Remarks by Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su on the Good Jobs Summer Tour in Birmingham (As Delivered)

Birmingham, AL
6/12/2024

I just want to say that you, and people like you, mak e me want to do what I get to do every single day, so it has been my honor to be able to share space with you here today. Thank you very much for that.

So, before I begin, I wanted to, of course, thank all the amazing leaders in this room, but I also wanted to acknowledge one who is not here, and that is the Reverend James Lawson. His philosophy and leadership for nonviolence in the face of racism really shaped the civil rights m ovement, including the leadership in the children's march here in Birmingham sixty years ago. He was a champion of fair pay and good jobs, and he taught new generations throughout his life that you can't have economic justice without racial justice, and you can't have racial justice without economic justice.

And even as we mourn his passing just two days ago, I was so looking forward to telling him about my trip here. But we gather here also to carry on his really, really significant work, and so I like to imagine that he is cheering us all on as we move forward.

So as has been said already by everybody who's spoken, good jobs change lives. They bring dignity and respect. They bring security. They sustain families. As President Biden likes to say, they're about looking your children in the eye and saying, "Everything's going to be okay." And meaning it.

Good jobs are not just transformational for the individuals who have them, and for their children and their families, but they uplift entire communities. And they still instill, using Mayor Woodfin's word, hope.

So that's why today's Good Jobs Principles are so important and why the Good Jobs Alliance that we are building across the country matter so much and the work of everybody in this room to breathe life into these words is so critical.

So I want to acknowledge Sarah for your incredible story. I'm a mother also, I'm in a different point in the adventure. My children are now grown. I still wonder why they have so much energy right before bedtime, but I also wonder why they don't put their things away, so I don't know what I didn't do right when my kids were your age. But it continues to shape who you are, as you know, throughout your life. And having a good job is also about making sure that mothers can do their jobs and they're both supported at home and at work.

So thank you for bringing that home so powerfully.

To Coreata, it's been amazing to meet you and to see all the work that you are doing here in the city, and you make it very easy for my team to want to be working with you, hand-in-hand, as we move forward to make sure that all of this stuff is real and thank you for being our partner in so many ways.

And to Mayor Woodfin, your steadfast, courageous and grounded leadership, every time I get to see it, I'm amazed by it. You should know that you have many fans, both at the Department of Labor and in the Biden-Harris administration. We saw each other in Atlanta, I think, for the African American Mayor's Association Conference, I saw you in Washington, DC earlier this week, I know I'm doing my job right if I'm in the same space with you, but it's especially a joy to come here to Birmingham and to be with you here, so thank you.

And of course I really want to thank Josh Carpenter from Southern Research and T—can I call you T, also? T. Ellis of the Surge Project for the conversations that we've had, but also the foundation that you have helped to create here in Birmingham for the work ahead.

And there are so many community partners in the room. I'm not going to be able to name them all, but I did want to thank the union leaders for showing up here and every single day, to Jobs To Move America and Alabama Arise, who have helped make this trip so rich and meaningful for me, you're all truly incredible.

So the Department of Labor is really committed to this city. We are creating-we have created—a new OSHA region that is headquartered right here in Birmingham. We are delivering grants along with the AFL-CIO to make sure that women and women of color and people of color get the good jobs that are being created. We are listening to what workers are saying and what employers are saying to make sure that all of our work is grounded in the reality of folks in the community.

And I am here because Alabama matters. I'm here because Birmingham matters. It matters to me; it matters to this president; it matters to this country. Your iron and steel are the backbone of this country. Your medical researchers, as has already been shared, like those at southern research, helped find treatment during the pandemic, as well as a whole host of other things that have literally saved lives. And of course, your contributions to the civil rights movement have really shaped the trajectory of our country.

Just yesterday I was in Anniston at New Flyer, with New Flyer workers, were talking about how we can support these workers who are meeting the growing demand for transit buses, in a workplace that is now unionized with its first contract, where the workers have secured improved wages, improved benefits, parental leave, and enhanced retirement benefits. And we know that those kinds of jobs can be the jobs and must be the jobs of the future if we do our work together, and if we do it right.

So to understand the moment that we are in, I just want to take a second to remind us of where we were just three years ago, a little more than three years ago.

So right before President Biden came to office, COVID was raging. There was no national strategy to address it. Unemployment was very, very high, and when people went to the store, they didn't know if they were going to find toilet paper when they needed it.

