Latest news with #InternationalUnionofPaintersandAlliedTrades
Newsweek
18-06-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
The Senate Must Reject Job-Killing Cuts. Union Jobs Are on the Line
As the general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), I represent 140,000 proud workers across the finishing trades. Our vital work includes our country's industrial, commercial, and decorative painters. Because we spend our careers ensuring that our vital infrastructure works well and looks good, we know a thing or two about making things beautiful. President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill is anything but. Jimmy Williams, Jr., president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), speaks onstage during the Nationwide May Day Strong Rally on May 1, 2025, in Philadelphia, Pa. Jimmy Williams, Jr., president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), speaks onstage during the Nationwide May Day Strong Rally on May 1, 2025, in Philadelphia, May Day Strong Right now, Republican senators are working overtime to pass Trump's budget bill by July 4. As it stands, this bill is an outright attack on every family in this country. It would slash critical funding for programs like Medicaid and SNAP, ripping health care away from millions of people, and denying food assistance to millions of children and families in need—all to hand massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. And if that's not enough, the bill also attacks clean energy tax credits, which would jeopardize hundreds of thousands of union jobs across the country and push the American energy sector into crisis. Since 2022, America has seen a manufacturing and construction boom. Federal energy tax credits and investments are driving energy innovation, bringing new sources of affordable and domestically-produced electricity online, and allowing cities and states to upgrade dilapidated schools—all good things on their own—but these credits and investments also create thousands of good, family-sustaining jobs for members of unions like mine. Yet, ever since that first dollar was invested, there are politicians who have done everything they can to get those investments reversed. Take it from someone who's worked with the tools: workers want reliable jobs that allow them to take care of their families, invest in their future, and come home safely after the workday. Whether the project they're on is "green" or not matters a lot less than if it's safe and reliable. Any bill that halts billions of dollars of infrastructure and energy investments is a direct threat to the futures and livelihoods of workers across the country. Anyone who is willing to wake up in the morning and put in a hard day's work deserves to know that their job is secure, that they'll earn enough money to support their family, and that their workplace is safe. I've spent almost 30 years in the IUPAT, fighting for the promise that all my union brothers and sisters will be able to work a stable job that pays them what they're due. That security is now threatened because some members of Congress are fighting to take away the funding and the incentives to create good jobs in the energy sector. This administration constantly talks about supporting workers and being independent from China, yet this bill does the exact opposite. It pulls billions of dollars of investment out of the American economy, takes jobs away from hundreds of thousands of American workers, and ensures that we will continue to lag behind China in technological advancements. As the Senate decides whether to push through the job-killing cuts that some House members already regret voting for, there are some easy ways they can protect American energy jobs and lower bills. First, Congress must revise the bill's unrealistic timelines for project development. Currently, the bill phases out tax credits for wind and solar projects almost immediately. In practice, this functionally ends the credit for all projects except those that are near completion at this current moment. Similarly, Congress should fix the overly strict "foreign entity of concern" limits on where essential project components must be manufactured. This may make for a good talking point, but as written, the limits only pay lip service to national security and would do nothing to move manufacturing jobs onshore. Now is the moment for our elected officials to stand up for our workers, our families, and our energy future. Working-class Americans want our leaders to let commonsense prevail against the partisan talking points and the political gamesmanship that has gripped Washington for far too long. And one way to do that is to pass a budget that continues to support the creation of good-paying union jobs in our hometowns. Regardless of what happens with the budget fight this summer, it's clear that cities and states must take up the mantle and continue to go big on clean energy and union job creation. We will always have the power to invest in clean energy—and workers across the country are ready to continue building this critical new infrastructure. Long after this fight is over, unions like ours will continue to build this country—and fight for workers, their families, and their futures. Jimmy Williams, Jr. is a fourth-generation glazier, the general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), and the proud father of three sons. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Individuals appointed to Area 8 Workforce Development Board
Apr. 28—WAPAKONETA — The Auglaize County commissioners appointed eight people to the Area 8 Workforce Development Board in compliance with state mandates. Under the guidelines of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, each workforce development board is required to have representatives from four categories: business, workforce, education and training, and government/economic development. Its representatives include labor representatives Brad Wendel, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters union, and Gary McPheron, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades; registered apprenticeship representative Julie Marchal, Midwest Electric; Aspire provider Tara Shepard, Apollo Career Center; higher education representative Tammy Eilerman, Wright State University-Lake Campus; economic/community development member Josh Bloomfield, Wapakoneta Area Economic Development Council; Wagner-Peyer representative Nathan Strange, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services; vocational rehabilitation member Jodi Knouff, Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities; and community-based organization Justin Blumhorst, Capabilities Charitable Funds. Featured Local Savings
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
AOC, Sanders erase Biden as progressive movement moves on
