Posts tagged North America’s Building Trades Unions
Unions rebut claims green jobs will be worse for workers
September 26, 2023 // Automakers are in the midst of a massive transition to electric vehicles and other zero-emission models. While many announced voluntary goals of their own prior to Biden’s election, the shift is encouraged in part through federal tax credits included in last year’s climate, tax and health care reconciliation law known as the Inflation Reduction Act. Supporters of the transition say the issue at the moment is not one of job quantity. Job growth in zero-emission vehicles has significantly outpaced internal combustion engine vehicles, according to a report released this month by the nonpartisan business group E2. While the gas- and diesel-powered vehicle industry grew by 1.6 percent last year, the electric vehicle industry grew by 26.8 percent. Amid the transition, the UAW has expressed concerns that many of the jobs at these new facilities offer lower pay and fewer benefits to workers compared with jobs manufacturing internal combustion engines.
Can Women Help Fill the Shortage of Trade Workers? Unions Are Betting On It.
February 15, 2023 // Her website bio describes her as a feminist plumber, but Judaline Cassidy is more than that. She’s nothing short of a tradeswoman evangelist, preaching the gospel of tradework to the masses, and she hopes women are listening. Cassidy was raised by her grandmother in Trinidad and Tobago. Without money to attend college, she began to look at trades, which she saw as the one way she could learn an employable skill and get paid doing it. She chose plumbing.
Reuters Analysis: Biden’s climate agenda has a problem in not enough workers
January 17, 2023 // The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law last year, provides for an estimated $370 billion in solar, wind and electric vehicle subsidies, according to the White House. Starting Jan. 1, American consumers can take advantage of those tax credits to upgrade home heating systems or put solar panels on their roofs. Those investments will create nearly 537,000 jobs a year for a decade, according to an analysis by BW Research commissioned by The Nature Conservancy.
Biden touts union-backed apprenticeships as he dissolves Trump-era apprentice program
November 8, 2022 // "President Biden and Vice President Harris recognized that IRAPs were a threat to union workers," the Laborers' International Union of North America posted on its website. President Biden on Wednesday touted an expansion of apprenticeship programs that are often run by his union allies, even as he prepares to dissolve a Trump-era apprentice program that unions have openly declared as a threat. Biden delivered a speech at the White House on how his legislative victories expanded apprenticeship programs through his administration’s "Talent Pipeline Challenge." That initiative aims to "support equitable workforce development" in three employment sectors: broadband, construction and electrification, which are predominately unionized fields.
Offshore wind boosted as Biden, East Coast governors team up
June 24, 2022 // A national agreement signed with North America’s Building Trades Unions covers contractors working on those projects and future ones, with no termination date on the project labor agreement. It sets the terms and conditions for union workers to build offshore wind farms, with targets to ensure a diverse workforce. It contains provisions for training to ensure they can construct the complex infrastructure, which costs billions of dollars. Vineyard Wind, South Fork Wind, David Hayes, Diane Hoskins, Heather Zichal, American Clean Power Association,
Energy secretary: US offshore wind jobs should be union jobs
May 31, 2022 // Granholm said the administration is committed to creating “union jobs in America in this clean energy economy.” She said she wants predominantly American union workers to build U.S. offshore wind farms and would like to see project labor agreements in all aspects of the energy transition, drawing cheers from workers at the pier. “That’s what we’d like, all union,” she told The Associated Press.
Sanders pressures Biden on Amazon unions: ‘The time for talk is over’
April 27, 2022 // The Vermont senator sent Biden a Tuesday letter, obtained by POLITICO, asking the president to cut off federal contracts to Amazon until the massive company stops what he calls its “illegal anti-union activity.” As the Senate Budget Committee chair, Sanders will also hold a hearing next week dedicated to calculating how many federal contracts go to companies that are fighting back against unionization efforts, with a focus on Amazon.
Biden in Wilmington for labor talks
March 7, 2022 //