Transcripts For CSPAN U.S. Labor And Transportation Officials On Infrastructure 20221024

You can finish watching this program if you had to cspan. Org. Federal and local officials take part in a discussion. The event is being hosted by Americas Center on education and labor. Hello, everyone. Hello and welcome to the new america. We are happy to have you here. This is our first in person public event since march 2020, and yet grateful to be able to share this space with you. Thank you for coming and welcome to all of our guests online. We are looking forward to engaging with you in our question and answer. We are here to talk about jobs and how cities can leverage investments in infrastructure to create more good jobs and to make sure that people from all backgrounds can get into good jobs. My name is mary alice. I will be your conductor today. At the center, we we focused our research on the intersection of education and Workforce Development policies that prepare people and help them access those jobs and the labor and employment policies to make sure they are good jobs. We believe that all americans should be in jobs that are good, family sustaining jobs, regardless of their educational level. It is a great time to be thinking about these issues. Get the federal government has made historic investments in the infrastructure, manufacturing, Broadband Access and more. All of us committed in building a more just economy, we have an opportunity and even an obligation to make the most of these investments. We have a fantastic lineup of speakers. We want to make sure that a lot of people have access to them. The department of labor, transportation and commerce, the mayor of rochester, minnesota has been doing a lot of work and we have a fantastic lineup of worker advocates and practitioners working with their local electives to make sure that investments, state, federal and local codes and making Jobs Available to all people. Im going to do a little bit around this problem and challenge of good jobs. I do not want still here. This has been an incredible to to be a years of investment. Almost unprecedented. Quickly in march 2021, right after, we got the American Rescue plan. It was an investment for Emergency Response to pandemic to help their residents through this very difficult time when businesses were closing and schools were closing. A 350 billion we are seeing some of it happening. The American Rescue plan also set aside 500 million for something called the good jobs challenge, a Grant Program run by the department of congress and we will hear more about that and how they are working on that. They will be rolling out for the next five to eight years and there is a long tail on them. It has already been credited for creating jobs. After that, Congress Passed infrastructure and investment in jobs act. Four point trillion dollars around 4 trillion dollars. Fixing roads, bridges, water ports, clean energy, broadband and more. It estimates that for each year for the next five years, bipartisan infrastructure act will generate new jobs. The majority of those jobs will be subject to federal rules mandating high wages and supporting local unions. We will talk more on that, later. It is going to help build the semiconductor industry. They expect this to create 180 thousand construction jobs each year for the next five years and 280,000 permanent jobs in the semiconductor industry. Last but not least, we have this act. It is historic generation defining investment in clean energy and strategies. It is expected to generate millions of jobs. It could create up to 9 million jobs over the next few years. That is a lot of jobs and an incredible opportunity. Monthly job growth in 2020 has average 420,000 jobs a month. That is a tremendous pace of development, of growth. These investments are just Getting Started. This is a huge opportunity. Good jobs are at the center of the administrations agenda. When they talk about this, they talk about good jobs. It seems like everyone is talking about good jobs these days. You cannot go anywhere without hearing about good jobs. Jobs initiative, good jobs challenge. Why is everybody talking about good jobs . At some level, it is a lack of originality and we are all tired. The bigger reason is this is the culmination of a decades worth of research. It has been documented painstakingly, the declining quality of jobs in the u. S. The reality is that a job is no guarantee at avoiding poverty, avoiding bankruptcy or landing in a study by martha ross and her colleagues at the Brookings Institute in 2019 found that 53 Million People in the u. S. , 3 to 4 of all workers are those age workers. They make 10 or less in our labor market. That is inching up on half of all workers. More than half of those workers are between the age of 25 and 50. They are making around 10 an hour. Black workers are overrepresented among lowwage workers. Those lowwage workers are also a large portion of our care workforce. An economist has documented the declining quality of jobs in the u. S. It has been particularly hard on young people, Young Workers and Young Workers without a college degree. Almost half of all nonclass should be workers in 1979 to just 22 . He finds that half of noncollege educated men are employed in what he defines he defines it primarily by wages. He also finds that since the 1980s, there has been a large decoupling of the number of good jobs from gdp growth. That is why we have experienced tremendous growth and not experienced good new jobs. Daniel albert this date back to it comes had to go to the 2022, it is going back up again. I took this snapshot because it ends and in february 2020. This is before everything went crazy, before the pandemic took hold of our economy. We were at historically low unemployment. The stock market was breaking record after record. The 128th month of continuous economic growth, a record for the country of 10. 5 years of uninterrupted economic growth. At the same time, this is what is happening to our labor market. Simultaneously growing millions and millions of lowwage workers. You can put that other growth trend there. How did how did we enter a period of Sustainable Growth . That is a big story and i will not get into that. But i do think there are a few things worth mentioning. The loss of millions of pain, union jobs. People are still talking about what has happened to manufacturing jobs and what we are going to do about it. This is the result of decades of relentless focus on maximizing value. It is a dogma that has taken hold, that has led to constant costcutting on labor. That was a lack of strong Public Policies to support workers, the failure to raise the minimum wage, which stands at seven dollars 35 cents an hour. So, this has to change. How do we reverse course . The first thing that we can do is come to an agreement. Everybody is working on these good jobs groups. What is really exciting right now is that there is a growing consensus around what a good job is. Convergence is around the idea that it is not just about a wage. A good job is something that we need to figure out more comprehensively and something that workers, employers and governments will be necessary to create. There are a few definitions. I think it is a very good definition by hundreds of labor Business Research and stakeholders, including ourselves at new america. What it does is round out everything about a good job. They are jobs that provide stability, mobility and voice to workers. They include critical benefits and paid leave. They are accepting of all. They create opportunities for advancement. Workers with good jobs have a voice in their workplace and are free to organize and advocate. That does not describe the majority of jobs in the u. S. Today. It describes a very small share of them. The groups outside of the government, now the government has gotten into this as well and they are being very vocal about what they think a good job is and being very vocal, making sure that they have a definition of what a good job is. I encourage you to check it out. There is so much overlap between these. Also a shared emphasis on mark rutte voice and agency. A definition is a great thing. It certainly gives us a northstar. It is a good thing to have, but what is next . We are going to talk some more about the ways to use government funding and purchasing power to build a good job strategy. We are already seeing that in legislation and we will be seeing it in what state and local leaders are doing. This is a practice that goes back many decades, that requires that workers on a construction project all make the same wage on that project. If you negotiated wage lift up the wages for all workers. The administration has extended into their Clean Energy Investments and manufacturing sector. That is a Big Development. There are other ones about making sure that increasing tax credit, if they also agree to train their workers. If you take this money, you have to be willing to hire from this community, from people who live here and from people who have faced discrimination in getting jobs. New innovations around Infrastructure Investments. Also Innovative Strategies that allow people who might otherwise struggle in the labor market. These are all really important. This was not part of the conversation five years ago. There is a big change in infrastructure knowledge. Talking about what were doing here at new america, we are focused on the policies of Workforce Development. Part of what has been happening is a reckoning with the fact that a lot of what we thought about the economy is not true. It does not automatically translate. It does not automatically translate into prosperity. Our system supports laws built on a similar set of assumptions. One of the best ways to help job seekers tend to be getting them into a job as quickly as possible, maybe with some training. The focus is getting people into jobs. It puts them in the position of reinforcing pathologies in the market. This seems like a really good time to revisit the assumption and ask ourselves, what would it mean to have a system grounded in principles of Economic Justice that intentionally advances and builds power . You can see them here on the slide. We are calling ourselves the good jobs collaborative. It is not original, but it seems to be working for everyone else. If you would like to learn more, just stick your email in the chat. We are happy to chat with you about it. Lets start hearing from people doing this work out in the field and can share with us how they do this in your community. My wonderful colleague will testify. Good afternoon, everyone. I am a senior policy advisor here at new america and i am thrilled to be joined by mayor ken norton. She is the mayor of rochester, minnesota and has held this position since january 2019. Before becoming the citys first female mayor, she had a long history of Public Service and leadership including 10 years in the legislature and 10 years on the school board. We will be excited to be in conversation with you today. You like 70 city leaders have been focused on how to advance policy and create better jobs for Community Residents who have really struggled during the pandemic, but even before. That is for good reason, and we know that economic mobility in this country has been declining. To stagnant wages and inflation have made it harder for a lot of residents to make ends meet, particularly lowincome individuals and communities of color. I want to hear a little bit from you about what you are doing to make sure that people have access to good jobs and are able to advance economically, but first, can you tell us about your city and your residence . Sure. I am the mayor of rochester, minnesota. We had about 124,000 people in our community and we host the largest employer, mayo clinic. We are primarily focused on the world of health care. We are about 73 white. We have an average median health, income that is relatively high because of the health department. We have a 6 poverty rate. The highest has been 9 . It affects our black population in particular. Many of our population lives in poverty. We have great disparities in our community. Those disparities were exacerbated by the pandemic. There are still many athome that are not back in the workforce. I would say