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TO WIN NEVADA, HARRIS MUST TURN INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS INTO VOTES  
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Gabriel Thompson
September 10, 2024
Capital & Main
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_ Reno’s building trades unions are mobilizing their members to
support the Democratic nominee. _

Adrian Davis sits at a voting registration booth inside the
Carpenters Local 971 union hall in Reno, Nevada., Photos by Andri
Tambunan

 

_Photos by Andri Tambunan_

On July 22, the day after President Biden announced he wouldn’t seek
reelection, members of Carpenters Local 971 filed into their union
hall in Reno, Nevada, for their monthly meeting. During a break,
Adrian Davis, a self-described “political nerd” and union member
of five years, asked a fellow carpenter for his thoughts on Kamala
Harris. The carpenter shook his head, saying he planned on voting for
Donald Trump, as he had in the past.

Incredulous, Davis rattled off a list of legislation Joe Biden had
signed: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation
Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act. Just north of town,
Carpenters union members were expanding U.S. Highway 395. Out east, in
the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, they were building a massive battery
recycling plant. And just weeks before, the Biden-Harris
administration had selected the area as one of 12 regional tech hubs
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receive a second round of funding from the federal government, along
with hubs in Wisconsin, New York, Georgia and Florida. The new
funding, of $21 million
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will support workforce development in Northern Nevada’s burgeoning
lithium industry, in what promises to be a boon for local construction
unions.

_MORE FROM CAPITAL & MAIN_
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“You know all the work we’ve been doing?” Davis said.
“That’s Biden money.”

“He had no idea about any of that,” recounted Davis a few days
later. The 46-year-old stood outside the union hall, a
red-white-and-blue bandanna wrapped around his dreads. “I don’t
know if it made an impact, but at least I shared information. If
you’re going to check a box, you should at least know what you’re
checking.”

The interaction in the union hall highlights a major project for
organized labor in swing states like Nevada: to ensure their members
understand how they have benefited from federal policies and
legislation. In Washoe County, home to Reno and the second largest
population center in the state outside of Las Vegas, the results of
federal action are written across the landscape, sparked by massive
government investment in infrastructure and clean energy and carried
out to a large extent by union construction workers.

“This region is on fire,” said Rob Benner, the executive secretary
treasurer of the Building & Construction Trades Council of Northern
Nevada, which represents 6,000 members. “Everybody’s busy,
everybody’s working overtime.” Last year, an analysis
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the Center for American Progress found that federal investment in
clean energy was higher here than almost anywhere else in the nation.

The area is home to what people out here call the Lithium Loop, buoyed
by the largest proven source of lithium in the U.S., a critical
component of electric batteries. In March, the Department of Energy
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a $2.26 billion loan commitment to a subsidiary of Lithium Americas,
which will help build a lithium processing plant to be used in
batteries for General Motors. Lithium Americas has already signed a
collective bargaining agreement with the building trades, and the
project is estimated to create 1,800 jobs during construction.

“Trump has made it part of his platform that he’s going to
destroy electric cars
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and if those federal funds collapse, we might not have these
projects,” said Wendy Colborne, the communications director of the
Trades Council. “A lot depends on November, and we’ve been trying
to communicate that to our members.” (Trump has backed off his
campaign against electric vehicles somewhat since forging his close
alliance with Elon Musk.)

Albert DeVita demonstrates the operation of the Vermeer PD 10, a pile
driver used for solar field installations. DeVita provides training
with the equipment at the Northern Nevada Laborers Training Center in
Sparks.

Biden won Nevada and its six electoral votes by just 33,596 votes.
Before Biden announced he wouldn’t seek a second term, polls showed
Trump enjoying a significant advantage in the Silver State and making
large inroads among Hispanic voters. Since Harris became the nominee,
however, the race became a dead heat
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took the lead.

Holding onto and possibly growing the support of Nevada’s union
households—who, according to exit polls, broke 58 to 39 for Biden in
2020—will be crucial. Construction union members, who skew more
towards Trump
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also represent an opportunity to make Democratic inroads if unions can
convincingly link federal legislation with their own members’
livelihoods.

Laborers Union Local 169 represents about 1,600 construction workers
in Northern Nevada. Its Training Center is located 15 miles east of
Reno, at the beginning of the sprawling Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.
The TRIC bills itself as the largest industrial park in the world,
located in a barren stretch of land with signs that warn drivers to
look out for wild horses. It is home to a Tesla Gigafactory, countless
logistics buildings and lithium-related companies. Streets have names
like Electric Avenue and Battery Boulevard.

