Joe Biden, the IAM’s endorsed candidate for president, has laid out a strong and comprehensive plan to bring back hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs to the United States by building, investing and innovating in America.
IAM members voted to endorse Biden in March after a first-of-its-kind membership vote for the union’s endorsement. In multiple surveys, IAM members indicated that stopping the outsourcing of U.S. jobs and strengthening the nation’s industrial base should be top priorities of the next administration.
“Vice President Biden’s well-thought out, comprehensive manufacturing initiative will bring supply chains and U.S. jobs back home—something the current administration promised but never delivered,” said IAM International President Robert Martinez Jr. “We agree with Joe Biden that giving up on manufacturing means giving up on working people. It means that we would further lose our capability to produce critical supplies domestically, something we can’t afford during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We need a president who will ensure a key role for America’s labor unions and workers beset by millions of layoffs caused by the current pandemic,” said Martinez. “We need a president who is about action, not talk, and a president who will be a friend of U.S. workers and their unions in the White House.”
Biden’s plan will restore U.S. manufacturing by:
– Giving unions a seat at the table and restoring the right of workers to join a union and negotiate better pay and benefits for themselves and their families.
– Protecting the right of workers to form unions and engage in collective bargaining—rights that have been destroyed by the Trump NLRB.
– Putting real teeth in Buy American requirements by closing loopholes and strengthening requirements that ensure that goods are actually made here at home.
– Eliminating GOP tax rules that give incentives to companies to outsource U.S. jobs.
– Supporting much-needed union apprenticeship and training programs to train workers for tomorrow’s manufacturing needs.
– Providing unions with the opportunity to participate in the innovation that will help us a build a sustainable future.