white house Archives - SMART Union

SMART members and leaders from across the country met with the Biden-Harris administration on Wednesday, June 12 — bringing the voice of members and working-class families directly to the White House.

“This doesn’t just happen in any administration,” said SMART Local 7 (Lansing, Mich.) Organizer John Coleman.

The SMART Army delegation included members of Locals 85 (Georgia); 7, 80 and 292 (Michigan); 24 and 33 (Ohio); 26 and 88 (Nevada); 12, 19 and 44 (Pennsylvania); and 18 and 565 (Wisconsin). Joined by staff from the SMART Governmental Affairs Department, members met with Director of the Office of Public Engagement Steve Benjamin, United States Department of Labor Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman, White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi and Betony Jones, director of the Office of Clean Energy Jobs, among others.

Local leadership shared updates on clean energy projects — staffed by SMART members — that are driving our nation’s transition to a sustainable future, as well as ways to partner with the administration and create jobs for union workers moving forward. The roundtable discussions also detailed how the federal government’s investment in American manufacturing and green energy is creating union jobs, plus actions taken to raise wages for construction workers and protect SMART members’ rights at work.

The White House released a back-to-school fact sheet ahead of the new school year, highlighting SMART, SMACNA and NEMI’s collaboration with the White House on improving ventilation in schools. This fact sheet was circulated to school districts across the country and notes that SMART, SMACNA and NEMI are the experts that schools should use for indoor air quality, HVAC, ventilation and energy efficiency improvements and upgrades.

In conjunction, NEMI launched a new website that can facilitate connecting buildings that want to make ventilation and energy efficiency improvements to skilled, trained and certified workers and contractors — SMART and SMACNA members. Ideally this will be a useful resource for schools and other buildings as they try to take advantage of federal funding available for these efforts. If a building owner fills out a form on the NEMI website and requests assistance, they will receive a response within 48 hours to help them identify steps they can take to improve ventilation in their buildings.

SMART hopes these resources will help building owners and/or state and local elected officials access billions of dollars in federal funding approved by the Biden administration to improve ventilation and energy efficiency of buildings.