The Monroe News
The Monroe/Lenawee County AFL-CIO Central Labor Council has announced the results of its biennial elections for officers, which include a new president.
The biennial elections for executive board members took place Feb. 8. Jason Matthews is the newly elected president.
He is a 20-year member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 8, with his last eight years running work at Fermi II Nuclear Power Plant.
He lives in Monroe with his wife, Greta, and four children.
Matthew is a past Chair Monroe/Lenawee County AFL-CIO Central Labor Council Labor Day Parade and Barbecue Festival. He is also Visionary/Chair/Organizer of the “Cultivate Community” Clean it, fix it, paint it, plant it, program.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he wished that President Biden hadn’t canceled the Keystone XL pipeline project on his first day in office and instead paired it with an announcement about job creation, accordi
Questions for Marty Walsh
President Biden’s pick for Labor Secretary, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh will get his first Senate hearing on Thursday. Walsh is a former union head himself, having been president of Laborers International Union of North America Local 223. He remained the local’s president even while simultaneously serving as a Massachusetts state representative, seeing no ethical problem in using the position to push for pro-union policies and generous deals in state projects.
Liberals have been busy lately trying to soften the impression that Walsh is a hardcore labor man.
Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi characterizes Walsh as “the peacemaker who gets to yes.” This would be the same guy who, according to Vennochi’s own paper, was recorded on a 2012 wiretap telling a company that it would have difficulty getting permits approved for a Boston high-rise project but could get them if they agreed to only use union labor at another project. At a later meeting, Wal
THOMAS CATENACCI CONTRIBUTOR Major trade unions including North America’s Building Trades Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which en
By Ross Pearson - WBGZ Radio
U.S. Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) have introduced a bi-partisan infrastructure bill in congress.
The goal behind H.R. 2541, the Building United States Infrastructure and Leveraging Development (BUILD) Act, is to encourage road, bridge, rail and freight improvements through the cooperation of public-private partnerships at the state and local levels.
Funding would come through Private Activity Bonds, which allow state or local governments to issue tax-exempt debt with the approval of the U.S. Department of Transportation for infrastructure improvements.
PAB’s are currently capped at $15 billion. The BUILD Act would raise that cap to $30 billion, doubling the amount of infrastructure work that could be allocated from the DOT. The American Society of Civil Engineers, Laborers International Union of North America, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the US Chamber of Commerce