"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.
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.
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.’”
