The Stories team at the Center for American Progress Action Fund works with storytellers who author op-eds about how policy impacts their lives. The team helps elevate their op-eds.
My family is my life, and I’m grateful that the Biden administration’s infrastructure legislation was written with families like mine in mind. Not only is it expected to create 2 million jobs per year through the course of a decade, it incentivizes companies to hire union workers and pay non-union laborers a fair prevailing wage. This protection of wages for millions of workers gives us a real chance to grow the middle class, and marks the difference between delivering jobs and building careers.
Just five years ago, I was a construction worker having my hard-earned wages stolen from me. I was young; I didn’t know about my rights, and my former employer took advantage of that. I just wanted to make money. It wasn’t until a union organizer came to my job site that I realized how powerful unions can be. They protect you from corporations that think just because you’re an immigrant, or labor worker, they can treat you less than human.
The above excerpt was originally published in The Las Vegas Sun News.
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