As a coalition of local elected officials in West Virginia, we thank you for your efforts to date to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers and their families. As our state turns its focus to economic recovery, we ask you to reject proposals that fail to meet the magnitude of the crises we face and leave millions of workers behind. Working people and their families need and want immediate and bold action.

The time to act is now. We urge you to seize this window of opportunity and pass bold legislation that builds on the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan by investing throughout the economy, conditioned on high-road labor, equity, and environmental standards. 

This level of investment would help workers and their families overcome the impacts of the pandemic, while creating millions of high-quality jobs in clean manufacturing, clean energy, restoration and resilience, the care economy, and upgrading our infrastructure and buildings. Importantly, these investments must be prioritized for communities that need it the most.

We must ensure that this investment is as bold and transformative as our current moment demands and reject short-sighted proposals that would delay or weaken economic recovery and that may fracture the broad array of constituencies and organizations that are unified in support of more ambitious proposals—such as the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan. 

We urge Congress to support:

• Invest in our infrastructure, including by modernizing our schools, hospitals, and transit systems; delivering broadband to rural communities; modernizing our electrical grid and upgrading water systems; and protecting communities through natural infrastructure resiliency. These investments can provide a much-needed jolt to our economy while delivering good jobs, public health, and climate benefits to communities.

• Help our communities and workers thrive as the energy economy changes. This means investing in communities; protecting the health and wellbeing of workers; incentivizing new development; and fully funding cleanup and reclamation work in our state.

• Support and retool America’s manufacturing sector with a major reinvestment in fortifying and transforming heavy industry and retooling to reduce emissions and build more of the clean products, materials, and technologies of the future here—all while providing more pathways into good, family-supporting jobs. We cannot cede American manufacturing jobs to our global competitors because we failed to be forward-thinking about boosting the sector for the short and long term.

• Rebuild the public sector and invest in social infrastructure and the care economy. The crises we face have put a spotlight on the critical importance of investing in the workers on the front lines of fighting this virus and that keep our communities thriving, such as first responders, education workers, nurses, public health workers, social workers, safety net program workers, homecare, utility workers, and childcare workers. We need to rebuild the capacity of the public sector, the health care system, education, and community-based services to prepare for and respond to disasters like COVID-19 today or other crises like climate change.

• Provide critical long term support and protections for workers. Workers and communities cannot deal with crises alone—whether they are disastrous hurricanes, fires, or global pandemics. We must rebuild and expand the social safety net, including pensions, healthcare, and retirement security, and ensure and enforce worker and community health and safety. This should start with passing the PRO Act. These policies will help ensure that working families are better equipped to handle the next financial, health, or other crisis we face.

• Prioritize equitable rebuilding and investments in those communities most in need, including low-income communities, communities of color, and deindustrialized communities. This should include support for workers hardest hit by changes in the energy economy and disabled coal miners with black lung. The response to this crisis should deliver a healthier, cleaner, and more equitable future.

If we invest at the scale needed to truly build back better from the impacts of the pandemic, we can build a stronger, fairer, and cleaner economy that creates and sustains the high-quality jobs of the future and makes our communities and workers more resilient to crises. 

Sincerely,