Statement from Jeff Vockrodt, Executive Director of Climate Jobs NY on President Biden’s American Jobs Plan

“I’m a union guy," President Biden said in introducing his American Jobs plan. "I support unions. Unions built the middle class. It’s about time they start to get a piece of the action."

We applaud the Biden administration’s infrastructure plan, which maps out an economic recovery that prioritizes climate action and includes some of the strongest pro-worker language we’ve seen in decades. The plan lays out a sweeping set of investments in the American economy and the American people by creating good union jobs repairing our nation's infrastructure and building an equitable, green new economy. It includes directives to empower workers and create good jobs with labor standards. 

The plan calls for investing in communities most impacted by climate change and inequality and creating new job training programs, all while repairing our highways and bridges, expanding public transit systems, clean-energy production and electric-vehicle infrastructure, and retrofitting schools and other public facilities. 

We look forward to working with our partners to realize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to build back better. 

Climate Jobs New York (CJNY) is a growing coalition of labor unions representing 2.6 million working men and women at the center of New York’s economy. We are united around a shared goal of combating climate change while reversing income inequality. CJNY’s mission is to advocate for a clean energy economy at the scale climate science demands, create good union jobs, and support more equitable communities and a more resilient New York.