one other thing that you might want to know is we have a Destination Medical Center initiative that was a 6 billion initiative. It was their idea, i guess. They got support for infrastructure, in order to accommodate Economic Development and growth in the community. Studying this infrastructure replacement in our city center and a little beyond that. So, we are poised for growth and development. About 2700 year. It is a growing community. Thank you for sharing that background. We talked about some of the federal investments that have been made. So, i know it will be an even bigger priority. But keep talk about infrastructure jobs and what they look like . We have a great need for those jobs but what we are finding is that we have 60,000 on that list and less than 1 are working in this area. We determined that the philanthropy has put out there for candidates to apply. We will focus on the people who needed mobility and provide them opportunity that we needed that we have a need for. It is not a job. It is a career. It is a 20 year plan. We had an opportunity for people. What we did is spend a year researching and looking at data in the community, trying to determine how are we going to get into that line of work . There are a lot of health care jobs, so we are already working on that. We looked at that program and are replicating it to an extent. Why werent women going into construction . I think that is really the story that is worth telling about the work that we are doing. It wasnt someone in the construction and in construction with an idea. It was bringing women in the community to the table to say, what do you need . We learned a lot in that investigation. We learned a lot. They got to be part of the team. They got to be part of the plan moving forward. It was something that you had previously used. Can you tell us more about how you saw it fitting to apply it . We are committed to the democratic process. We want to get all members of the community to reach us. We decided as a community, the work on the roads, we found various communities, including disability and others, brought them to the table and did some training. They had a series of questions and information gathering. It is an exchange, back and forth that when they did their work, it impacted many individuals. We had been doing that for our roadwork and plaza design and we decided to bring it back to the community in a different way. We brought them to the table on this project. I did provide you can look at it after we have done this work. We also have a online, see you can get an electronic copy. It talks about it and it was absolutely fabulous. When we started it, we brought the women into talk with construction workers and an architect who brought them in. It was like silence. It was quiet. It was very uncomfortable. Eight months or so of working together, it was dynamic. I should mention that we paid these women to come to the table. They are working and employed, but they are experts of their own experience. They deserve to be paid as well. We have and continue to pay these cosigners, kind of ironically, but also wonderfully. Someone they were codesigners that got hired. You could see the confidence. They had the opportunity to wors she just put a down payment on a house so that was really exciting. Even before we rolled out the whole plan, to see our code of viners benefiting esco designers benefiting. It speaks to the importance of partnership, which are going to be critical to make sure these investments in infrastructure benefiting the people who need it. We typically will we talk about infrastructure, we are referring to roads and bridges. There is an extensive list of other forms of infrastructure that are necessary in communities. I was hoping you could talk about some of the other elements of infrastructure that have been really important to your city and your residence. I would say drop the process of having our women come our code designers at the table and their needs that maybe there are needs and barriers, which we can talk about, some of the culture clashes. We have a pretty robust immigrant population in town that have special needs that are not being addressed by our community, let alone workforce issues. But the infrastructure for childcare is absolutely huge for these families. We talked back in the green room that we really do need to look at culturally competent and culturally specific childcare for these women who what to get into the workforce but really want to make sure their children are cared for in a manner and a method that is comfortable and familiar to them and their children. So that is one example of an infrastructure that has to be in place in order for women to get to work and be able to be successful in their jobs, flexibility in careers is another we heard a lot about. Sometimes our structures are historic and we continue to do them that way because we have always done them that way. We hear from the industries, we need employees and yet theyre not looking at themselves and saying, what might we change, hours or some sort of flexibility we can put in our role as employer that would then be more welcoming and convenient to people in order to get new workers on the job . We are having to work with those kinds of issues as well. Others that youre interested in . That is something we have heard in conversations with other city leaders and Community Leaders and workers themselves, the imports of addressing some of the overall support and need for childcare, to really be present and participate in the workforce. What do you see as the role of the cities in supporting those needs that are pretty much universal . It has been interesting because what i often hear from people who push back is it is all marketdriven, city should not be involved in the market. And yet we know the market has not been successful for everyone and something has to intervene to change that pathway, that historic pathway that has been successful for some but not for everyone. For us, the global mayor challenge grant was an opportunity believe me, it was a stretch to think we could compete against mayors and cities all over the world. But we felt passionate about the work we were doing. Apparently, they felt the work we were doing and who knew the infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act would pass when we were working on this . Our work now is more relevant than we anticipated because we were looking at it from a very selfish perspective. We had 587 million of state funds to fix our infrastructure. We are facing issues with infrastructure across the country. We were looking at it selfishly. But now we are laying the groundwork, i hope, or a replicable process and procedure that other cities can do to see that a city with a little bit of help and support and, frankly, if we get this moving, my hope is the systems will change whether it be the education systems, the training systems, the childcare systems there are a lot of systems in place and the workforce will change for necessary workforce in the future. We are linger outward. The city cant handle it all. Our nonprofits are huge partners. Grants, philanthropy is also something that is going to have to help us along i think. Thank you for that, mayor. I know we have an audience in the room and online. I want to pause to see if there are questions. A quiet audience. Thank you. Bridget . [inaudible] do you need to repeat it . The question was could you talk a little bit more about childcare . Share a little bit more about what your team is doing. We are just Getting Started on this part. We spent a year doing the work and the winners were announced and we were one of three in the country. We are thrilled. Now we are hiring and laying the groundwork to move ahead. One of the things that not just in childcare, but beyond that, that is really important to me is not just getting people in a job environment, that is important, the same women able to be entrepreneurs and open their own businesses, right . We are starting with one and that is what the grant was for. We also won any from federally over marks which i hope your marks which i hope we can layer on top of that. Frank the, daycare is an entrepreneur job. The National League of cities and organizations that most along to has a couple of programs cities of opportunity which we are involved in an inclusive entrepreneurship. We are having we are doing informal entrepreneurship track and ecosystem accelerated for track and we did not get into the Early Childhood track, but were going to mirror it and do it anyway because we feel it is so important. Im not sure how were still working to make it work. We have to build on the grant. It is not the grant itself that is going to solve other problems. We have to build on that to build this entrepreneur network. That is how we are looking at it come as entrepreneurs, as Business Owners as we move ahead. Couple things we learned in that phase of meeting with and talking with their community, women prefer to work in cohorts. They do not want to be the only one on the worksite. It is very uncomfortable. If theres a problem on the worksite, they dont want to be the one raising their hand saying theres a problem because it may affect their ability to keep and maintain that job. One of the things we are providing is navigators on site both for business as well as for the women. So as we move through this Pilot Project more than a pilot but in the starting phase, we will have navigators for the women beyond the worksite to help be their voice and we are making not making, our businesses have agreed to go through a diversity assessment prior to bringing the women on and theyre going have a navigator. Those two navigators will Work Together, paying attention to the needs of each group they represent in coming to solutions that are workable for both. That is another component i thought might be worth mentioning. Another one was the familial influence. We have a pretty robust immigrant families in our town with cultural barriers that i wasnt aware of, like you have to go into this type of field and we need to find ways not just for the individual, the young lady i spoke with was telling me, well, what to do that but if it is an acceptable or my family doesnt understand that job or think it is appropriate for me or women, theyre not going to pay for it so we will remove that barrier of cost but we also we have to work with the families. It is not just that student wore that young woman, is working with that young woman and her whole family throughout the process. Those are just a couple of examples of things, these barriers that i dont think some of the traditional methods used right now are necessarily addressing that came out in our analysis. Great feedback to receive. We have another question. My name is amy. Mayor, i appreciate your codesign approach. So many of the jobs in the tech sector we are looking at, i am curious as well about the codesign of the community for your research that showed which sectors the jobs will be. Obviously, talked about construction in your health care hub, but my secret evil plan is i would love to hear what you have to say. My community, as i mentioned before, is health care focused. We also have been home to the largest idea manufacturing plant, which has changed over time. It is not manufacturing any longer. We have a lot of technology workers. We are trying to work at in. I guess i would say we just have an analysis done at the needs of our city and also are looking at what jobs are going to be not outsourced, that work from home in the future. We are trying to look at our city center, all of the money we are spending on building that out and saying we need to make changes based on what we are learning during the pandemic and future city centers. We know we will need more than just construction workers. That is the area we are focused on, but we think the codesign method can be used in other areas as well. We think, just like we used it for physical infrastructure, now we are using it for policy infrastructure for our communities. I think it can be replicated into any industry, frankly, but it is purposeful and takes time and you have to i think this was the message we heard, time and time again, we can ask time and time again for