President Biden will be in Michigan to sign a “Good Jobs” Executive Order (EO). The Good Jobs EO is intended to promote strong labor standards such as family-sustaining wages, workplace safety, and the free and fair opportunity to a join a union and encourages agencies to implement these standards through the Biden Administration’s Investing in America programs, which include the American Rescue Plan Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act.
Among other things, the Good Jobs EO calls on agencies to adopt labor standards that: (1) provide tools to promote high-wage jobs, through prevailing wage standards and other equitable compensation programs; (2) promote worker voice, through Project Labor Agreements, voluntary union recognition, and neutrality with respect to union organizing; (3) promote worker economic security by directing federal agencies to consider prioritizing projects that supply the benefits that workers need—including child and dependent care, health insurance, paid leave, and retirement benefits; (4) support workforce development, through labor-management partnerships, registered apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships, and partnerships with training organizations; (5) level the playing field by encouraging federal grantees to develop equitable workforce plans and offering projects that support fair hiring and management practices as the projects develop; (6) supporting workplace safety by encouraging structures that help ensure compliance with all workplace health and safety laws.
The Good Jobs EO also outlines strategies for agencies to enact these standards across their grant programs, including: (1) developing staff expertise to ensure every agency has in-house knowledge of strong labor standards and how their investments can promote and support good jobs; (2) conduct pre-award negotiations for key programs and projects as appropriate, and include ensuing commitments in grant agreements; (3) collect data on job quality to further encourage best practices and increase accountability; (4) issue guidance or best practices to promote and implement priorities; and (5) incentivize these strong labor standards to the greatest extent possible by including application evaluation criteria related to strong labor standards.