The USW has strengthened the nation and its economy for decades and is in the process of doing it again through the work of its members, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told the union’s convention delegates on Wednesday.
“USW steel built our nation, and USW organizing built our middle class,” Harris said. “You created prosperity and opportunity.”
Thanks to a host of pro-worker initiatives the Biden administration championed in Washington over the past 18 months, the USW is poised to lead the way again in rebuilding the nation’s manufacturing sector and empowering more workers through organizing.
“This is the beginning of a new era in the American labor movement,” she said. “Led by you – the USW is charting that new era.”
Among the administration’s victories, Harris said, were the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law passed last fall, a new law providing $53 billion for the production of semiconductor chips in the United States, measures to cut health care and drug costs, and tax cuts that reduced child poverty by 40 percent in less than two years.
The infrastructure bill alone has already begun to create millions of new jobs, and helped to reduce unemployment to its lowest level in 50 years, she said.
“Other people promised to do it,” Harris said of the administration’s successful effort to secure 10 years of infrastructure funding. “We did it.”
That means more work for USW members who make steel, aluminum, cement, rubber, optical fiber, auto parts and countless other industries. And, with the Inflation Reduction Act under consideration in Congress, the White House is aiming to force huge corporations to finally pay their fair share in taxes and fund new initiatives to help working families.
“These investments will create good union jobs,” Harris said. “It’s clear that our nation is making progress.”
Still, more work needs to be done to help struggling Americans, she said, like passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to make it easier for workers to join unions and crack down on employers who try to silence them.
Doing that will bolster the USW’s new organizing initiatives and provide a path to the middle class for millions of American workers, Harris said.
“We are guided by the spirit of this great labor union,” she said. “Our administration will be with you every step of the way.”
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