our opinion and nothing happens, right . People dont want to be asked and then nothing happens. Again, they are part of the design team, not just, we want your opinion and goodbye. I think that is part of what makes it so important that it can be transferred and i hope people will try and we just put together the framework in this booklet, online booklet. I dont really have a hard answer yet because we just in the beginning, but i do think it is transferable. Is helpful to hear your initial thinking early on in this process. We have another question. Thank you for being here. My question is about how we can go about funding these kinds of efforts in other cities . It is great you hear Community Won the great and partnerships and philanthropies, but you also mentioned lawyers and getting them to look inward and think about what they can do. Im curious from mayors and city leaders and other communities and regions might not have the foundations or the philanthropies but do have employers as partners, have you seen anything that works well to incentivize employer financial contributions for these kinds of efforts and codesign . How do you fund that is a city leader and a mayor . Thank you so much. I wouldnt say we were fortunate in that we had the Medical Center initiative out there, which did give us money mostly for the infrastructure. We had a model in place to do that. I wouldnt say the other piece, and we talked about this in the back room, at the start of the pandemic, we needed to make sure everyone was taking care of in our community so we met as part of our nonprofit consortium, the city jumped in, the county jumped in and the chamber came to those meetings as well, chamber of commerce, and we met every other week with all the nonprofits in our community online. That continued route the pandemic. What was fascinating, it wasnt so much about infrastructure change that this may come to bear, but this idea of building that really Strong Partnership with all not everyone, but 60, 70, 80 people we have a lot of nonprofits in a town we could talk to each other about where we saw who was going to help this group or we have identified this problem. Does anyone out there had the capacity to address it . On these regular calls, we were able to say or someone was say, yeah, i can help feed that group or provide housing or get a job or, you know. Because we were all working together. I was say the challenges giving that going postpandemic, we delete monthly but i think it we do meet monthly but it has trickled off a little. Heading into the next year, we need to make sure that stays strong. I do think, the mayo clinic of course is a major employer, they know having a Strong Community helps them. Other businesses know that, too. We were so fortunate. We had an architect, construction company, the unions who identified their own needs and said we are going to come to the table and help you because it helps us, too. Right . Yes, absolutely getting businesses on board because it is helping now. If we have a private and theres nobody that can provide the work, they are in trouble, we are in trouble. It takes us all. Early identifying the Common Solutions really identifying the Common Solutions. We have done that in the past because i mayo clinic bridges programs, help with leg which training, get them through training. They provide oneonone support. If youre struggling in school, there is always someone there who helps and we will be doing that as well to get people into the training via Union Training or Community College or architects that need to go to a fouryear university. There will be someone there to help support them if they need it. We have another question. Hi. Hello. I have a quick question. I built on the end of your response, i am wondering how much this work is being targeted to young adults, in particular getting young adults into some of these fields you mentioned, infrastructure . The skilled trades. We hear from our folks from minnesotabased, other partners around the country that it can be difficult to recruit young people into these roles, both because they may not necessarily know about them or access them but also regulations, insurance barriers to hiring younger people before they graduate from high school. I would love to hear any strategies you all have used to try to target younger learners, whether it is specifically through infrastructure equity or you mentioned earlier in her remarks, just try to reduce cost barriers to post secondary training for young adults. Yes. All of that. [laughter] we did learn and the interview process early on about we did interviews and ask to have the sheet here come the questions we asked people. Most people had not even heard the names of probably two thirds to three quarters of the trades and the jobs in the industry. How can anyone aspire for something when they dont even know that term means . Find a job when they dont know what it is . We identified that early on. Were looking at it at several levels. The industry level of getting people that may have gone to the training because we have been trying to do a little training before, but working to the k12 system with career awareness, some handson experiences. We do have a program in our community so our High School Students can come out and do some technical careers, some training. Some of those are welding. Some of the skills we need in the community. We have that for high schools and need to grow that. And also outside of the school setting, and that is an area that is fascinating. Of in the twin cities, a weeklong camp where they stay up in the twin cities and it was for southern minnesota. I went up and experienced it and there was a day on electricity and a day on carpentry and each day was a different trade. The girls spent the entire day building something, computer cables they could take home and use for the computer, ethernet cables. It was handson. What we learned, however again, the best idea, right . Nobody bothered to ask some of the families. What we found out in different setting and their community, for many families, particularly immigrant families, overnights are not a thing. They do not do overnights. So the camp was primarily for white children. Not 100 but, you know, it is great because we want all women in construction, but how are we reaching our community . We are not. Were going to work with the girl scouts this summer in rochester at a day camp that will be similar but it will be a day camp for kids in the region who can come in and experience the same thing and go home at night so we can remove that barrier of overnights that literally none of us were aware it was a thing. If that kind of learning again, if you bring people with lived experience and bring people from different cultures to the table, they can tell you that and you dont have to wait 10 years to find out that the kids and in the class that didnt come to my daughters overnight were because it is culturally uncomfortable. And i did not know that, right . One final question for you. I really great discussion. Our conversation is going to be followed by a discussion between the deputy secretary of labor, deputy secretary of transportation. We will hear from someone from the department of commerce. Three agencies that are part of the broader federal effort to make sure these historic investments in Infrastructure Projects are also leading to really wonderful infrastructure jobs for communitys, particularly marginalized communities. I would love to hear from you, your reflections on the role the federal government should play but also state governments in making sure we are effectively leveraging these resources that we can expect over the next several years. It is an exciting time. We are working on this stuff as i said, surprise, infrastructure. There is money available for all of us. Im busy trying to get it into my communities. It is absolutely vital we do this. It is not just vital we have an influx of money for infrastructure or for electrification or for energy, Energy Transition yes, that is wonderful, but this is an opportunity to make sure every Single Person in her Community Gets to benefit from that. And at the same people that have historically benefited and not the same people that historically have benefited. We have to work in our cities and communitys and jobs and nonprofits to make sure we can provide that support mobility to everyone in this country. We have not had this opportunity that im aware of for a long, long time. Maybe ever. My hope is that the work were doing can be replicable, that other communities can see it as a model that they might want to do in order to take advantage of the wonderful infrastructure that is so vital at a time when our countrys infrastructure is aging and we all are going to need to do that work. This will allow us to do it and let everyone in our Community Benefit. Are there existing structures within your state you are tapping into that can be leveraged, really facilitate the kind of coordination necessary . Not just at the city level, but the regional level and across . We have having meetings with some of, for instance, our state union boards after we were identified as one of the 15 global mayors job cities. We had some of those initial meetings to say, how can we Work Together to make not just about rochester, but changing the way we do things to benefit people all over . There have been efforts underway and the 1. I made is, well, if less than 1 of the construction workers in my community are women, then we have a lot more work to do. It is not to say the best efforts werent there, but it wasnt working. We are hoping through our efforts and the codesign model that we can start making sure the efforts of people are making payoff for the people we are try to provide upward mobility to at and ensuring your time in our history. You, mayor norton. Please join me in thanking mayor norton. Thank you come everyone. Some Great Questions. Really exciting work. Thank you, mayor, congratulations on all your doing. I have the terminus privilege and honor to introduce our next three guests. I will wait for them to appear. I keep going to weddings where they introduce the Wedding Party that run out. Im like, im so glad im not part of that Wedding Party. How is everybody doing . Is it too warm in here . It is a little warm. Usually it is freezing cold. This is a special treat. Hello, hello. Just have a seat. It is my tremendous pleasure and honor to introduce our next three guests. The debbie secretary of labor. The deputy secretary of labor. She was in secretary of labor for the state of california and before that, the labor commissioner for the state of california, forcing californias employment laws. She is a National Recognized expert on workers rights. And a past recipient of the macarthur genius grant. Next we have deputy secretary transportation, number two official and chief operating officer at dot. Deputy secretary supports leisure from provides leadership and Strategic Vision for the department with a 25 plus years of experience working in the Public Sector at all levels of government prior to joining the Biden Administration she was new york citys transportation commissioner. She implement it a landmark. Assistant secretary under for policies. She has a unique perspective on transportation policy. Cooks obama. What did i say . Biden. Groundhog day. Biden, obama. New york city. Obama. Then we have a New York Times journalist, reported for business desk, previously covered economic labor, technology with the washington post, cnn, and other outlets. I will leave it to the three of you. Hello, everyone. So good to be here. We are super lucky to have these officials. An interesting time of Economic Development. If you industries in particular and supercharged with a lot of federal investment and there is an appropriate focus on ensure the theres been a focus on federal contracting on the lowest bid wins because that is an efficient way to spend our government dollars. I think changing that paradigm is a real challenge. I think it is a generational commitment that is been in place for many years. I first thought i would start out broad and ask you guys how do you see your role in this larger project of trying to make sure jobs in a general or specifically