New America hosted the panel on Oct. 24, 2022 to discuss the importance of using recent federal investments to create good jobs. JMA’s National Director, Miranda Nelson, was on the panel. Watch it below.
On June 14, 2022, Jobs to Move America partnered with the National League of Cities to host a webinar on how elected and agency officials around the country can create good jobs for their residents using local and targeted hiring policies.
The call covered the history of local and targeted hiring programs, what has changed for cities and states under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and opportunities for further federal action, like Jobs to Move America’s campaign to update the Office of Management and Budget’s Uniform Guidance and end the federal ban on local hire.
The call also featured presentations from elected officials, agency leaders, and community organizations that have successfully implemented local and targeted hiring provisions in their cities, including how tools like project labor agreements and community benefits agreements can be used to create equitable access to infrastructure jobs.
Speakers Michael Lawliss, Senior National Policy Coordinator, Jobs to Move America
Miguel Cabral, Executive Officer, Diversity and Economic Opportunity, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority
Janice Zahn, Assistant Director of Engineering and Construction, Port of Seattle
Deka Dancil, President, Urban Jobs Task Force (Syracuse, NY)
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), was signed into law on November 15, 2021. This federal legislation will bring $1.2 trillion to states and cities over the next 5 years to repair and build roads and bridges, public transportation, the broadband network, and water infrastructure, among many other critical infrastructure projects. Each state will receive billions of dollars in funding over the next 5 years through mandatory and competitive grants, loans, and bonds.
These funding opportunities offer a once in a generation opportunity to address community priorities for developing, strengthening, and building resilient infrastructure for the 21st century. At the same time, infrastructure dollars allocated to states and local communities may also be used to promote economic opportunity by creating good jobs. A number of obstacles—some rooted in history and others just the result of everyday struggles for workers—have often stood between local communities and the benefits of public infrastructure investment. The policies and programs described in this document are intended to help reconnect many workers to the good career jobs that infrastructure projects provide.
This guide provides an overview of local and targeted hiring policies, answers key questions for states and cities looking to implement these policies, and offers success stories from around the country.
Please also review this Q&A on hiring preferences from the USDOT, which we encourage you to use alongside this guide in meetings with contracting agencies. This document explains in detail the types of hiring preferences that can be used under the BIL.It also explicitly states that DOT is prioritizing projects that use local and other economic hiring in their discretionary grant applications. W
Additionally, the USDOT provides background resources as well as state specific fact sheets describing how each state may benefit from federal infrastructure dollars. These are important resources providing information on the amount of federal infrastructure money each state will receive over the next 5 years through formula funding, as well as discretionary grants states and cities can apply for.
If you have questions while preparing for a meeting with state officials, please contact one of the organizations that sponsored this guide (contact info is on the last page of the guide).
This report from Jobs to Move America demonstrates that the lifting of a Reagan-era regulation prohibiting cities and states from using local hire policies in federally-funded construction projects would create stronger local economies, advance racial equity, and increase the ways that cities and states can create good jobs while building and repairing infrastructure.
A decades-old ban on local hire forbids cities and states from using local hire policies to specify a geographic preference for job creation in any public procurement funded with federal dollars.
The first stride toward eliminating this prohibition came under the Obama administration through the Local Labor Hiring Pilot project. “JMA is the first organization to analyze data from the Obama-era pilot project and found that using local hire does not adversely impact the number of bidders or bid price, contrary to the original justification for prohibiting local hire,” said Madeline Janis, JMA’s executive director.
The report also found that the pilot revealed extensive societal and economic benefits of local hire in creating jobs for local residents, especially for marginalized workers.
A national coalition of over 160 elected officials, community groups, and academics have joined Jobs to Move America in signing a letter calling on the Biden administration to swiftly remove the prohibition on local hire.
