Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.
We in the labor movement know that physical infrastructure and care infrastructure go hand in hand. That’s why North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) are joining forces to fight for an infrastructure package that includes funding for family and community care. “We can’t expect an equitable recovery without addressing the lack of child care, home- and community-based services and paid leave that pushed millions of women out of the workforce and devastated their families’ financial security,” NABTU President Sean McGarvey (IUPAT) and NWLC President and CEO Fatima Goss Graves wrote in a recent column for CNN. “Individuals, corporations, philanthropies and ‘the market’ cannot solve this crisis. We need significant investment, especially at the federal level, to build an economy that works for all of us. Right now, we should be worried about spending too little, not too much.”