Over the next decade, $2 Trillion in new Infrastructure funding is coming into our communities. New federal guidance means that states and local communities will now be allowed to attach enforceable policies to these federally-funded projects to require good paying jobs, promote equity hiring, sustainable contracting and protect worker rights to organize. Provisions such as local and community hiring, community benefits agreements and project labor agreements that were barred from some federal funding are now allowable. These community job quality policies can now be attached at the city, state, department or project level through enabling legislation — opening up many new organizing opportunities for worker and community power building. See this memo from the Local Opportunities Coalition and Jobs to Move America for more on which provisions are now allowed by this new guidance:
Jobs to Move America and Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations hosted a webinar on empowering states and localities after the OMB’s changes to the Uniform Guidance. See the presentation from the event below.
Jobs to Move America and Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations hosted a webinar on how to use the recent changes to the OMB’s Uniform Guidance to make federal funds work for communities and workers. Watch it below.
The Local Opportunities Coalition, alongside supporting partner organizations, constitute 148 organizations from across the country who submitted comments regarding proposed updates to federal grant rules—known as the Uniform Guidance—that dictate how states and localities can spend federal money.
Since the 1980s, the OMB’s Uniform Guidance has made it difficult for states and localities to attach labor and equity standards to federally-funded contracting. These organizations represent a broad range of stakeholders from across the country unified in ensuring the full benefits of federal dollars for local communities and workers.