Albert DeVita has been the training director of Local 169 for six
years. During that time, the number of union apprentices has tripled,
from 40 to 120, and he will need hundreds more workers for future
solar projects funded with clean energy tax breaks
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point of contact for new union members, DeVita stresses the connection
between federal policy and union jobs. About 2020, he said, “A lot
of people voted the wrong way. There’s going to be a major effort to
mobilize our members this year.”

One of those members is Guadalupe Lopez, who joined the Laborers local
in 2021 and often works overtime, which is how she prefers it. She is
currently a “flagger,” directing traffic around construction on
U.S. 395. Funds come from the infrastructure bill, which to date has
invested $85 million in Washoe County for transportation projects.
Earlier this year, she leveled dirt for a solar project of Ormat
Technologies, a renewable energy company that has described the tax
credits
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the Inflation Reduction Act as a key driver of its growth. The Biden
Administration estimates that the act will bring an investment
of $2.7 billion
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large-scale clean power generation and storage to Nevada by 2030.

Lopez echoed the sentiments of other construction workers: While she
worried about inflation, her No. 1 concern was having steady work.
“What I care about with politicians is who is going to give us the
most work,” she said. “That’s why I hope Trump wins.” She
wasn’t aware of the federal legislation that had helped keep her
hours high, and she has reservations about Trump’s rhetoric
targeting Mexican immigrants—she has family that she visits in
Tijuana, Mexico. “But Trump knows how to make the economy work and
create more jobs,” she concluded. “That’s the most important
thing.”

After Lopez departed, Eloy Jara, the union’s business manager who
had sat in on the interview, let out a sigh. “As you can see, we
have a lot of work to do on member education.”

The Redwood Materials battery recycling and materials production
facility in McCarran

Lopez isn’t alone. This February, a report by the Center for
American Progress looked at the building of an electrical vehicle
battery facility in Tennessee that received significant financial help
from the federal government. While the union workers spoke of the jobs
as “life-changing,” many were unaware of the public investments
that had been made. In making the connection between public policy and
job creation, the report concludes, “Unions are likely to be
especially important players.”

“I’ve been told by older members, ‘You’ve got to vote your
paycheck,’” said Omar De León, 26, a Carpenters Local 971 member
who recently joined the union’s political committee hoping to learn
more about how public policies impact union members. He now brings
flyers to his worksite highlighting Biden policies that supported
union jobs, and said they’re targeting the 28% of members still
unregistered to vote. “We’re trying to get those numbers up.”
Some workers, said De León, are skeptical of the Democrats, linking
them to inflation or high interest rates. Others simply don’t see
the connection between politics and their life.

A Trump victory could make the connection more concrete. The
Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) has been key in
supporting the burgeoning lithium industry. The office has provided
significant loans under the Inflation Reduction Act—$2.26 billion to
Lithium Americas and $2 billion to Redwood Materials, a company
specializing in lithium processing and recycling.

“Under Trump, the LPO was essentially gutted,” said John Jacobs, a
senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center. And Project
2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term,
calls for the office’s outright elimination. Trump has recently
distanced himself from the plan, which was authored by his allies and
former aides.

“If Trump wins a second term and those loans haven’t closed before
inauguration, it’s very possible that the administration could walk
away from them,” said Josh Freed, senior vice president for the
Climate and Energy Program at Third Way, a center-left think tank.
“The risk under Trump, who has shown that he is a chaos agent, is
huge. It would be like setting an arsonist loose on the emerging
lithium economy of Northern Nevada.”

In mid-August, the Building & Construction Trades Council of Northern
Nevada joined the state’s AFL-CIO in a door-to-door canvassing of
their membership, a shift from previous years when outreach was
directed at the general electorate. The goal will be to make the
connections between politics and their lives explicit. “We need to
make sure they understand what the [Biden-Harris] administration has
done for labor for the last four years and the impact it has had on
this region,” said Benner. “The future is so bright, but that
whole economy could evaporate overnight.”

_GABRIEL THOMPSON is an independent journalist who has written for
publications that include The New York Times, Harper’s, New York,
Slate, and The Nation. His most recent book is ‘Chasing the Harvest:
Migrant Workers in California Agriculture.’_

_CAPITAL & MAIN is a nonprofit publication that reports on two of the
most pressing issues of our time: inequality and climate change.
Winner of hundreds of awards, Capital & Main has had stories
co-published in more than 150 media outlets, from USA Today,
Newsweek, The Guardian and Fast Company to The American
Prospect, Grist, Slate and the Daily Beast. Our reporting has led
to significant impacts at the national, state and local level. Donate
to Capital & Main
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* elections
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* Kamala Harris
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* unions
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* Building Trades
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* Nevada
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*  carpenters
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