those supported by federal dollars are family sustaining, infused with worker power, wellpaid, retirement, security . Maybe i will let the macarthur genius [laughter] hang on her every word. We have been working together. We came into this administration together. Thank you so much for having me. It is so good to be here. With my friends at new america and deputy secretary convert. Let me say couple of things. One is we keep talking about this unprecedented level of federal investment. Just to hit home what were talking about, the amount of investment we are currently making an infrastructure just in roads and bridges and highways is more than what was invested during the Eisenhower Administration when the national highway system was built. The amount we are investing in innovation through chips and science is more than the investments made during present kennedys administration when we sent a man to the moon. The amount we are investing now in climate, theres really no comparison to prior ministrations. It really is an incredible time i think exciting time to think about how federal investment can really shape shape private, other local city, state, federal opportunities for the department of labor we see ourselves as partners of the agencies putting out that funding. Specifically on a couple of fronts. One, one has been talked about today is job quality. This is a moment, is the right thing to do at any time. As you mentioned, sometimes, the lowest bid is not always the best investment. We are thinking about how good jobs are part of building the future that we want. This is an opportunity for that. This is an opportunity for workers. We have seen a shift in worker power. People talk about the great resignation, the reality is there have been more hires than resignation a last couple of years. People are leaving bad jobs for better jobs. Leaving better jobs were even better jobs. This is a moment where workers are demanding easier the table, organizing in unprecedented ways. Job quality becomes better because of that. We support other agent that there other agencies, in terms of that will funding that can drive behavior. That is why secretary walsh launched the good jobs initiative. We can talk about that more today. The other piece is our work to ensure that these good jobs that are created are distributed in a way that enhances advances equitable outcomes. That have long included people in the even in the best of times. How we use this moment not to just advance policy goals, create good jobs, but to combat systemic racism and other forms of exclusion. Allow these good jobs crated have not been equitably available to all communities. Creating that in a safe way is exciting for us. Let me just follow on, mary, it is great to be here today. Thank you to all the journalist doing amazing work in the challenging political times. To underscore a bit, from the transportation context, i think as the sector, transportation is one of the most highly unionized. Comes to the table before the big infrastructure bill with some statutory labor protections. Some that are very well known. They set the foundational stage in terms of wages and working closely with the unionized sector in transit. Polly we start off where we have a a lot of good jobs come the info structure bill has given us the opportunity to expand the transportation workforce internally and in transportation agencies across the country. In private construction firms and etc. Our focus has been, how does this extraordinary set of opportunities, exactly as julie has talked about, how do we make sure we do not miss this moment to get to all the communities that have not been well served in transportation in terms of employment opportunities, training opportunities, as well as the procurement and wealth building opportunities. That is where the partnerships, particularly with julie who has been a leader for 70 years so many years. We have the money, the have how do we overcome generations of barriers . Women, people of color of getting into those high paying union jobs. It is been an exciting part of the partnership to dig into those questions and tackle it from a multidimensional way. Preapprentice training, how highering is happening. How from our statutory authorities to use the grantmaking process to nudge along more diverse working forces. How to move the needle. I would say one more thing, on the new york city side was involved in a lot of procurements on this question of lowest bid and value for money. There is a growing transition to recognizing that really good project delivery is about a lot of good value propositions. Including what you do to train your local workforce. I am encouraged that that is started to become we are starting to see that in places across the country, not just the big cities and california. A recognition comfortably with this level of transformative funding, we have to do more in the end and get a bunch of projects with the lowest possible costs. We need to lift up communities and bring in a whole new generation of diverse workers. Julie is good have a conversation what this looks like, local government officials this thing and wondering how do i craft puzzles proposals. Tell me more about what it actually looks like. Is it nudges . A suggestion that people look on this favorably . How are these principles being infused into the leverage . It varies a lot from program to program. Both the statutory requirements, the legislative history and have redo this. I will we do this. I will give a couple. Affirmative that are exciting. We have a program in the federal transit administration, that is low and no emissions. We are focused on converting the nations bus fleet from diesel to electric. It will have a huge environmental benefit. As part of the program, grant recipients can use that some of the money to train their workforce. We have dollars set aside. We have another program which is for rail. We are allowed to give affirmative grants for workforce develop. 8 billion dollar grant to amtrak Million Dollar grant to amtrak for printer ships apprenticeships for rail workers. We are able to put in language where we essentially talk about training, project labor agreements, a bunch of good labor practices to grow and diversify the work versus and to ensure that the forces to ensure that they have appropriate protections. To ensure that they have extra credit in the grant application. We are the first year in on the Grant Programs with some of that language. We have a great response. Where as in previous years we only had a handful of grantees that wrote in what they would do on the labor front. We now see close to a third doing that, in coming years we will see a lot more. We are excited about the progress there. It is a learning experience for all of us. Again, what has been exciting, we have seen examples of communities in diverse places, louisville, kentucky doing an incredible project. Not just the places you expectancy. Julie i want to build on that, always want to say to your point, including language in your notice of funding opportunities you have seen some shift in applications that you get, dizzy power of leveraging federal that is the power of leveraging federal investments to reflect the buys of this administration. The president has been clear, building an economy centered on the wellbeing of workers, Building Union jobs is how we build back and how we create not just a stronger recovery recovery economy, but a more resilient one. In addition to working with polly and other departments, putting out federal funding in terms of what kind of linkage can be included in grants. Giving concrete examples of what this looks like on the ground. Good news, in addition everything, we do not have to invent a lot of things out of whole cloth. There are examples of what we are talking about. Sectorbased labormanagement partnerships with true worker voice that is focused on reaching out to communities. There is examples of that and we have the opportunities now. We should reward, incentivize, that kind of good work happening on the ground. As another example of place people might not expect, there has been really good work done by jobs for america, as well as a Company Called new flyer. They enter into a Community Benefits agreement to hire folks from the local community to build electric buses. How do we award and incentivize that behavior so it scales across the economy it is exciting. Presenting specific examples of how it is working, connecting people so they can learn from one another, we spend a lot of time doing to get a good job set summit. We brought folks working on the ground, cities, states, unions, workers, intermediaries, sector leaders to talk about what they are doing. Sharing those examples is a key part of how we get to where we want to be. Lydia i have heard a lot of reward, incentivize, showcase, provide extra grant to be do these things. Not a lot of requiring, mandating, etc. I wonder if there is a hesitation to that, theres a tradeoff getting adjournment procurement, tracks out the door contracts out the door. Polly i think you have to look carefully at each agency will be allowed to do statutorily. That is the limiting factor. At the outset we have a couple of longstanding statutory tools in the transportation sector, we have the prevailing wage. It is a typically a very good wage in terms of raising a family and having a middleclass lab file let file. 13c we work with the department of labor. Those are very strong statutory foundations. Beyond that, as a federal agency use every tool in your disposal. You have to be somewhat careful in exceeding her statutory mandate. One of the things your audience may have seen, something we are proud of, it is proven controversial, the toll Highway Administration put out an internal memo talking about the formula for dollars. We have a as an agency have far less discretion. There is pushback on capitol hill of accusing us of overstepping our statutory authority. Yet to find that sweet spot. One thing we are proud of being in this ministrations, we have leaned in hard wherever we administration, we have leaned in hard wherever we can to make the case and set up a structure to incentivize what were talking about here today. A diverse welltrained workforce working on Infrastructure Projects and starting a whole new set of career paths for folks. On the procurement side upping our dbe goals, that womenowned and minority owned firms get a piece of the contracts and create part of that generational wealth. Congress also has a say in how the programs are designed and implement it. Julie for us, the department of labor, we do not get the funding in terms of these bills. Our work has been in support, polly is right, there are places where there are statuary requirements like prevailing wage that we think are important and valuable. There are other places where the notch to incentivize nudge to incentivize. How do we incident demonstrate that it possible and really good for communities for more folks to do it . It is clear that people will not be able to enjoy the roads, bridges, infrastructure, the band, the clean water broadband and clean water flowing from pipes if you do have the economics. Recognizing that that is the best make investment go as far as they can, we are hopeful that if we can show it can be done there will be done at scale. Looking back 10 years from now we will say that it did not happen just because we required it. It was because it was the right thing to do and we made it easy to do. Lydia there are the myths, and service cant limits and Service Contracts are powerful over the years. Polly transportation sector is one of the most unionized sectors in the economy, we start from a place, there is war to do, transportation more to do, transportation jobs are unionized with good wages, benefits, good lifelong training. Lydia one question before i get into the other question, in my experience, when it comes to contracting and subcontracting, enforcement making sure that everyone really is under the benefits of those laws. Or sometimes if they do not totally extend to concessionaires, people that work at the pentagon. Are you doing all you can to make sure that even those laws benefit is made people whose wages are ultimately paid by federal tax