From left, Ron Sabol, New Jersey state director of SMART-TD; Eric Richard, New Jersey State AFL-CIO legislative director; U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Joe Demark, president/business manager of Sheet Metal Workers Local 25; Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th District; Orlando Riley, chairman of the ATU’s New Jersey State Council; and Steve Hamm, New Jersey chair of the TWU’s NY/NJ State Conference.
Labor leaders from the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Sheet Metal Air Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) and Transport Workers Union (TWU) joined U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th District, on the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line Monday, August 9, to discuss how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will create good-paying union jobs for decades to come.
Speaking at a press conference in Westfield after a fact-finding train trip from Somerville, Buttigieg confirmed that $4.1 billion is targeted for public transit in New Jersey. He said long-overdue maintenance and construction projects like a new trans-Hudson rail tunnel are on their way, providing what he and the congressman said would be hundreds of thousands of good, well-paying union jobs.
The $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal bill is up for a final vote in the Senate sometime after tomorrow morning; passage in the Senate will send the bill to the House of Representatives for consideration.