Kendall Martin, General Vice-President of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Union, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and discussed a Project Labor Agreement between the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) and Ørsted to construct the company’s U.S. offshore wind farms using all-union labor..
The project covers all of Ørsted’s contractors and subcontractors, including iron workers, who will perform offshore wind farm construction from Maine down to Florida.
The Ironworkers Union is extremely excited about this opportunity, Martin said. It is an exciting time for renewable energy, including offshore wind, and union leadership is doing everything it can to secure these jobs for members, he added.
Many of these jobs will be onshore assembly and manufacturing jobs, he said. Members of the Ironworkers Union are at the forefront of the specialized training required to do these jobs, which is currently taking place across the Eastern Seaboard, he noted.
Martin also talked about the jobs that will be created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the need to grow membership to ensure the Ironworkers Union will deliver on these projects. Recruiters are reaching out to technical schools and high schools, and doing everything they can to attract young people into their registered apprenticeship programs, he said. These efforts include targeted recruitment of women and minorities, as well as organizing people who are currently non-union, he added.
Listen to the entire episode to learn more about these topics.