Legislative and Political

LEGISLATIVE & POLITICAL

A Comprehensive Infrastructure Package Would Create Good-Paying Jobs for BAC Members

As this BAC Journal goes to print, the White House and Congress are continuing to negotiate a Comprehensive Infrastructure package. President Joe Biden released the American Jobs Plan that proposed an investment of $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years to meet our infrastructure needs, rebuild our economy and create good-paying union jobs. The American Jobs Plan includes:

+$621 billion to repair highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems, including an investment of $25 billion to bring airports to 21st century standards; +$213 billion to build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million affordable and sustainable homes. It will help address the growing cost of rent and create jobs that pay prevailing wages, including through project labor agreements with a free and fair choice to join a union and bargain collectively; +$100 billion to upgrade and build new public schools, through $50 billion in direct grants and an additional $50 billion leveraged through bonds.

These funds will first go toward making sure our schools are safe and healthy places of learning for our kids and work for teachers and other education professionals; and +Significant investment for public transit, ports and waterways, rail, electric vehicles, clean water, broadband, power infrastructure and government buildings.

Bipartisan negotiators appear to be nearing an agreement with White House on a smaller infrastructure package — about $1 trillion. This smaller package is unlikely to include some BAC priorities including investments in schools, housing and government buildings. We will continue to fight for these priorities to be funded in this package or later in the year as Congress goes through the budget process. Comprehensive investment in our nation’s infrastructure is long overdue. Now is the time to renew, modernize, and invest in our infrastructure to maintain our international competitiveness. //

We will continue to fight for these priorities to be funded in this package or later in the year as Congress goes through the budget process.

New Hampshire House of Representatives Reject “Right to Work”

On June 3, the New Hampshire House voted 199-175 to indefinitely postpone S.B. 61, a bill that aimed to make the Granite State the first “Right to Work” state in the Northeast. All Democrats and 20 Republican members voted against the bill.

For more than six months, members of BAC Local 3 Massachusetts/Maine/New Hampshire/ Rhode Island and other union brothers and sisters across the state, rallied and contacted their representatives about the dangers of the bill. “The so-called rightto-work bill does not guarantee anyone a right to employment. It weakens unions, makes jobsites more dangerous, and lowers workers’ wages. New Hampshire is better off without it,” says Chuck Raso, President of BAC Local 3 MA/ME/NH/RI. //

Dozens of brothers and sisters gathered outside of the New Hampshire Sportsplex in Bedford, where the House was hosting its final session, to protest the so-called Right To Work. Pictured, BAC Local 3 MA/ME/NH/RI Vice President and Organizer Jim Pimental, left, and Field Representative Mike Sara.