A crowd of several hundred supporters packed the SMART Sheet Metal Local 36 union hall in St. Louis to greet Secretary Hillary Clinton who discussed the economic issues facing America’s working families.
She emphasized an economic plan that would raise the minimum wage, use tax credits to attempt to lure U.S. businesses back to American soil and create a National Infrastructure Bank to help finance an overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure.
Her tax incentive proposal would use tax rebates to make it cheaper to hire American workers and utilize American plants as opposed to facilities and overseas workers while her infrastructure plans include upgrades to the nation’s railroads and an overhaul of America’s publicly owned buildings that would include energy efficiency retrofits. This type of retrofit work translates to tens of thousands of SMART sheet metal jobs and millions of new man hours in a rapidly emerging sector of the sheet metal and HVAC industries.
SMART Sheet Metal Local 36 was picked as a campaign stop not just due to the local’s high profile within the St Louis community but also due to new training facility which personifies a 21st century approach to training the workforce of tomorrow. The LEED-certified facility, that opened in 2011, underscores a commitment to construction excellence, energy conservation and the environment. It serves as a learning laboratory with a constantly updated curriculum on the latest technologies to produce the most knowledgeable, efficient and safe workforce.
This visit comes on the heels of an earlier visit from Senator Bernie sanders who stopped at the SMART 2015 BA Conference in Washington, DC in late July. SMART has not yet made an endorsement decision.
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