Compare that to where we are today. Since President Biden has been in office, there have been 15.6 million jobs created in this country. In fact, that's more jobs created under President Biden than under any other president in the same amount of time. And at the same time, the unemployment rate remains historically low, in fact historically low for the longest stretch since the 1960s. And none of this happens by accident. In fact, most people predicted it would not be possible, the job growth as well as the low level of unemployment. But leadership matters, and we know that it matters because you see it here in Birmingham.

And so President Biden is making sure that we build an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, which requires us to be clear eyed about who has been pushed to the bottom for far too long—who has, in Coreata's words, been undervalued for too long.

So I also want us to remember that before President Biden came to office, you all—we all—were promised an infrastructure week that never materialized. It became a punchline.

Not anymore.

Under President Biden's Investing in America agenda, we are creating not just an infrastructure week, but an infrastructure decade.

So what does that look like? Well here in Alabama, it means almost $7 billion of investments in safe roads and bridges, in a modernized airport, in public transit. It means clean water. It means clean air. It means high speed reliable Internet in every single community and much more. And I say this often, but these things should not be luxuries. They are the foundation of strong communities.

And the President is investing in making sure that they reach every single community, including $21 million for Birmingham's transportation system as part of that Investing in America agenda.

Today's announcement and the partnership of those in this room are going to help make sure that every single cent of that money supports good jobs here, in the Magic City.

So with our billion dollars of investments, the Biden-Harris administration is creating a moment to build not just our physical infrastructure, but and infrastructure that supports real opportunity for everybody.

And today Birmingham is seizing on that by adopting the Good Jobs Principles. A commitment to the Department of Labor's Good Jobs Principles means, already been said, that we are being intentional about connecting all of Alabama's residents and all of Birmingham's workers to good jobs.

Because Alabama's workers should not have to settle. Because no one should have to work full-time, year-round, and still live in poverty. No one should have to work two or three jobs and still barely be able to put together a life.

That is not the American promise, that is not the American Dream, that should not be what happens for people in this city or in this state.

A good job, that's already been said, means a job with security. A job where you know that you cannot just get by, but get ahead, where you have leave and benefits so if you or your children need to go to the doctor, you can. Where you have a retirement plan so that you know that at the end of a career, you can retire with dignity. Or where you know that you were going to come home healthy and safe at the end of the work day, and where you know that the wages that you have earned are not just enough for you to live on, but also that you're going to paid those wages at the end of each work day.

And a good job is a job where workers can exercise their rights and their power, and where they have the right to choose whether they want to be in a union. That is a right that belongs to workers. Full stop. No one else. Without interference, without retaliation, and without fear. And the Biden-Harris administration stands with all workers for organizing in their workplaces.

So those are the kinds of jobs that we are creating, and we want to make sure we create. And we're also being intentional about who gets those jobs. The Good Jobs Principles include recruiting from those undervalued communities. It means breaking down systemic barriers. It means focusing on justice impacted individuals, on single moms, on those who struggle to find housing. It means creating a connectivity between our K-12 system, our community colleges, our four-year colleges, and our entire educational ecosystem.

And I call all of these things, the employers who are creating jobs, the unions who are helping to make sure those are good jobs, the organizations that serve communities who have been left behind and left out for too long, and all of the people in this room, along with local leadership, I call all of these our opportunity infrastructure that we need to create in every community across this country.

These roads and bridges are as important as our physical roads and bridges, and we know that, when we unite the folks in this room—workers and businesses, with real vision, with community-based organizations, with labor unions, civil rights organizations, educational institutions, philanthropy—that we can make the opportunity infrastructure that this country needs and deserves.

And we have a moment right now under President Biden's leadership and with those of us here today to make sure that they do right by all workers.

I want to say one thing about racial justice, because I really believe—as the President does, and you'll hear him talk about this all the time—it was no accident that on day one of his Presidency, he issued the executive order that challenged all of us to make racial equity real across this country.

And I know that we get this right, we can seize this moment for communities, for families, and also to advance racial justice, because we do know that ending structural racism is also good economic policy.

So today we're laying the foundation for that future. And we cannot go back to where we were, because the future that we are building—the future that everybody's talking about—holds much too much promise, it holds too much real hope, and it is real opportunity for all communities.

And so the Department of Labor is putting our hearts, our talent, our people, our investments into this work. And we know it is a fight, and we want you to know that we're in this fight with you. And we've got a lot more fight in us, as I know you do, too.

So let me just close by saying the promise of a good job for all, let's make that promise real, right here in Birmingham, right here for all of its people. And let's fulfill that promise together.

And we have more bridges to build—the bridge from poverty to prosperity, the bridge from racial exclusion to real equity. So let's roll up our sleeves and let's build together.

Thank you all so very much.

Delivered By
Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su