As President Biden rolls out his infrastructure plan today, Jobs to Move America Executive Director Madeline Janis issued a statement urging the Biden administration to repeal the ban on local hire.
The city’s purchase of hundreds of yellow buses could jump-start what has been a slow effort to add electric vehicles to the diesel-guzzling school-bus fleet, advocates argue in a new report.
The PRO Act would fix these problems in federal labor law by protecting workers’ right to collective action, holding employers accountable for breaking the law, ensuring free and fair union elections, and creating a fair process for a first union contract.
Big companies benefit at the expense of their employees and surrounding communities, researchers at Alabama A&M say.
The president’s support for the rights of unionizing Amazon workers delighted political organizers in Alabama who are hoping to build long-term Democratic momentum in a reliably red state.
Transit officials, mayors and community activists from Chicago and elsewhere in the country called on the Biden administration to end long-standing federal regulations dictating that any construction project that uses federal funds can’t favor local companies and residents when it comes to issuing bids and hiring.
Syracuse’s Mayor Ben Walsh and a local jobs advocate are lending their voices to a move to allow more local workers to take part in federally funded public works projects. Jobs to Move America is trying to lift a 30-year-old ban on any geographic hiring requirements in road, bridge or other projects that get federal money.
Walsh believes allowing people to work in their own communities would help boost the local economy and increase opportunities for marginalized workers.
Officials argue that hiring locally will bolster regional economies. In their letter to the Biden administration, the coalition cited data from Local Labor Hiring Pilot, which shows that local hiring can be used on infrastructure projects without decreasing competition or increasing bid prices.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, over 160 local officials, organizations, and academics are calling on the administration to overturn the ban on local hire, create local jobs and fix the economy.