dollars . Polly you are getting into a bigger question here. One that i think is a good one and is increasingly becoming a campaign. Unite now and other unions around the country have been looking at, one plays they have been looking at this airports. A lot of airports get a lot of federal grants. Typically, there will be an airport operator that is a Public Authority or a private authority and is contracting a certain amount of airport concessions and things. Looking at the potential nexus there. You have to look a bit police for dot at our statutory authorities. Where someone is a direct at the recipient of federal dollars we have a lot of strings we can pull. They have contracting in another area is not always the same nexus. Intellectually we get where those campaigns are coming from and we want to see if there are ways we can make progress there. Ideally when an entity or ecosystem is getting a lot of federal dollars we should make sure that all the jobs involved there are getting the right set of wages, benefits, etc. Statutorily, the further remove the dollar gets from where the agency is given outcome you have less hooks than where the dollars interact. Lydia it is such an important point, i want to thank you for raising it. As much as we celebrate the historic investments in the good things being done, it is important to take a clear eyed view about the very real struggles of working people across our economy. Part of it due to the things you talked about it. Some crunching subcontracting, that is been used by decades to insulate those of the top of the chain by those workers. The president has taken steps against that, executive orders, 50 minimum wage, for all 15 minimum wage for all federal contractors. This reclassification is a big part of this. Julie for a very long time, not just individual employers, they have made a business model, to usurp labor laws by calling people that should be employees independent contractors. We have proposed rules to reverse the last administrations weakening of rules about independent contracting. Then that requires enforcement. It is an important reminder of the challenges in the workplace and the different pieces. Besides the federal investment we need strong labor laws. We need enforceable neighbor loss laws. We have a president that is very clear that Workers Organizing and the freedom to organize is a part of that equation. Lydia you will not make the pitchfork appropriation . Pitch for appropriation . Julie i cannot remember, is a wide lydia what would be the obvious statutory changes to allow you to make them work harder for people . Polly i think julie will have a lot of thoughts on this. I will give one thought. We do think speak about the bipartisan info structure law. I am super proud of being part of an demonstration, i will say this about President Biden, he is a legislator. If you look at what we have accomplished in the last year and a half, the bipartisan info structure bill, chips, some of them are bipartisan. I can answer the question, but also want to say he is a president who is very much grounded working with the congress and in the best we can. Politically, just to hit something julie said, one thing we are finding exciting here, what were doing on the ground is opening up minds and winning over some parts hearts. I have no doubt our administration we back with Congress Next year to gain more ground with these issues. I do not want to stay with the agenda would be. I know this president and our administration is fiercely committed to make advancements on this and we will see what the legislative land ship landscape looks like next year. We will be coming back over and over again legislatively. Julie i will shift a little bit, correct me if i should answer more directly. One of the things i see a lot side the deposit of labor, what are we doing to unleash department of labor, what are we doing to unleash our full power . Legislatively and budget terribly budget terribly and other rules. There is a sense they have to have new things to do more. While that is true, i agree with everything that polly said, there is also a tremendous amount of that can be done within Government Agencies to unleash the full power we have been given. As an example, the conversation about workforces the workforce innovation opportunity act. Billions of dollars, much of it in the grants of two states around building a workforce. Answering the questions, how do we have the workers doing the things what to do, or answers to make them good jobs, focus on equity, tap the full sound of the american workforce. Part of it is making sure there is innovation, bold innovation within the workforce world. We have been leaning into how we make sure it is utilized in the full creative way it can be used to support the things we are talking about. Job partnerships with job causing equity at the center. We have launched a campaign that is meant to make it clear everyone that there a lot of myths and restrictions that are myths and how we break that down utilized resources that are there. Weird acronym ponds, that is puns, that is great. Does the previous discussion with mayor norton talking about the importance of care of enabler of people doing jobs. The original build back better plan have the had a lot of money for that that did not make it to the final version. I am just wondering, both of you, do you think the current federal investments can be leveraged to lift up those professions as well even though right now they do not pay for infrastructure . Polly i can say is in behalf of the administration, President Biden Vice President harris were clear that care is infrastructure. It is the work that makes work possible. The ambitions in build back better around making sure we truly invest in infrastructure the same where we invest in other infrastructure was really brought. Broad. Unfortunately congress did not pass it, for us we have shifted to find other ways of utilizing powers to make sure there is investment in careorkers. As we look at who is getting jobs, the entire conversation about making sure their women, people of color in the good jobs we are making does require some amount of making sure there is a care infrastructure so people can go to work. That is partly why in all of the Workforce Development training bishops that we care about, we are interested in investments in support systems. On for things like care. Like transportation. Tools, other things that are making work possible. We have been trying to look at ways to do that. We are lysing and encouraging utilizing and encouraging investments into care and care Training Programs. They will meet the need for care and elevate the care jobs. Frankly it is a lot more work that needs to be done there. We are deeply aware of it. Looking at creative ways coming from california and seeing what local and state entities are doing in creative ways to meet a need for infrastructure, we do not think the federal government should do it all, can do it all, how we can support the local level is exciting. Lydia got it, basing your centers at job sites and thinking creatively. I have a question, as people start ticking, in the meantime, thinking, in the meantime. We talked about a ton dollars coming through the pipeline. If i am an 18yearold answering the call to build bridges, what confidence can you give me that these jobs will be around after this cycle of investment is done . That will be entering a generations long room in info structure . In infrastructure . Polly i think that fear is unplaced, and transportation we have an aging workforce. Is a great deal to get into, it is relatively, relatively holiday highly paid union sector. I love transportation ethic is a great deal to get into. If you i think it is a great field to get into. If you care about bike lanes and it offers a a lot of opportunities for a diverse set of careers. It is a field that will always always need to talent. Need talent. Particularly engineers. I ran new york city dot for seven years, relied heavily on an amazing set of engineers a lot of them came from other countries. Even in the u. S. As we trained a lot of engineers, not nearly enough. I am not worried that once we are through these dollars, the field will contract. I think these dollars will play out over many years. If we do our jobs right, i hope we will, will change the paradigm and there will always be a continued interest in a more robust level of Infrastructure Investment in this country. It is a great deal to get into. Go on usa jobs right now there is a special link that connects to the info structure bill with all kinds of job opportunities. One joke i like to make, if you ever thought about coming to the federal government, to u. S. Dot, if the president and a Vice President who love and care about infrastructure. Great cabinet secretaries and our ministrations at all these new dollars and programs, there will never be a new a better time than right now. Julie energy, policy, manufacturing, i came from this morning meeting at the white house. What is our Investment Strategy around advancement factoring . Manufacturing . Were not talking six months or year. We are talking about an investment that will last decades entry infrastructure that will be updated and maintained. We are looking at jobs that will shift the entire way we build our economy, not just temporary projects for the moment. Lydia questions from the audience. Thank you so much to the both of you for being here. My question is for you, deputy secretary su. I love this blog name, i googled the i am wondering if you could share a little bit, not to give away the secret sauce but what are some of the myths around that you will like the public to know about and misc will like to see dispelled and myths you would like to see dispelled . Julie the person who came up with the name is in the room. This is not office the office of public [applause] julie i really do appreciate that question and it is not the purpose of the campaign is to measure everyone we knows what we are talking about but i will give examples. One is in line with everything we were talking about. I like to say this is not your fathers Workforce Development system. It is not a system where for a long time, the incentive was to train as many people as possible. Not necessarily connected to jobs and certainly not connected to job quality. If we do better at measuring what kinds of jobs people got into and how long that job was, why is it a career was it a career and what are the intergenerational impacts . It upends the way we think about workforce investment and another reason we came up with this campaign is that in my travels as deputy secretary, i think there are myths that people handcuff themselves about what is possible within viola. Are we allowed to prioritize equity and allowed to say can we measure how many black and brown and lgbtq programs . We want to make sure the programs reflected priorities we have. What we found with a deep dive on equity is systematically, africanamericans graduates of the Training Program end up in jobs where they are getting paid less than their white counterparts. The system has to correct that. That is reinforcing systemic barriers and it is not the purpose of the program. In order for us to be cleared i and smart about how we do better , we have to take a look at what we are allowed to measure and change. Those are the examples but there will be more to come. This is a question for deputy secretary triton bird tr ottenberg. This is a huge opportunity to look at women in jobs in the sector we have been speaking to, infrastructure, transportation and tech, construction, tend to be male dominated and if we look at the jobs and the data, we do see a cyst verity in category we have been trying to shift. What are some of the best practices you have seen to incorporate we can you slip that issue . Polly they armed male dominated and it is an interesting statistic. The gender breakdown is 75 percent male and 25 female role in local and it has been that way for over a decade despite efforts to change the gender balance and if you look at particular sectors, maritime, aviation, very few women. Transit, is one of the sectors where you see a more even balance and these are longstanding challenges and i tried to work at