Despite Slim Majority, Democrats Notched Major Achievements for Workers and Their Families

Leslie is joined by Kim Miller, who serves as an Assistant to USW International President Tom Conway. She primarily works on political and legislative projects, including overseeing much of the union’s member-to-member outreach around the 2022 midterm elections.

The two discuss how Democrats, despite currently having just a slim majority in both houses of Congress, have worked with President Biden to notch major achievements in favor of workers and their families.

While some don’t garner as much attention in the headlines as they deserve, many of these accomplishments are truly historic.
- This includes a once-in-a-generation win on infrastructure, investing $1.2 trillion in our roads, bridges, ports and more.
Politicians have been saying for years that they had an infrastructure plan, but this administration and this Congress actually delivered.
- In addition to transportation infrastructure, this includes $55 billion to deliver clean drinking water to millions of Americans.
- And a further $65 billion to help ensure every American has access to reliable high-speed internet.
- This not only will make our communities safer, it will create and sustain good, union jobs and help us maintain our economic competitiveness.
- USW members up and down the supply chain are providing and will continue to provide the goods and services needed to make this infrastructure upgrade a reality.

Congressional democrats were also finally able to achieve a major victory on behalf of 1.2 million workers whose retirements were in jeopardy because of troubled multi-employer pension plans.
- These workers stood to lose everything as a result of a convergence of corporate greed, unfair trade, deregulation and the financial crisis.
- American Rescue Plan was a significant achievement in its own right, but one of the lesser-known, but hugely important things it did was shore up multi-employer pension plans so these workers could retire in dignity.
- Even though there wasn’t a single Republican who voted for this plan, years of worker-led advocacy and Democratic action mean that more than a million families’ future is more secure.

Democrats also delivered another sweeping victory for ordinary Americans this summer with the Inflation Reduction Act.
- Among its many provisions, it will lower prescription drug prices by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices for seniors and instituting inflation caps for Medicare prescription drugs and improvements to prescription benefits. The law also prevents a premium spike for Affordable Care Act enrollees.
- It will also build out our nation’s capacity for solar, wind and other sources of renewable energy, which will create good, domestic manufacturing jobs and help break our dangerous dependence on foreign producers to meet our needs.
- At the same time, providing incentives for a wide variety of technologies like carbon capture, direct air capture, and nuclear power will help ensure that our steel and other critical industries remain among the cleanest in the world.

Not all of the work has been legislative.
- Instituting a new pro-worker direction at the National Labor Relations Board means that workers have real advocates in an agency that is supposed to be protecting their rights.
One of Biden’s first actions was to remove pro-corporate, anti-worker Peter Robb as NLRB general counsel.
The Senate also confirmed two more board members that Biden nominated who are re-balancing the way the board works toward workers’ rights.
- Just as importantly, Biden nominated a union member to run the Department of Labor and put workers and their advocates in key positions overseeing safety.
- Biden issued executive orders in support of American manufacturing, including establishing the new Made in America office to review any request to bypass the rules and maximize domestically-manufactured components for federal projects.
- And a new inter-agency task force on worker organizing and empowerment is harnessing the power of all government agencies to advance workers’ rights.

In order to keep up this momentum, working people will need to vote in the midterm elections. Republicans made it clear that they stand against many pro-worker initiatives and intend to tip the balance back to pro-corporate interests if elected.

The website for the United Steelworkers is USW.org and their handle on both Twitter and Instagram is @steelworkers.  Kim's Twitter handle is @kimkmiller.