Mayor Walsh to Biden: Overturn ban on hiring local for federal projects
Walsh believes allowing people to work in their own communities would help boost the local economy and increase opportunities for marginalized workers.
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.’”
EV bus manufacturer and technology provider commits to goal of hiring 50% of its workers from communities facing significant barriers to employment, such as veterans, women, and people of color.
Government subsidies should should require strong labor standards—good jobs for local residents and excluded groups, unionized whenever possible.
By passing the Green Transit and Green Jobs bills, New York will jump-start the clean economy without leaving working families behind, write Hae-Lin Choi from CWA District One and JMA's New York Director, Miranda Nelson.