the local and federal level. I will give up a couple thoughts. There is no question that at the federal level, there is a lot we can do to nudge and incentivize and some of the work we have been doing it is bespoke work to get folks who dont see themselves in particular perfections professions into those professions takes a lot of recruiting and training and making sure the organizations have that Inclusive Culture that will keep those employees and you mentioned the care economy. It is true that women for whom still, they are taking the burden of childcare and caring for parents, that can be challenging in fields that have 24 7 potential scheduling. If you are driving a train or if you are driving a bunch bus, there are certain parts of the transportation sector that are operational and that can be for opportunities like things like remote work. 20 of jobs at u. S. Sed ot are not remote work scdot are not remote work. It is the same at the local level. We worked closely with local Buildings Trade Council and contracting firms and our own city hiring process and try to chip away at this issue everywhere we went and i think we have made some progress but the progress has been a lot slower than i would like it to be. I do a lot of work with an Important Group in transportation, the womens transportation seminar. They have chapters all over the country and they are you remember back in the campaign there was a talk about when mitt romney was governor in massachusetts and he was given binders full of women. They changed the chapter in massachusetts. Networking is about supporting women in the field. We have a long way to go. Julie thank you. The work that happens from the outside what the federal government is doing is key. A couple concrete examples is without in any way i shall let it sit, the comment was a long way to go because that is important. In the spirit of there are things happening, gives us a moment where we can see big shifts because of the vestments and work on the ground investments and work on the ground, is a group called chicago women and jail trade. Let me put the camera on you and announce the amazing work that you all are doing acknowledged that amazing work you all are doing to transform women in the infrastructural workforce. And there is a model you have done successfully and we are supportive of your efforts to expand your Technical Assistant assistance in other states to expand your impact. I am glad you are here. It is another piece in terms of the partnerships between organizations and back to policy moves but i know the dot gave 110 million award to the facility in new york city and that is improving that only the largest Food Distribution center in the country but create a thousand new jobs. Stan percent of their 10 15 are reserved for women but the Organization Called nontraditional employment for women. There is a lot of work that we are trying to do across organizations and agencies but there is more work we need to. For sure. Lydia last question. October is National Disability employment awareness month. My question, it is a population has that has Major Barriers to employment. I am curious to know what you are doing to support this population of disabled workers and what is working. Julie we have an agency called the office of disability Employment Policy and that work very much about making sure everything we talk about, includes worker disabilities and Training Programs and how we measure equity. Hiring in the federal government. No question that when we talk about communities left behind and there is tremendous talent we should draw forth from. Polly let me dovetail that we have a Robust Program to get people with disabilities into the workforce. Kelly oakland buckland another piece of it is access and that has been one of the real barriers of people with disabilities to be integrated into educational system and we are focused. One nice thing from the infrastructure bill, he gave us incredible new funding to it gave us incredible new funding to make transit section transit systems fully ada. We are looking for ways if you have disabilities, you can access them and i am so excited about the infrastructure bill. You have never had those kinds of dollars specifically devoted to fixing mass transit systems where it is a multibillion dollar endeavor. We are focused on the question of access in the aviation sector. It has been a longstanding issue with the disability community. The treatment they get at airports and airlines and what happens with their wheelchair so we are focusing on rulemakings and you will put out a people with disabilities bill of rights with air travel. Thank you for that question and we are focused on the issue. Lydia we have to wrap it up and thank you so much. We learned a lot. We will exit stage. [applause] [miscellaneous conversation] right all right. I will have to check that out. That sounds fantastic. I would like to point out that this day, this event talking about infrastructure has 10 speakers and nine of them are women so we are doing our part in trying to get women into the infrastructure discussions. I am going waiting to introduce our next speaker. I will ask you to bear with me and i will peak around the door and i will be right back. Mary all right. Thank you. Go ahead and have a seat or if you want to stand. I can move this. Everyone, it is my pleasure to introduce lawrence thomas. The department of commerce. I think i mentioned something called the good jobs talent and this is the person in charge. We are thrilled for her to be here and in addition to being the lead at good jobs talent in the department of congress and in the obama and administration is great to have you back and think you for filling us in. Good afternoon and thank you so much for that introduction and it is exciting to be with you today. This has been a republic that has recovery that has accelerated the focus for topquality job quality women and low income workers and other labor market barriers and what is so exciting is as we have moved from addressing the immediate crises unfolding in the pandemic, we are seeing our silly for policy investments that is about meeting this moment. I am excited about this as a moment to think forward and i think about strategies that are nastily naturally scalable and equity centered. We have an a historic harlotry to opportunity that are more aligned and more coordinated and help workers and businesses and communities strive. I am excited about this moment and i view this through a prism of a program launched by the the part of commerce and this is a good jobs challenge announced by secretary raimondo. There are 32 awardees launching programs across many industries. Over a third of which is focused on infrastructure. We are excited about this investment and there are examples on the Economic Development Administration Website but the ohio rent antivaxxers association which recognizes the imperative to address demand we also have philadelphia works launching a building and construction pathway into well paying union jobs and that is focus on local and underserved entities and i want to note some elements of the program. This resonates with themes you have heard. This is a whole government approach to equity and job quality and how we create more full force multipliers that are about building stronger ecosystems. A central focus of the good jobs challenge is that is it at is that it is equity centered. It is an intentional focus of breaking Community Based partners and other leaders of the table, that this funding can be flexibly applied to deliver support like childcare, we are excited about how this reflects a focus on strong and integrated coalition. We have 99 backbone organizations. This includes workforce boards and Higher Education institutions like hbcus, local government partners and labor unions and other Key Stakeholders coming together with employers. We received over a hundred letters of commitment from employers. This is about breaking down silos. I am excited about this mineshaft mindset shift to go from competition to collaboration. We are here to add to the dialogue and learn from all of you and your leadership the models you are working on to ensure these investments are going to create economic mobility now only for today communities before feature generations but for future generations to come. Thank you so much. [applause] mary i cant say enough how seeing the level of coordination across different federal agencies on the implementation of these scheduled Infrastructure Investments and seeing them aligned around around four values of equity and inclusion, it is extraordinary and we have a lot of time to go on so there is a lot of time to settle in having worked in federal agency for staff, to get to know each other and talk to each other and using a shared language around the goal of Infrastructure Investments, it is incredibly important so i think i hope it continues and i hope we can lock in some of this understanding of what we are trying to do. We heard from city leaders and federal leaders and now we will hear from folks on the ground. We know government can do everything and they need help from those critical stakeholders and Community Based organizations and advocacy groups to get to the last mile of making sure good jobs are for everyone. I would like to introduce my colleague, mike travel treble and he will bring in a panel of practitioners who are making this a reality and getting women into really good infrastructure jobs. Rebecca here they come. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. [laughter] we have a particular order of seating and we want to make sure it was just right. We have a great panel today and thank you for being with us for this afternoon and thank you lauren starts starks your remarks. For your remarks and i went to acknowledge the work the variety of perspectives. Through Infrastructure Investments. This is true for the work we are trying to do around building few jobs for people who have been shut off. We have heard this again and we should name racially minor ties communities, ltb dq was workers and women lgbtq plus workers and women. There are his work happening all wrong among nonprofit and communitybased organizations. They have been working to drive investments and drive highquality employment. We have a great panel to close this out and we are hoping we will show you how good jobs can be produced through Infrastructure Investments. Some of the distance that we also have to travel. I will go through introductions and i will come back to you to provide more granularity on what you can do. It is hard to encapsulate this. House within chicago women and trade and we met her briefly on the live feed. It has been a key stewart of Funding Department of labor under the Brandon Nelson dedicated to building policies and public decisionmaking to support their jobs in the manufacturing sector. Nancy lukes Deputy Director of building pathways, a nonprofit in boston massachusetts dedicated to the recruitment and retention and advancement of marginalized and unrepresented groups in the Union Building trade. Building athletes and department of chicago trade are the table throughout the room so you can see their work products. In two minutes, before we get into discussion, what your organization is working on and how you are connected to this objective of driving good jobs and worker power through Infrastructure Investments. It is hard to do in two minutes. Thank you for having me here. Thank you to deputy secretary su and debbie keep deputy secretary trottenberg. We won our technical opportunities apprenticeship program. We have a program that gets women into careers and manufacturing and we support trade retention services. Trace women frayed women are tradeswomen are a part of our work. We amplify and supports and finding ways to implement the framework for promoting equity and inclusion for women and people of color working in petraeus. The trades. It contains components for making sure equity is embedded in this massive 1. 