One of our most significant projects of the year is a new, union-wide campaign aimed at rebuilding our rapidly crumbling infrastructure.
This effort is important both because infrastructure upgrades will make our communities safer and because significant investment will create good, union jobs now and into the future.
We’re taking a broad, ambitious view that includes rebuilding not only our physical infrastructure – like roads, bridges, ports and waterways – but also the social infrastructure of our schools, communications networks and public health services.
In short, this initiative will touch every corner of our union.
Second survey
There are a number of facets to this campaign to keep on your radars.
We’re now in the process of reaching out to each of the USW locals so that they can start identifying how their workplaces intersect with infrastructure.
Building on the success of the Your Union, Your Voice survey we circulated last year, we’re also launching a second union-wide survey so that we can get direct member feedback on all of these issues.
You can learn more and access the survey at www.uswvoices.org.
It’s important that we have as many specific examples and as many member voices as possible as we work to ensure our nations’ resources are deployed strategically, so please amplify this effort in any way you can.
Good policies key
We’ll also need to educate lawmakers and the general public so that these investments come soon and are made in a way that best supports our jobs and communities.
This will mean pushing for good policies that ensure our tax dollars both support immediate construction projects and create long-term economic resiliency, using North American-made materials and building up our long-neglected domestic supply chains.
Done properly, robust infrastructure investments will create demand for domestically made materials like steel, glass, cement, rubber, packaging and more. Highly-skilled USW members who keep our schools, hospitals, utilities, telecommunication networks and other essential services running will also benefit as we create opportunities for stable, quality, service-oriented jobs.