Editor’s note: On this first National Women in Apprenticeship Day during National Apprenticeship Week, Vice President Kamala Harris reflects on the important role Registered Apprenticeships play in expanding career pathways for women and how they are essential to ensuring women have access to good paying jobs across industries, including those created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Hello, everyone. Well, this is an important week for America’s workers. On Monday, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law. With this law, we will make a historic investment in our nation’s infrastructure, and we will put more Americans to work in good paying, good union jobs.
Plumbers will go to work replacing lead pipes. Electricians will go to work laying broadband lines. Heavy machinery operators will go to work fixing roads and bridges. Women in our nation must be able to access all of these jobs, and that is why registered apprenticeships are so important for everyone.
Apprenticeships expand pathways for workers to enter and lead in all industries. Apprenticeships expand pathways for workers to design their lives and determine their futures.
Here’s but one example: In July, I met with a woman by the name of Jovan Johnson, a union carpenter in Nevada. She explained how she quote built her career on infrastructure and fed her family on infrastructure.
Every worker in America who wants that opportunity must have that opportunity, and that means women and men alike.
So on this first ever National Women in Apprenticeship Day, let us celebrate the work that has always been done to expand pathways for women in our workforce and let us recommit to strengthening apprenticeship programs across our great nation.
Thank you all. Take care.
