Tag Archives: President Biden

Sen. Van Hollen spotlights wins for unions achieved by Pres. Biden and Congress

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On the eve of President Biden’s State of the Union address to the nation, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen has released a summary of key accomplishments for labor delivered by President Biden and Congress. It outlines significant progress and gains for union workers in several areas, as reprinted below.

Protecting pensions: The American Rescue Plan included vitally needed relief for multiemployer pension plans that were facing insolvency.


• The program will provide an estimated $94 billion in assistance to more than 200 eligible plans that are severely underfunded, preventing pension cuts for 1.3 million Americans.


• These protections help promote the continued availability of multiemployer pensions for the 10 million Americans in these plans.

Creating infrastructure jobs with high labor standards: This landmark investment in our nation’s infrastructure creates good-paying union jobs for workers across the country.

• Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements ensure that these jobs come with fair pay.

• President Biden’s executive order implementing the law prioritizes “prevailing wages and the free and fair chance to join a union.”

Mandating project labor agreements: President Biden signed an executive order at a union training center requiring the use of Project Labor Agreements for federal construction projects over $35 million.

• Project labor agreements are pre-hire collective bargaining agreements that set standards for all workers on a project, which alleviates coordination challenges that can stymie progress.

• This order is estimated to cover $262 billion in federal government construction contracting and improve job quality for the nearly 200,000 workers on federal construction contracts.

Expanding quality apprenticeships: President Biden and Congress expanded apprenticeships and reversed efforts to weaken quality controls for apprenticeship programs.

• The bipartisan infrastructure law includes new funding for apprenticeships to create pipelines for workers into union jobs.

• President Biden repealed an executive order from President Trump that would have weakened apprenticeship standards with a new category of “Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Programs” that lacked the rigor of traditional registered apprenticeships.

Strengthening Buy American rules: New requirements will ensure that federal investments are carried out with American manufacturing and workers.

• President Biden signed an executive order to increase the domestic content requirements for federal procurement, and to strengthen domestic supply chains for critical products.

• The bipartisan infrastructure law includes comprehensive Buy American requirements for iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials.

Repealing anti-union executive orders: President Biden repealed several anti-union executive orders issued by President Trump that targeted federal employees.

• One of the repealed executive orders would have eliminated civil service protections for workers classified under a new “Schedule F”.

• Three other repealed executive orders had sharply limited the Official Time with which unions can represent workers, curtailed the collective bargaining process, and reduced protections against unwarranted discipline or termination.

Standing up for workers: When he came into office, President Biden signed an executive order stating that it is the policy of the federal government to, “encourage union organizing and collective bargaining.” Since then, President Biden and Congress have taken action to ensure that the laws on the books to protect workers are actually enforced on the job site.

• Marty Walsh, a longtime union member and leader, is now the Secretary of Labor.

• David Prouty and Gwynne Wilcox are now Members of the National Labor Relations Board, and NLRB has acted more strongly to protect workers under their leadership.

• President Biden fired the Trump-appointed General Counsel at the NLRB, Peter Robb, who used his position to attack workers and unions. The new General Counsel is Jennifer Abruzzo, who brings union experience to the role and is already taking action to reinvigorate NLRB enforcement of laws prohibiting unfair labor practices.

• The American Rescue Plan included $200 million in new funding for the agencies charged with enforcing worker protection laws, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Wage and Hour Division, and the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs.

Developing a comprehensive action plan to support workers: President Biden created the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, which released a report providing 70 recommendations approved by President Biden that promote worker organizing and collective bargaining. These actions, all of which are consistent with laws already on the books, include the following:

• Making sure that workers know their rights to organize and bargain collectively.

• Doing more to protect workers against retaliation for organizing.

• Ensuring that federal contractors do not spend taxpayer dollars on anti-union campaigns.

• Using the Department of Labor to provide resources on the advantages of unionization, for the use of any agency, worker, or business seeking to communicate the benefits of worker organizing.

