Demand comes as a report reveals that local hire creates opportunities for marginalized workers.
This report from Jobs to Move America demonstrates that the lifting of a Reagan-era regulation prohibiting cities and states from using local hire policies in federally-funded construction projects would create stronger local economies, advance racial equity, and increase the ways that cities and states can create good jobs while building and repairing infrastructure.
Jobs to Move America, a broad coalition of mayors, cities, labor unions and community organizations from 24 states, issued a letter Tuesday calling on President Biden to end a decades-old federal regulation that prevents recipients of federal grant money for infrastructure projects to include provisions requiring or promoting the hiring of local community members.
“We need every tool available to provide good paying jobs, and that’s definitely true for us here in Birmingham,” Woodfin said. “Removing the ban allows local workers to design and build in their communities, but it also provides an opportunity to cultivate a new generation of builders.”
“This is our opportunity to shift the narrative of what it means to be a Southern worker,” she said of the Amazon election. “We need to get out of the mindset that it’s okay to have poor working conditions just because of our geography.”
“This is his opportunity to put a stake in the ground,” said Erica Iheme, a Birmingham native and southern director for Jobs to Move America, a group working to improve the quality of jobs in Alabama. “He can say, ‘This is where our administration stands.’”
The Alabama Coalition for Community Benefits released a video in solidarity with the workers organizing a union at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.
For the past four years on February 4, a network of transit rider unions, community organizations, environmental groups, and labor unions have organized Transit Equity Day — a national day of action to commemorate the birthday of Rosa Parks by
With Covid-19 cases soaring and many still struggling to make ends meet, New York needs to take swift and long-term action to put the health and safety of workers and communities over corporate profit.
In December 2020, Jobs to Move America signed our third Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with electric bus manufacturer Proterra and United Steelworkers Local 675 (USW 675).
