Around the Local

President Biden traveled to Portland, Ore., on April 21 to visit the site of a massive project to upgrade the Portland International Airport and discuss the infrastructure law’s role in transforming the economy of the Pacific Northwest.   “Through the bipartisan infrastructure bill, we’re investing $25 billion this year to modernize American airports all across this country and across this state, not just here,” Biden said. “Best of all, this project will support more than 1,250 good- paying jobs constructing the terminal. Over 95 percent of the construction is being done by...
President Biden met with IBEW President Lonnie Stephenson and labor leaders to discuss strengthening America’s labor unions and support workers.  “Together, we’re building the economy from the bottom up and middle out,” Biden tweeted after the March 8 meeting, the latest in several gatherings Biden has held with labor leaders. The meeting in Delaware was organized by President Stephenson and AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who is also a member of the IBEW.
Members of the IBEW were front and center for President Joe Biden’s White House announcement of Siemens USA’s plan to invest $54 million to expand its manufacturing facilities, a growth that promises to bring at least 300 new jobs to the company’s IBEW-represented workplaces in California and Texas. Siemens makes components that support a variety of technologies, including electric vehicle chargers, computer circuit boards and the file servers that fill data centers. The company’s planned expansion will send about $40 million to Pomona, Calif., to build a new hub where Los Angeles...
Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Durham, N.C. to call for more unionization in the state. “To continue our recovery, we must then create more good-paying jobs, good union jobs. In big cities and small towns across our country, union workers are building the future,” Harris said in her Durham speech, where she was joined by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. Alvin Warwick Jr., Winston-Salem Local 342 business manager, had the opportunity to meet with them on their visit. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm joined IBEW members for a roundtable in...
A labor department plan to strengthen federal prevailing wage rules and enforcement under the Davis-Bacon Act would put more money in the pockets of an estimated 1.2 million U.S. construction workers.   Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said the changes would “help us make sure our skilled workers and wages can’t be undercut” and are especially timely as projects funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law surge nationwide.   “Federal dollars should be used to create good jobs in local communities all across our country,” Walsh said. “These proposed regulations are...