Local 19 hosts Su, Adeyemo at union hall

SMART Local 19 hosted United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo and Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su in Philadelphia in July. Local officers gave the agency leaders a tour of the union hall and JATC, discussing how a pro-worker economic agenda is creating good-paying, union clean-energy jobs.

Adeyemo and Su have been key allies for SMART members across the U.S., helping implement policies and funding from laws passed by the Biden-Harris administration in a way that puts union workers on jobsites from coast to coast. One of the recent examples: the Treasury Department’s final rules on the Inflation Reduction Act’s prevailing wage and registered apprenticeship requirements, which will help create work for SMART members on clean energy jobs.

“Investments in clean energy projects announced since the passage of the [Inflation Reduction Act] in 2022 are projected to create more than 270,000 jobs, and studies estimate that more than 1.5 million additional jobs will be created over the next decade,” the department said in a press release.

Union sheet metal workers will play a crucial role on those projects in cities like Philadelphia, where it is vital that schools, hospitals and other new and existing buildings are green and energy efficient.

Such jobs demonstrate concretely that with strong labor standards in federal laws — and strong, pro-labor officials in positions of power — SMART members and their families benefit, said SMART General President Michael Coleman.

“There are laws that say good things to union members, and there are laws that do good things for union members,” he explained. “With the U.S. Treasury Department’s final rule on labor standards for Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, there is no doubt that the IRA is a law that concretely benefits SMART sheet metal workers.”