ICYMI: Acting Secretary Su visits diverse communities, spotlights Biden-Harris administration investments in good jobs, support for unions

WASHINGTON – As part of the most pro-worker, pro-union administration in history, Acting Secretary Su is traveling the country to engage with workers, visiting Oregon and Mississippi over the past two weeks. During the visits, she spoke with a diverse group of workers and community leaders about the Biden-Harris administration’s ongoing commitment to creating opportunities for all workers and building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up.

The Biden-Harris administration is empowering workers and fighting to ensure that they receive the highest protections they are guaranteed under federal law. While visiting Mississippi, Acting Secretary Su met immigrant workers at a roundtable in Jackson with the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, followed by a roundtable with community and labor leaders in Jackson. 

Acting Secretary Su then traveled to Greenville to meet with representatives from the Mississippi Worker Center for Human Rights and non-union workers from various industries in the Mississippi Delta.

On Feb. 22, 2024, Acting Secretary Su traveled to Oregon, where she highlighted workforce development programs and partnerships to support care workers with Congresswoman Val Hoyle. The next day, she toured the Willow Creek Center Mechatronics Lab at Portland Community College with Representative Suzanne Bonamici. The trip concluded with a tour of the National Electrical Contractors Association-International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Training Center and a roundtable discussion on how the Biden-Harris administration’s Investing in America agenda is strengthening the clean infrastructure economy, including by creating family-sustaining jobs for women and people of color in the construction industry.

Between her trips to Oregon and Mississippi, Acting Secretary Su also announced nearly $200 million in grants to support public-private partnerships that expand, diversify and strengthen Registered Apprenticeships. These grants will help strengthen the nation’s workforce development infrastructure and connect people from all communities to good jobs created by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. Additionally, Acting Secretary Su took some time to speak with The Hollywood Reporter about the ways this administration is the most pro-union in history, as well as the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to having worker voices at the table when it comes to the future of work and AI.

Media highlights from the Acting Secretary’s travels include: 

• WAPT: Acting labor secretary tours Mississippi talking about jobs and wages (Feb. 14, 2024) 

“Su was in Jackson at the Smith-Robertson Museum, speaking before a panel about jobs and wages in Mississippi. The Biden Administration appointee said it is a fact-finding tour about the status of the country.

‘I think the question is, what makes a good job? And the question is where someone can make enough to not only just get by, but to thrive, to save for their future,’ Su said.

Her tour took her from Jackson and Greenville for meetings with workers and their representatives to hear about their challenges and discuss the work of the Biden-Harris administration to reach every community and keep workers safe.”

• Clarion Ledger: Acting U.S. Labor Secretary pledges to enforce federal labor laws in Mississippi (Feb. 15, 2024) 

“On Wednesday, Su made no apologies for supporting worker rights including the right to collective bargaining.

“‘When workers do well, everybody does better,’ she said.

“The acting secretary said that right-to-work laws, which serve to limit union organizing, ‘are rooted in racism,’ and that states having those laws (including Mississippi) are proven to have ‘the lowest wages, the highest number of fatalities and the fewest benefits.’”

• Fox 56 WOLF: Dept. of Labor Announces Apprenticeship Funding (Feb. 22 2024)

“The $200 million the Department of Labor is putting into apprenticeships is about making sure that we have the workforce that is needed to do everything and that they’re coming from all communities across America so everybody sees themselves in these good jobs that are being created,” says Acting Secretary Julie Su.”

• Portland Tribune: Federal labor official lauds Oregon effort to diversify workforce (Feb. 26, 2024) 

“Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su says America's workforce has to look more like all Americans to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, reinvest in domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and make the transition to carbon-free energy.

“She spoke after touring the NECA-IBEW Electrical Training Center in Northeast Portland, speaking with some of those in pre-apprenticeship programs, and listening to organizations such as Oregon Tradeswomen and Constructing Hope that seek to attract people to jobs where they have historically been underrepresented. Constructing Hope, based in Portland, aims at helping people newly released from jails and prisons enter the workforce.”

• 16 KMTR: Promoting apprenticeships: Rep. Val Hoyle & Acting Sec. of Labor meet w/ local apprentices (Feb. 22, 2024) 

“The Biden Administration announced a $200 million dollar grant to expand registered apprenticeships on Wednesday, February 21, 2024…

“‘Since President Biden has come into office, we have created a historic number of jobs across the country," the Acting Secretary explained. "And people often ask, are we going to have the workers to fill these jobs?’”

• The Hollywood Reporter: How Biden’s Labor Chief Is Thinking About AI’s Threat to Hollywood Workers (Feb. 24, 2024)

“I think unions are the backbone of Hollywood, just like they’re the backbone of the American middle class. The president says all the time that the middle class built America and unions built the middle class. We saw that through SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild, and also numerous other unions who went to the bargaining table and took to the streets in order to demand their fair share. I think it is also not an accident or a coincidence that those things happened at the same time that we have the most pro-worker, pro-union president in history in office, who’s also been very clear that we can’t build the economy that we want if we don’t do right by working people. We can’t make America better, stronger, we can’t recover from the crises of the last few years if we don’t center the wellbeing of working people.”