BEAD grants
The BIL, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, contains a $42.5 billion program to give grants to states for broadband expansion known by the acronym BEAD. The program includes incentives for strong labor standards and investing in workforce training, including:

• Using a directly employed workforce, as opposed to a subcontracted workforce.
• Paying prevailing wages and benefits.
• Using project labor agreements.
• Signing labor peace and neutrality agreements.
• Local hire commitments.
• Safety training.
• Registered apprenticeship programs.
• Standards that prevent the misclassification of workers.

BEAD also includes a requirement for grant seekers to provide detailed plans to develop an available, local and highly skilled workforce to minimize project disruptions. Such plans must include whether the workforce is unionized — and if it's not, there are additional requirements that must be met.

RAISE grants
The BIL's Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE, grant program provides $2.2 billion for capital investments in surface transportation. The program, administered by the Department of Transportation, contains several incentives that encourage union work, including incentives for projects that:

• Proactively address racial equity.
• Create ways into the trade for people who have historically been shut out of the construction industry.
• Make it easy for workers to organize.
• Use project labor agreements.
• Use local-hire provisions.
• Use training and placement programs for underrepresented workers.
• Employ a broad and representative group of procurement, material sourcing, construction, inspection and hiring companies.

RAISE grants projects are also subject to prevailing wage requirements.

The IRA provides $270 billion in tax incentives for a range of clean energy projects.

To qualify for enhanced tax credits — from 400% to 4,000% higher under certain IRA programs — developers must ensure that:

• Workers performing construction, improvement and maintenance on clean energy projects are paid at least Davis-Bacon prevailing wages.
• A set, and increasing, percentage of labor hours are performed by registered apprentices.

The CHIPS and Science Act provides $39 billion for investments in semiconductor manufacturing, a jolt that is already kickstarting hundreds of billions in new manufacturing investment in North America and creating tens of thousands of new electrical industry jobs.

The program includes several requirements and incentives that the IBEW can and should help developers meet, including detailed plans to hire, train and retain workers from:

• Nontraditional, poor or historically underrepresented communities.
• Communities that have suffered the most from the closure of carbon-intensive energy generation and industry.
• Communities most affected by pollution.

The easiest way to comply is for developers to sign a project labor agreement. The law says applicants that commit to using best-practice PLAs "will generally be likely to produce a construction workforce plan that meets the notice of funding opportunity's criteria."

By contrast, applicants that do not commit to using a PLA will be required to submit workforce continuity plans and show that they have taken other measures to reduce the risk of delays in project delivery.