Workers & Unions

In America, if you work hard, you should be able to provide for your family and get ahead. In many ways, that deal is broken. Jared knows that working families have been left behind by a neoliberal economic agenda that benefits large corporations over local communities.

Jared is a leader in the movement to address decades of misguided trade policies that have harmed American workers. His proposed 10 percent universal tariff is designed to reorient our economy from one based on consumption to one built on production, keeping America’s middle class prosperous and secure. Jared has also consistently stood up to protect workers in key industries, such as voting to protect US farmers from unfair competition and ensuring federal subsidies go to American producers instead of foreign competitors — part of his broader record of safeguarding American energy independence, protecting our domestic auto industry, and promoting manufacturing jobs at home. 

One of Jared’s proudest accomplishments in Congress was helping pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is creating millions of union jobs across the country and throughout Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. For workers up and down the supply chain, this bipartisan breakthrough has ensured a generation’s worth of new opportunities and much-needed economic security to come.

Jared believes that one of the best ways to restore the American promise is to give workers a more powerful seat at the table and strengthen labor unions to fight for fair wages, quality and affordable health care coverage, retirement benefits, and a safe work environment. Unions have deep roots in Maine and Jared is committed to empowering them and helping them expand to more workers and industries. 

Since taking office, he has visited union halls and worksites throughout the state talking with union leaders and members about how he can stand up for workers. Jared is a champion of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, comprehensive legislation to strengthen American unions. The landmark bill adds protections for union workers and increases their power to bargain for higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions. He also helped introduce the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act — which would crack down on employers who attempt to influence their employees’ labor activities — and has successfully preserved dozens of unionized postal worker jobs in Maine to ensure rural communities continue to receive their paychecks, medications, bills, and ballots on time.

Unions provide critical apprenticeship and job training programs to thousands of Mainers and Jared is working to help unions expand and improve those programs. Particularly in Maine’s forest products, manufacturing, and shipbuilding industries, unions are playing a pivotal role in growing the skilled workforce our state needs to attract and retain good jobs. Jared has stood up to past attempts by the Executive Branch to weaken union training and apprenticeship programs, standing with unions across Maine for fair contracts.