Gina Raimondo, nominated by President Biden as secretary of commerce, has promised that the Biden government will ensure that union workers who lost jobs due to the Keystone XL pipeline blockage will have new jobs.
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, raised the issue on Tuesday during Raimondo’s confirmation hearing.
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“Last week, President Biden signed an executive order canceling the Keystone pipeline, destroying 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs. If you were confirmed as secretary of commerce, what would you say to the 11,000 construction workers whose jobs were destroyed by the coup. pen? “Cruz asked.
“I would say that we will make you work,” replied Raimondo. “I would say that climate change is a threat to all of us and that we will ensure that you have jobs, that you have the skills necessary to have a job and, by the way, as we will meet the needs of climate change, there will be many jobs created, jobs well-paid, union jobs. And if I am the secretary of commerce, I will fight every day so that all Americans have a job with decent pay and a chance to compete. “
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Cruz had already debated the issue during the confirmation hearing of the nominee to Secretary of Transport, Pete Buttigieg. After Senator Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, asked about the thousands of jobs that would be lost by stopping work on the pipeline, Buttigieg was optimistic that these losses would be offset by new jobs created as the new government shifted to targets aware of the climate.
Cruz pressed Buttigieg on what this really means.
“So, for these workers, the answer is will someone else get a job?” he asked.
Buttigieg replied that he and the government “are very anxious to see these workers continue to have well-paid union jobs, even if they are different”.
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Neal Crabtree, a member of Pipeliners Local Union 798, was one of the first to be fired after the order.
“Like the rest of the country, COVID hurt us a lot. We had a lot of projects canceled, ”Crabtree, a 46-year-old Arkansas welder, told Fox News. “We have guys who haven’t worked in months and, in some cases, years, and having a project of this magnitude canceled will hurt a lot of people, a lot of families, a lot of communities.”
Fox News’ Teny Sahakian contributed to this report.