Roundtable participants emphasized the need for more industry diversity and more child care support.
One worker expressed frustration with the benefits cliff she experienced once she began making more money during her apprenticeship. So now I m paying the full cost of child care and there s someone on W-2 getting all of their child care subsidized, Shantel Collins, a LiUNA! Local 113 laborer, WRTP graduate and mother of two, said tearing up.
Despite national calls from Republicans to tighten unemployment insurance distribution, including Wisconsin s reinstatement of the job searching requirement for unemployment benefit recipients, Walsh rejected the idea that the enhanced payments are to blame for the country s labor shortage. Instead, he pointed to coronavirus concerns and issues around wages and child care.
Wisconsin Examiner
Walsh visits building trades and manufacturing trainees, hears from advocates for citizenship for undocumented residents
U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, right, shakes hands with workers on the job site of a Milwaukee Water Works project to replace aging water pipe. Walsh was in Milwaukee on Wednesday to promote the Biden administration s American Jobs Plan and American Family Plan legislative packages. (Erik Gunn | Wisconsin Examiner)
U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh toured Milwaukee Wednesday in a sales pitch for the Biden administrationâs infrastructure package, including conversations and photo ops to make the case for the legislation.
Along the way, Walsh got a reminder from immigrant rights activists of the promises that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have made to support immigrants after four years of anti-immigrant policies under former President Donald Trump.