Milwaukee, WI
January 19, 2024
Kilah thank you for that beautiful introduction, and for sharing how you've cut your own path into the trades and how you're now helping to pave it for other women behind you. You make us all so proud.
Wisconsin holds a very special place in my heart. My sister and I were born in Madison. But Wisconsin is the birthplace of something much more important—high road training partnerships, and that's because of the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership BIG STEP. So congratulations on this new award. I'll say more about high road training partnerships in a moment, but you are the model for the country of workforce development done right.
It's especially good to be here with the Milwaukee Electrical Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee. Thank you for hosting us today. The labor-management partnership you have built is truly impressive and connecting workers across the city to good jobs.
I want to also say a big thanks to the Department of Energy and Secretary Granholm, who very much wanted to be here today. And, Sara, thank you for all of your hard work to make today possible.
President Biden likes to say, a good job is about more than a paycheck. Good jobs change lives. They bring dignity and respect. They sustain families. They build strong communities.
The Biden-Harris administration is Investing in America to not only deliver roads, bridges, high-speed internet, clean air and drinking water, and electric vehicle charging stations—but also to create good jobs in communities all across our nation.
Strengthening our workforce system is key to that.
I think of our workforce system as infrastructure, too. It's the roads and bridges that connect people to the good jobs they want and need and employers to the people that they want and need.
But just like our physical infrastructure, our workforce system has some cracks. It's got some potholes. It does not reach every community the way that it should. For too long, far too many people have been left out of the promise of a good job.
Not this time.
We are building a workforce system infrastructure as strong as our physical roads and bridges—and as powerful as the new charging stations that you're going to be building. And we need it to reach all communities.
That's what the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership/BIG STEP has been doing. And today's $1.5 million grant builds on $3.2 million that the Department of Labor has invested in WRTP BIG STEP before this.
As we all know, infrastructure isn't built over night, but the foundation has been laid here in Milwaukee to meet this moment. And this is how the Biden-Harris administration is working together—the Departments of Energy, Transportation and Labor—along with all of you, our local partners, to make sure workers in this region can get good jobs and employers can find skilled, diverse, and workers.
The Department of Labor has also awarded Milwaukee's local workforce board—called Employ Milwaukee—over $15 million since President Biden came into office. That includes funding for young people to build the clean energy future in their communities and I want to give a shoutout to those young people who are here today. They are learning the skills needed, and it's our job to build the connections to the actual jobs so they move from the YouthBuild program to a registered apprenticeship program to a life-changing career.
And that's what high road training partnerships do. They turn traditional workforce programs on their head by starting not with the skills-deficiencies of workers but with the jobs. High road training partnerships start with unions—thank you, IBEW—working side by side with employers to design training that's tied to actual jobs-good, union jobs that not only support a family but uplift an entire community.
This is a job-first approach to workforce development where training doesn't end in a job search. It ends with a good job.
High road training partnerships also prioritize recruiting and retaining workers who have historically been left behind. Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership/BIG STEP has been especially focused on getting more women, people of color, and justice-impacted individuals into registered apprenticeships that lead to good jobs.
And by partnering with community organizations like EmpowHer, the Urban League, and My Way Out, WRTP/Big Step not only extends the bridge of opportunity to more communities, but also provides supportive services like child care, transportation, and mentorship.
This is what a "high road training partnership" does. And we are doubling down on them all over the country. Because everywhere I go people are asking, "How will we find the workers for these jobs?" And the answer is, right here in communities like Milwaukee, if we build the workforce infrastructure this community and our country deserve.
Where these partnerships exist, the workforce will be ready. And the Department of Labor has created a map—I call it the "High Road to the Middle Class Map"—to showcase these programs across America.
Under President Biden's Investing in America agenda, we are taking the successes that the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership has proven are possible—and we're expanding this high road model all across the country.
This is how we supercharge investments in clean energy, improving our climate and creating opportunities for all workers. This is how we build, not just physical infrastructure, but the high road to the middle class. This is how we make sure all workers can get connected to all the good jobs that the Biden-Harris administration is creating.
This is workforce development done right.