs–to follow the lead of the union movement and “loosen up all this money and put America back to work. If you did that, you’d have a million jobs in no time.”

With AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and AFT President Randi Weingarten on the stage with him, Clinton said:

President Trumka and President Weingarten…are financing energy saving retrofits and clean energy projects to create good jobs for workers  from their pension funds which creates not just decent a return, but a certain return to their pension funds. The AFL-CIO is on its way to training 140,000 apprecentice and mid-career construction workers in high-demand green technology skills and in this quarter alone, the building trades program trained 40,000 construction workers in energy conservation jobs. The AFL-CIO has already funded $134 million in energy efficiencey and asbestos removal jobs here in New York since June and they’re talking to five other cities about allocating $5 million for other projects.

(Watch the video of the event here. ) Saying that “the ultimate beneficiary will be the working men and women, Clinton praised the u.This is a huge deal that goes right at the unemployment problem we have in the United States right at the climate change challenge and puts more disposable income into the hands of people who will almost certainly have to spend it. In short, he said, unions

have become America’s employment bankers.

Clinton launched the CGI in 2005 as a high-level partnership organization to alleviate poverty, create a cleaner environment, and increase access to health care and education.