East TN Group Shares Union Funding Story In UC

The developer of an East Tennessee program designed to use federal funding to empower workers and unions visited Cookeville Tuesday.

Beau Hawk is Project Developer for Labor at the Table. He said the program is designed to educate residents about how to access funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and federal infrastructure spending. Hawk said much of those investments were designed with preferences for union labor and apprenticeship for training programs built into them.

“There is a lot of opportunity out there, a lot of funding available,” Hawk said. “And, you know, the reason we called it Labor at the Table was because just so much of it is that unions are just not a part of the conversation. So they just need to be plugged into what’s happening and just be at the table with whatever agencies or other organizations are involved with dispersing the funds.”

Hawk said these funds can remove barriers to higher-quality local jobs and move communities towards cleaner energy sources to improve their long-term future. Hawk said he hopes those at the event will be able to connect with their local labor organizations afterwards and advocate for improvements in their area.

“Maybe looking at like what kind of infrastructure needs the community has and finding out ways that they can turn some of these opportunities into new job opportunities for people in quality union jobs building new infrastructure that will benefit the community,” Hawk said.

Hawk said people can get learn more or get further involved in this effort by working with organizations like Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment that are designed to promote local action.

“We also have the Labor at the Table statewide network where basically I can’t be everywhere at once but across the state we can have people kind of communicating, sharing information, and just making sure that we have working models and case studies to work off of instead of just starting from square one,” Hawk said.

Hawk said he got involved in this initiative after he met with Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment East Tennessee Community Organizer Adam Hughes.

“There was a big increase in the state’s, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s budget for the reclamation of abandoned mine land in East Tennessee,” Hawk said. “So we just started thinking about how can we make sure that unions are working with, that their contractors are getting these bids to do these big projects to reclaim, do local hire, doing all those kind of things and finding ways to benefit communities that were impacted.”