President Biden’s Agenda Is Working For The IBEW

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Negotiating A Bipartisan Deal With Congress For More Jobs, Cleaner Infrastructure

President Joe Biden proposed the largest investment in American
infrastructure since World War II back in March. Four weeks later,
he renewed his call for the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan during
an address to Congress, with the IBEW at the heart of his pitch.
Today, President Biden and Congress are working to pass a bill
that will upgrade America’s flagging infrastructure, better position
the U.S. as a global competitor and aggressively combat climate
change.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework deal that was
announced on June 24 includes plans to modernize the electric
grid, expand access to broadband internet, invest and electrify
the transportation sector, including public passenger rail, ports,
roads, bridges and airports. The framework will create and
sustain good-paying union jobs with strong labor protections.

“This is a once-in-a-generation chance to set America on a path to prosperity and prevail in the global economic challenges
we currently face,” said IBEW President Lonnie Stephenson.

Read the IBEW’s BUILD BACK BETTER newsletter for the whole story.

Biden’s Proposed American Jobs Plan

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Late last month, President Biden introduced his road map to recovery when he presented the American Jobs Plan. aims to repair critical infrastructure and create jobs. The Plan emphasizes Biden’s strong support of organized labor, using the word “union” 24 times.

Below you will find excerpts pulled directly from The Biden Administration’s March 31 Fact Sheet on The American Jobs Plan.

The American Jobs Plan is an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs, rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to out-compete China. Public domestic investment as a share of the economy has fallen by more than40 percent since the 1960s. The American Jobs Plan will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race.

The United States of America is the wealthiest country in the world, yet we rank 13th when it comes to the overall quality of our infrastructure. After decades of disinvestment, our roads, bridges, and water systems are crumbling. Our electric grid is vulnerable to catastrophic outages. Too many lack access to affordable, high-speed Internet and to quality housing. The past year has led to job losses and threatened economic security, eroding more than 30 years of progress in women’s labor force participation. It has unmasked the fragility of our caregiving infrastructure. And, our nation is falling behind its biggest competitors on research and development (R&D),manufacturing, and training. It has never been more important for us to invest in strengthening our infrastructure and competitiveness, and in creating the good-paying, union jobs of the future.

Specifically, President Biden’s plan will:

Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems.
The President’s plan will modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main-streets. It will fix the ten most economically significant bridges in the country in need of reconstruction. It also will repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, providing critical linkages to communities. And, it will replace thousands of buses and railcars, repair hundreds of stations, renew airports, and expand transit and rail into new communities.

Deliver clean drinking water, a renewed electric grid, and high-speed broadband to all Americans.
President Biden’s plan will eliminate all lead pipes and service lines in our drinking water systems, improving the health of our country’s children and communities of color. It will put hundreds of thousands of people to work laying thousands of miles of transmission lines and capping hundreds of thousands of orphan oil and gas wells and abandoned mines. And, it will bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every American, including the more than 35 percent of rural Americans who lack access to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds.

Build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million homes and commercial buildings, modernize our nation’s schools and child care facilities, and upgrade veterans’ hospitals and federal buildings.
President Biden’s plan will create good jobs building, rehabilitating, and retrofitting affordable, accessible, energy efficient, and resilient housing, commercial buildings, schools, and childcare facilities all over the country, while also vastly improving our nation’s federal facilities, especially those that serve veterans.

Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers.
These workers – the majority of whom are women of color – have been underpaid and undervalued for too long. The President’s plan makes substantial investments in the infrastructure of our care economy, starting by creating new and better jobs for caregiving workers. His plan will provide home and community-based care for individuals who otherwise would need to wait as many as five years to get the services they badly need.

Revitalize manufacturing, secure U.S. supply chains, invest in R&D, and train Americans for the jobs of the future.
President Biden’s plan will ensure that the best, diverse minds in America are put to work creating the innovations of the future while creating hundreds of thousands of quality jobs today. Our workers will build and make things in every part of America, and they will be trained for well-paying, middle-class jobs.

Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers.
By ensuring that American taxpayers’ dollars benefit working families and their communities, and not multinational corporations or foreign governments, the plan will require that goods and materials are made in America and shipped on U.S.-flag, U.S.-crewed vessels. The plan also will ensure that Americans who have endured systemic discrimination and exclusion for generations finally have a fair shot at obtaining good paying jobs and being part of a union.