WHEREAS:

AFSCME members serve on the front lines designing, improving, operating and maintaining our nation’s roads, bridges, water and wastewater facilities, transit systems and ports; and

WHEREAS:

States and localities look to the federal government to provide much-needed capital investments in the nation’s infrastructure, which has come to fruition with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which AFSCME helped to secure; and

WHEREAS:

States are allocated money from the IIJA to help with things like highway improvement, public transportation, bridge replacement, vehicle charging stations and water infrastructure while the public sector and private industry transition to new electric and alternative fuels; and

WHEREAS:

Several programs authorized by the IIJA are designed to provide the funds necessary to improve infrastructure that has been largely ignored, such as urban highways displacing marginalized communities, bridges that have been left to deteriorate and collapse, and lead pipes that contaminate drinking water to the detriment of all Americans; and

WHEREAS:

The historic and bipartisan IIJA invests hundreds of billions of dollars in projects to correct these issues and ensure a new path moving forward with expanded broadband internet, electric vehicle charging networks and the transition to electric transit fleets, all of which can secure and create strong union jobs and more work in many industries for years to come.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

AFSCME applauds the passage of the IIJA, which we helped to secure, and supports its full implementation across the country in rural and urban communities alike in order to rebuild the American economy and improve the lives of all Americans, now and for generations to come; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

AFSCME will champion the interests of members that design, improve, build, operate and maintain the nation’s infrastructure, and ensure that workforce needs such as safety, training and career development are included so that infrastructure workers have a pathway to the middle class; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

AFSCME will prioritize the needs of members and other workers most at risk of displacement by the green energy transition through advocacy at the local, state and federal level; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:

AFSCME supports infrastructure investments that promote new union jobs and maintain the strong ones we have today, equity, public ownership and operation, and broadly shared prosperity.

SUBMITTED BY:
Howard Thompson, President
Linda Vuono, Secretary
AFSCME Council 13
Pennsylvania