The Department of Transportation is aiming to reinstate a program the Trump administration scrapped that would allow local hiring requirements to be added to federally funded infrastructure projects.
In this op-ed, John Costa (ATU) and Sonal Jessel (WE ACT for Environmental Justice) draw on Jobs to Move America's research to show how electrifying our school buses can create good jobs, healthier communities, and advance equity.
"Jobs to Move America supports the switch to electric buses, not just because of reduced carbon emissions and independence from fossil fuels, but also the negative impacts of diesel buses on occupational and societal health."
To electrify half of the nation's 500,000 fossil-fuel-powered school buses, it would cost approximately $30 billion.
President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan unveiled Wednesday calls for boosting workers and organized labor, including by overhauling federal labor law to make it easier for workers to form unions and negotiate the terms of their work.
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.
Policy recommendations outline path for equitable, swift transition to curb toxic air pollution and create good manufacturing jobs for workers.
"President Biden has repeatedly pitched a massive infrastructure spending plan as a way to create good jobs and address systemic racial inequities. But the president will never be able to achieve those goals as long as the government prohibits using federal dollars to encourage targeted local hiring," writes the LA Times Editorial Board.
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.
