The Electrical Worker Online


September 2021
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Summer of Progress
Big NLRB, DOL Wins
for Labor read_more

Lifting up Women
Wisconsin Program Empowers Women in
the Trades read_more

Community Spirit
Allies Join Fight for
Fair Contract read_more

North of 49°
N.L. Sisters Use Women's Committee to Bond Over Service to Others read_more

Au nord du 49° parallèle
Des consœurs de T.-N.-L. se servent du Comité destiné aux femmes pour s'unir tout en aidant les gens dans le besoin read_more

My IBEW Story Wayne Yonce read_more

Solidarity on Labor Day read_more

Showing Up Where it Matters:
Presidential Spotlight on IBEW Training

President Joe Biden took his pitch for a massive investment in infrastructure and American labor directly to the workers July 21, touring the IBEW-NECA Electrical Training Center in Cincinnati to learn about what IBEW electricians do every day on the job.

It was the first visit by a sitting president to an IBEW training center since President Barack Obama toured Washington, D.C., Local 26's facility in 2010.

"The Build Back Better plan that President Biden is proposing will be a game-changer for union tradesmen and tradeswomen," said International President Lonnie R. Stephenson. "But we can't overstate how important it is that a sitting president showed up at our training center, asked genuine questions about the work that we do and used the word 'union' again and again.

"No president since Franklin Roosevelt has understood the importance of unions and the labor movement the way Joe Biden does. When he says unions built the middle class, he means it, and he has our backs and respects the work we do. That's a breath of fresh air after a lot of lip service to working people in the past."

Biden's infrastructure plan calls for more than a trillion dollars of spending on roads, bridges, rail, and a revamp of the electrical grid, among many other urgent areas of investment.

A $1 trillion bipartisan bill passed the Capital Senate on Aug. 10, and the compromised measure was headed to the House when The Electrical Worker went to print. Biden and House Democrats pushed for an even larger investment in American jobs.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell threatened to filibuster Biden's initial proposal, which was nearly double the size of the revised plan and included strict requirements that the improvements be done by union workers.

"We're still talking about a once-in-a-generation investment in America and Americans that is desperately needed," said Assistant to the International President for Government Affairs Austin Keyser. "But Republicans in the Senate have fought labor requirements and the size of this bill every step of the way."

Backed by the aggressively anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors organization, Republicans have worked to strip prevailing wage and union-standard training language from the bill on key projects, including a nationwide network of half a million electric vehicle charging stations.