Delegates to Annual NABTU Legislative Conference Committed to Fight for Workers in November

The North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) Annual Legislative Conference convened this year from April 22–24. Every year thousands of labor leaders from across North America come to hear from speakers and participate in workshops to further our legislative efforts to protect workers’ wages, safety, retirement, and other rights on the job.

This year, speakers included NATBU President Sean McGarvey, Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), Acting Secretary for the Department of Labor Julie Su, Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA), AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, and US President Joseph R. Biden.

BAC OFFICERS HEAR FROM REP. RASKIN AND OSHA ASSISTANT SECRETARY DURING ANNUAL LUNCHEON

Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Douglas Parker, Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, joined BAC delegates for a luncheon on April 22 and spoke about current labor issues and legislation.

Rep. Raskin, a long-time friend of labor unions and working families, underlined that the labor movement sits in the heart of democracy. “The labor movement made our Constitution alive,” Raskin said. “The labor movement truly gave us the First Amendment… We did not have the First Amendment until unionists in the 1920s and 30s went on strikes.”

Assistant Secretary Parker, who himself came out of the labor movement, applauded BAC delegates for what they do for workers. “The important value I learned that sticks with me till this day — and drives everything that I do at the Labor Department — is the critical role the labor movement has in ensuring good jobs that change people’s lives — and that we embrace safety and health as our core values.”