John,

In the face of COVID-19 and our mounting climate crisis, we have a historic opportunity to rebuild our economy with green union jobs. President Biden’s American Rescue Plan provides the funding we need to get our country on the road to recovery—now it’s our job to “build back better” and improve ALL our communities, strengthen our unions, combat climate change, and address racial and environmental justice.

That’s why I’m joining Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) this week to introduce the Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy (THRIVE) Act, a bill designed to accomplish all these goals. Click here and tell your lawmakers to support the THRIVE Act.

If passed, the THRIVE Act will invest a minimum of $1 trillion per year over four years to create 15 million jobs and achieve full employment. It would create:

• Over 2 million jobs in the education and care economy, including teachers and workers in healthcare, child care, elder care and public health.
• Over 5 million jobs to upgrade our infrastructure for clean water, affordable public transportation and a reliable electric grid.
• Over 4 million jobs to manufacture and expand access to wind and solar power, electric vehicles, and clean and healthy buildings.
• Nearly 4 million jobs to protect our wetlands and forests and invest in family farmers who are embracing regenerative agriculture.

THRIVE will build the power of workers to fight inequality by:

• Expanding all workers’ rights to form and join unions and negotiate with their employers through adoption of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act.
• Ensuring high-road labor standards for all jobs created by THRIVE investments by guaranteeing family-sustaining wages and benefits, expanding union apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs, requiring Project Labor Agreements, strengthening Buy American standards and more.
• Protecting wages and benefits for any workers or communities adversely affected by the economic transition to renewable energy.
• Preventing privatization of any public sector jobs and public resources.

In addition, THRIVE will ensure environmental justice, protect the rights of Native American and Alaska Native tribes, and include binding climate targets to ensure 100 percent clean energy generated by 2035.

This is a big, bold and ambitious agenda to center those who have historically been left behind in efforts to build back better: workers and our vulnerable communities. If we do this together, we can ensure people not only survive but THRIVE. Learn more about the THRIVE Agenda and contact your legislators today.

In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President

P.S. This Wednesday, March 31, we’re joining a Time to Thrive day of action to get the THRIVE Act passed. We need your help in contacting lawmakers, posting on social media and attending events in your area to make it happen. Click here for more information.