2 trillion Infrastructure Investment. We know there has to be goals. I wont go through all the points but i will go through three of them. One of the most important ones is we want one half of 1 of all federal and state funding and infrastructure funding to be devoted to support services. It goes beyond transportation assistance and tools. All those things are important but we are thinking about free apprenticeship investment because providing those Foundation Skills through preapprenticeship is a strong pipeline for women to get into these maledominated industries. We advocate for technical investment investment in Technical Assistance to make sure those jobs and subcontract subcontractors are harassment free and Safe Environments for women and people of color to thrive. One thing that nancy knows tradeswomen and tradeswomen are of color are the last ones hired and we want to be part of transforming that. Technical assistance is important and the other key third piece is Community Monitoring of the goals that we have on these public funded projects and monitoring them at least twice a month. We want to go beyond best efforts and we want to make sure that it is a Community Stakeholder monitoring system, not just federal and state and local Agency Monitoring but also tradeswomen led organizations being part of them monitoring. Part of the monitoring. That is a some of the work sum of the work. Michael we will likely be able to get into it. I want to appreciate deputy secretary su who is in the room with us. At of america, we think about the manufacturing workforce. It is building equipment that we need to make our infrastructure work, building buses and trains and Building Components for new technology. As others said earlier, that workforce has been depleted and while these manufacturing jobs used to be good jobs, they are increasingly precarious and nonunion. We are fighting to turn that around to make sure that we are manufacturing goods in the country and they are providing good jobs and access to the jobs. One of the tools we are using as we are taking the concept of Community Benefits agreement, which refers to a tool to get Community Benefits out of real estate projects and bring them to the manufacturing world and say, this is a Big Development in the community, a factory. Can we organize to make sure the factories are bringing good jobs and there is equitable access to the jobs and hiring and training practices to the jobs . Michael we have a we are talking broadly about the trades and there is a linkage between the works that jobs and new america is doing in the climate and protect implications of the climate and infrastructure and swell as well. Thank you to everyone who has raised the state already graced the stage already. The key things that we work on are trying to get folks that have traditionally west out of the things into Union Programs and we see that as the fastest way to a career of good jobs with benefits and working in protection for folks. Even if you go the callers route and decide it is not for you, that you can have College Route and decide is not for you, that you can have a job and career and you can thrive. We run our trades program through our Northeast Center for womens trade equity. We have a trade program where we are creating enteral intentional spaces for people to learn, grow, thrive. Especially for teenage girls going to a conference where there school their school they may only have sheetmetal. They will see hundreds of girls across the state that are also these programs, they will say you are part of the work and part of the movement is important. We recognize, people have named as an issue, sometimes women come up people of sometimes women, people of color come if they cannot see it they cannot treatment dream it. Creating a space where once you are in a program, in an apprenticeship program, as a woman we have trade talk tuesday where you can support each other. This is what im expense, what are you experiencing . You can stay and talk those career seekers. This is my path, this is how i got into trades, this is how we can support you in working through that is important. On the demand side, thinking through what policy works. Have do use these ordinances to move work in a real way. How do we use it for structure money how do we use pla agreements to move work in a real way . That is what we are, in a nutshell working on. Thank you, does interesting to hear that it is interesting to hear that specific strategy. We have heard about the importance of looking at the bottom up from the worker level respect to empowering workers as well as driving structural change from the top. Hopefully we can get into a little bit of that. We have heard of some of the strategies youve worked on, the big models we of hearing of the organization, big topic organizations today, racial and gender inclusion strategies. We have heard about the importance of child care for working and learning parents. One of things i think is born to recognize, we acknowledge today, that this has been around for quite a long time. The different types of work has been going on for a long time. Cba has been around 20 or 25 years, there was a goal for an amount of federal contracting hours performed by women set by the carter administration. There is a print out about the child care for apprentices, the oregon transportation provided a subsidy for childcare since 2010, these efforts been around for quite a long time. I want to ask you, i will start with the miranda, based on your experience working with these strategies, we have had more and more conversations about job quality, inclusion, about worker power in construction and made vectoring, what progress have you men income what progress have you seen . Have you seen a lot of progress in less fears . Last few years . Miranda i think we have, we are focused on getting Community Asset agreements in the electric bus industry. There are five companies and electric bus industry we have Community Benefit agreements in three of them. They are providing Good Union Jobs and we are getting folks on that one. A really we think about that in contrast to the electric car industry in our country, which is not it is becoming a low road industry, with a ton of different nonunion factories opening up. While it is important to transition cars off of fossil fuels, the further investments in the Inflation Reduction Act will go to these nonunion companies unless we do something about it. One of the reasons we tried to make change in electric Bus Companies is because of government intervention. This is an industry that is selling almost exclusively to government. We have worked with a variety of Government Agencies to demand real standards in their contracts. Making sure that when they are contracting, that they are asking what kind of wages and benefits are they paying . Rewarding companies that are paying good wages and benefits. Rewarding companies that are investing in hiring and Training Programs. Without that kind of government investment, it would be so much harder to do this job. This is really true of cbas overall, love the big successful ones, real estate involvement a lot of big successful ones, real estate investment, happened because of zoning. Because of the organizing on the ground and organization with communities, organizations and unions with real government power to drive up standards is a key to success. I want to ask another question about that Coalition Building you mentioned, everyone that we have in the room today, every one is watching online is interested in the workforce building aspects, interested in technology, interested in labor organizing. We are members of communities ourselves. We have movies we live in that will benefit from info structure investment over the next fears Infrastructure Investment over the next fears years. How do we make sure it goes to support our neighbors and communities . Miranda i think it is important to think about who we are organizing and make sure a variety of groups have a seat at the table. The coalition we built in alabama, where the new flyer factory is located, we brought together groups that ran the gamut from labor unions, two environmental groups, to religious groups. Groups focused on the workforce. Having other perspectives on the table really helped us to push forward and to win. The other important thing, one that our executive director likes to say, we should not settle. We should make big demands and try to win big demands so everyone can benefit from investment in our committees. Communities. When we were negotiating our new flyer cba there were a couple of times when the Company Offered something that was good for labor unions, but enough of the community. It was sometimes they would offer something good for the community, but not for workers. There was an understanding among the coalition, that free come together we if we come together we can get something good for everyone. That is something we got. We need to build strong organizations a standard solitary with each other. That is important. Michael we are behind time, i wanted to talk about this, but jobs for new america, have fantastic resources, most cookbooks were building cbas. There building plans and things on the website. Miranda on the website you can read about the plan, the tool we try to get agencies to adopt when they are buying benefactor boat goods manufactured goods when they look at wages and benefits. We talk about organizing a Community Together to negotiate cbas like the one we see have. We need the government believers to get to the. Miranda a huge part of the great michael a huge part of the great cbas is apprenticeship training. How do you see work taste learning models based learning model serving the communities . I want i will start, we have been around since 2016 come we have been focused on seating preapprenticeship programs nationally. One initiative that i want to highlight is the women in nontraditional Career Initiative located in philly. It is a multistakeholder collaboration seeking to increase in number of womens and manufacturing, utilities, transportation. I remember 4 years ago when we were meeting in the philadelphia workforce board Conference Room and there were 3. 20 of us. We have a list of nearly 600 people. We finished our second cohort, those women are entering careers in the unionized construction trades in philadelphia. We also have a Mentorship Program to accompany the trays woman readiness trades woman readiness program. Just ink about how thats think about how that support, i think about the support they were able to get through supportive services. Work groups, career guidance, career outreach, Career Education. So much of the problem i see is on the on a very baseline level is a lack of career and education outreach. You would be shocked about how many women, who come up to me, if only i had known about this Career Opportunity when i was 18. I have been taking toasters apart my whole life. Dismantling agreement for fun equipment for fun, i did not notice there was a skill set. The investment in preapprenticeship, especially tied to the womens bureau that is allowed to build that multistakeholder collaboration. To build that collaborating. That is the type of progress we are seeing nationally. Locally in chicago we just launched, just finished our first mill rights class, womens only preapprenticeship program. We are launching a womens only preprint ship program with the ironworkers in chicago. We are preapprenticeship program of the ironworkers in chicago. We are launching a program of the Ironworkers International union. I have seen these things slowly build. Obviously, as an organization we have been able to see these victories. We are at this momentous moment i would just the Infrastructure Investment, but the desire to have preapprenticeship programs from regular Mentorship Programs. Michael absolute come of their couple of reflections just from that, dancy and when ask you the question we discussed nancy, ask the question we discussed before the presentation. We talk a lot about how we get women into skilled trade occupation. It is so important, think this is a statistic from here to stay , which i could not print out we ran out of paper. There is tremendous progress recently in getting women into skilled trades. Still only 3. 