DENVER, Colo. — Now we know what they really thought. On Friday afternoon, at the biggest rally of his political career, Sen. Bernie Sanders encouraged some 32,000 people here to organize against 'oligarchy,' dismantle the private campaign finance system, and maybe run for office themselves. He never ran as a Democrat — and they wouldn't need to, either. The party hadn't earned it. 'For the last 30 or 40 years, Democrats have turned their backs on the working class of this country,' said Sanders. The Vermont independent shared the stage with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called for 'a Democratic Party that fights harder for us.' They were introduced by Jimmy Williams, the president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, who denounced Democrats for not raising the minimum wage or expanding Social Security when they held the House, Senate, and White House. 'For the Democratic Party to ever win back the majority, they have to represent the working class and not the corporate class,' said Williams. The blunt talk barely made ripples in Washington, where Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are often covered as problems for their party. But as they reboot their movement, progressives who traded loyalty to Joe Biden for big policy victories — from the Green New Deal to clemency for Leonard Peltier — are breaking ranks with the Democratic Party and its feeble brand. Sanders is stepping up efforts to recruit Democratic and independent candidates, and Ocasio-Cortez is taking a larger role in responding to the Trump administration. And unencumbered from their 2024 task — to make a progressive case for Biden, and then, for Kamala Harris — they are no longer selling his presidency as a success. When he secured the 2020 Democratic nomination, Biden made a deal with Sanders and other progressives, giving them a role in drafting the party platform and incorporating their ideas into his campaign and administration. To progressives' surprise, he often responded to their direct actions; climate activists protested with Ocasio-Cortez for a New Deal-style 'climate conservation corps,' and he created one by executive order. 'When it comes to domestic policy, President Biden probably would go down as one of the most effective presidents that centered the working class,' Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times in January. But Biden's support for Israel's war in Gaza smothered progressives' good will. In Denver, Sanders mentioned the former president just once by name, when he denounced Trump for maintaining 'the horrific Biden policy of giving more money to Netanyahu to destroy the Palestinian people.' Now Biden, who's made just two public appearances since leaving Washington, is a non-factor in his party. His achievements, including trillions of dollars of infrastructure, health care and climate spending, are being pulled down by his successor. Democrats rarely talk about Biden's role in those programs as they fight (and sue) to save them. The erasure started before Biden left office, with Sanders crediting Trump's victory to 'Democratic leadership' that defended the 'status quo' and lost working class and other progressives had taken another tone during the campaign, defending Biden and his record. (So had Williams: IAPUT endorsed Biden, then Harris, in the 2024 election, and he praised 'Union Joe' as the best president for labor in generations.) 'We came out of that economic downturn a lot faster than anyone dream we would have, and you can thank President Biden for that,' Sanders told a crowd in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on June 28 — the day after the disastrous CNN debate with Trump that unraveled Biden's campaign and damaged Democrats' argument that voters could overlook his age. 'Biden's policies, by and large, are for the working class of this country, and we've got to appreciate that.' In conversations on Monday, progressive strategists said that there was no upside to mentioning Biden at all, even when defending programs he funded or created. In Denver, Ocasio-Cortez spoke more positively of the Democrats than Sanders did, praising the state's senators and Democratic members of Congress by name for opposing the GOP's spending packages. 'I want you to look at every level of office around you, and support Democrats who actually fight, because those are the ones that can win against Republicans,' she said. Why does it matter if Democrats and progressives wrap up Biden's presidency into a story of Democratic failure? It explains the Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez project, which in part is about disentangling their politics from a toxic brand and turning it into an anti-establishment cause. 'Trump basically said the system is broken, and I'm going to fix it,' Sanders told me before his 'Fight Oligarchy' tour began last month. 'Democrats more or less said: You know, the status quo is not perfect, but we're gonna tinker with it around the edges.' The senator's new electoral project is recruiting progressives to run against Republicans and beat them, whether they want to run as Democrats or independents. 'There are a whole lot of people, who voted Republican, who are not crazy about the Republican Party,' Sanders told me in Greeley. 'Working-class Republicans don't want tax breaks for billionaires and cuts to veterans programs.' In the story he's telling, those voters did not have an ally in the White House who did the right thing for four years; neither party has answered those voters' concerns. But Republicans have not forgotten about Biden. During his address to Congress last month, Trump mentioned Biden, 'the worst president in American history,' 14 times. In remarks to reporters, the president frequently blames Bidens for problems he didn't leave him, like a stock market correction. The story Trump and the GOP are telling is that their party is delivering for the working class, rescuing it from the costs and failures inflicted by their last president and the Democratic Party. Defeated parties have been here before. George W. Bush vanished from Republican politics after leaving the presidency in 2009; apart from a few 'Miss Me Yet?' memes and Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama presidency's anti-terrorism strategy, that team played no role in the Tea Party-era GOP rebrand. Republicans built space to attack their former president's legacy, with conservative candidates taking down incumbents who had supported Bush's Wall Street bailout. The party won the presidency again with Trump, who has mocked Bush as a failure. Parties have also swung hard in the other direction. In 2021, when Trump was beaten but able to run again, his party retconned his presidency into a success. They were boom years, with no new foreign wars, undermined only by a deranged anti-Trump deep state and the COVID-19 pandemic. The few Republicans who criticized Trump over his handling of that pandemic, like Florida's Ron DeSantis, lost to him and endorsed him. This was never going to happen for Biden, who left office when voters held a far darker view of the economy than they did in 2020. But it's significant that the progressives are skipping right past it. Democrats' argument about how they can win back working class voters might start with Biden, who implemented some big progressive ideas and watched more of those voters walk away. As Biden left office, The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel called him a 'remarkably consequential one-term president' who 'orchestrated the best recovery in the industrial world' and 'consolidated the break with the failed market fundamentalism of the conservative era that Trump began.' It's the sort of analysis many progressives had of Biden — Gaza record aside — until the results came in from Pennsylvania on Election Night. In an interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News, Sanders said that Biden 'should have done much better' to control the U.S.-Mexico border, and that 'when the Democrats had control of the Senate, they did virtually nothing for working people.' The best story on Biden's first attempts to get back into the conversation and defend his legacy is this NBC News three-hander, which covers a meeting between Biden and the new DNC chair (inconclusive) and the ex-president's brooding about how the party lost even after forcing him to give up the nomination. In Foreign Affairs, former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman takes a harsh view of 'Bidenomics.'