5 of the construction workforce. Nancy, when you dig up of the goal of getting more women into trades, how does that connect with the Racial Justice agenda and info structure as well . Nancy we are seeing our efforts making sure women know it is impossible to be in it is possible to be in the trades. There are preapprenticeship programs to help support you. It is also about what you expense on the job site. It is a lot of culture, we have a lot of work to do on shifting the culture of jobsite. For asset building pathways we are working with oregon trades women to work on rise up. A respectful workplace, made and designed by the Construction Industry for the Construction Industry to address these issues. Also have the intentional spaces of troops like groups like trade women tuesdays to talk about their experience and so we can address it. The policy group on trade women issues. In that space there is they call this from the Construction Industry, trades women, government to hear and reflect on here is what is going on and what can we do to help adjusted . Adjust it . That is what we are seeing in the struggle and the ways to overcome that struggle. Michael thank you so much for sharing come one of the things that struck from the work of chicagos trade and and the work of building pathways you collaborating a lot of important ways. There is a lot of effort to help women and committees of colors, to see themselves in skilled trade occupations. There is the work of getting through it, once you see yourself in it, persisting in at. You can arrive, if you start in it, it may not work out well. I want to speak to, i appreciate you diving in, are a low bit behind time. I want to encourage everyone in person and online, they can about questions, there is an online chat function we can submit. We talk today a lot about strategies that worked. That has been the main focus of our discussion. Things that are optimistic we will work. Secretary mentioned keeping a cleared eye view. Extending what is possible and feasible in our work around good jobs. It is important to be honest about things that have not worked or have not worked quite yet. I want to save a little bit of time to talk about those briefly. We have talked about them and discussion. Maybe just speaking about it on the printer ship in preapprenticeship shot. Side. We know it can be actually difficult to make construction worksites safe and well maintained especially for as beauty to population for lgbtq populations and people of color. How will we create quality on these worksites equality on these worksites . I have some suggestions. We talked about federal money that is coming to the states and what is being written in and required. Requiring programs to spend cultural change programs like rise up, having things written in for child care, having stuffing and for pumping stations. People do not think about that, but new moms coming back from work are thinking about that. Where will i pump . Will i still be able to pump . I think the cultural shift will happen when we are not only doing the curriculum, and doing respectful workplace training, but there is some type of way for accountability. If you are not meeting these goals for women, people of color on the jobs, what will happen . If you do not create a respectful workplace, what happens . That gives t to the legislation, teeth to the policy, teeth to the legislation, teeth to the policy, women can say it will be a good job, you will be respected, he should stay. Michael i like the idea we have talked about enforcement and monitoring. Lark i agree with everything nancy said. I would add one piece, the collaboration between groups and the osccp, making sure that things have teeth. Again, i want to kind of think about the micro communitybased level investments in Technical Assistance is so essential. Making sure one thing for instance, before our Sexual Harassment prevention training, we encourage and often time required leadership to attend those trainings. We provide the trainers a training piece for them so they know how to also administer those trainings. Technical assistance has to be taken seriously. Has to be valued. As to be it has to be invested in. That will change the culture, the teeth, there has to be the other side of training how to provide health and safety for women in construction, for instance. I will leave it there. Michael yeah. Miranda i agree with what lark said. All levels are trained up in respectful worksites. I know it came up about thinking about areas, what are the barriers that would prevent women, single moms from participating. It should not be an afterthought, is to be very intentional as well. When we look at childcare were looking at, we sit on the task force that is trying to address childcare. We are looking at nontraditional hours. The state of massachusetts for childcare, how can we reduce those barriers . We look at it and try to do a pilot program, how do we push the Construction Industry to work with us, put money behind it, money from infrastructure for that, and as the mayor said, there also has to be a good sustaining career. We are at the table thinking of that because it impacts it women can participate in the program if it exists. Michael in window thing about Technical Assistance on wonderful thing about Technical Assistance and i want to highlight a resource about finishing the job. We thing about apprenticeship, with thick about different stakeholder communities think about different stakeholder communities. There are different targets, for managers, frontline supervisors, subcontractors, City Government there is a giveaway to provide equity framework and drive equity through construction worksites. Is been mentioned by everyone who has been on the stage, from where i sit in the community, what can i do to drive this force . You did not know, we have a manual for that. Lark really thinking about the lack of women of color in this industry, a recent paper had a list of 10 recommendations. One, construction registered apprenticeship programs and particular is walking through this recommendations. I could almost hear lightbulb golf. Our go off. A recommendation they have an intermediary who can help that woman of color on navigating challenges she might be experiencing on the challenges jobsite or her printer ship program. On the cert apprenticeship program. On the surface it seems like a simple idea. Having the ability to provide these recommendations and Technical Assistance i do think be helpful. You do see light bulbs go off and see it resonate that that is an option. Michael longterm projects, areas of Technical Assistance and learning, i do not want to get short ship to cbas. As quickly as we can, jma has been integral in hiring the info structuring investments and jobs act, there are still regulation to keep dual federal regulators from doing what they can to support Union Workers to info structuring the current. When you think and procurement. When you think about is what is next. That is a huge point of concern for us, federal regulation for a long time made it impossible for cities and states he is federal money and hire locally within their committees. Change that communities. We change that in the info structure bill. It was a great infrastructure bill. It was a great first step. Then there was water, sewer, federal regulations were lot stopping the ability to use local and economically targeted programs. We are really excited you change those regulations. Open up the ability for cities and states to do the kind of building with incentives we have been talking about to make it easier for our communities to invest. Michael thank you so much. We have very little time remaining. I know there is probably a lot of Great Questions or come to my for our fantastic panelist. Doesnt have a quick one does anybody have a quick one . This is a tall order. Someone earlier made a point that we do a really bad job with Career Education. Broadly, but in this panel in particular, i agree as a former high cool high school teacher. Where should that burden of Career Education lay . It feels like youre groups, in a lot of ways are picking up the pieces of a system that does not do that well. Everyone. That is my answer. It should lay with everyone. When we talk to counselors, our macro and trade conference is for juniors and seniors in high school that the thing about what is next to them. For some folks is not college. It is if it is not caused we stop talking to them defined about to find out what their career looks like after high school . The answer is no. Thinking about, for girls that are in career tech high school, making sure there are aware of Good Union Jobs out there they can be a part of. The guidance counselors, are not the ones working directly with them. If you educate them, if you have anyone else you can think of. For youth that are not involved in any tide of typo programs, 18 to 24yearolds, returning system citizens or engaged in the justice program. Everything about traditional inking about traditional high schools. We reach as much of the community as possible, how do we do that, like we said, we are all part of a community, if it is just announcements at the church bulletin, flyers a Different Committee centers, thinking about how we make sure everyone is thriving in our committee. Community. I agree, when the examples i can give you is the philadelphia workforce board. It is not just, we need people to find jobs, this is a hub for philadelphia area prospective trades women to do a selfassessment to figure out if one of these nontraditional crib pathways is an inspirational Career Pathways is for them. We have a podcast. That is how jobs philadelphia works. They have taken a massive leadership role in the Career Education outreach. I agree, one thing when we do training for s practices of outreach and recruitment best practices for a region agreement. We work with construction, not just construction, registered printer ship programs. Apprenticeship programs. How to use cbos for recruitment. How do you educate them about your trade . How do you give them the benefits of your trade so they can work for their community and essentially be your career recruiters. Recruitment is a lot of work. As to be multistakeholder. You will reach such a Diverse Talent pool that way. Michael any last words . I am inspired by the work michael panelists copanelists. Michael we could spend a whole day or a whole week on this topic, i want Technology Massive amount of i want to acknowledge the amounts massive amount of work. When need to be done to revitalize our info structure, secure our climate future, i want to think that you hunt are people that joined us online, thank the 200 people that joined us online. Before i turned it back to the founder and senior director of new america, i want to thank our three panelist, lark jackson, miranda nelson, nancy luc for joining us today. Can you give us a round of applause . [applause] thank you. If you are not going home happier you arrived something is wrong. I know i am. Thank you all so much. I learned so much. What a great day. Thank you to everyone that joined us online. A special thanks to all of you that made it in today. It is so exciting to have our first in person event. It takes a lot of work to put on an in person event. I want to put out special thanks to everyone that made this happen. From checking, video, registration, molly martin who made the trip from indianapolis to portis today support us today. To my fellow coorganizers of this event it really worked out well. To the mayor for traveling out to be with us today. It is been wonderful, a great conversation, i hope the first of many, one of remain in touch with you online and have a great rest of your day. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] live sunday, november 6 on indepth, from the texas book festival in boston austin. President and ceo of the lbj foundation will be our guest talking about u. S. President ial history. His books include the last republican, incomparable great jfk and the presidency. Join with your phone calls, facebook comments, text, tweets, live sunday, november 6, noon eastern on book tv, cspan2. The cspan shop holiday sale is going on right now at cspanshop. Org, say 15 anna popular unpopular sweatshirts , drink ware, and more. Cspan holiday sale going on right now. Scan the code on the right to start shopping now at cspanshop. Org. 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