Vice Presidential Pool Reports of April 12, 2022

VP pool report #1

Good morning all,
I'll be your pooler for the VP's event in Philadelphia. She'll be delivering remarks at 5PM.

On Background from A White House Official:
On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh will travel to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to uplift the Biden-Harris Administration's work to support workers and strengthen the middle class. Vice President Harris and Secretary Walsh will meet with labor leaders at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 training center and will later deliver remarks. They will be joined by Senator Bob Casey, Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, and Congressman Dwight Evans.

The Biden-Harris Administration believes that increasing worker organizing and empowerment is critical to growing the middle class and building an economy that puts workers first. President Biden's commitment to those goals is why he created the White House Labor Task Force, which the Vice President Chairs and the Secretary of Labor co-chairs. During her remarks, the Vice President will discuss the work of the White House Labor Task Force, the Administration's efforts to create good-paying union jobs, and announce a new workplace extreme heat program through the Department of Labor.

Over the past year, Vice President Harris, Secretary Walsh, and Task Force staff have held more than two dozen meetings with stakeholders, including labor unions, small and large employers, grassroots worker advocates, academics, and others. The Vice President and Labor Secretary have met with workers in Columbus, OH, Pittsburgh, PA, Durham, NC, Upper Marlboro, MD, and in Washington, DC.

Today's Announcement:
During her remarks, the Vice President will announce that the Department of Labor (DOL)'s Occupational, Health, and Safety Administration (OSHA) is launching a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) on Outdoor and Indoor Heat Related Hazards. As we enter summer, this will provide OSHA an important mechanism for protecting workers, including those who will be putting funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to work repairing bridges, replacing lead pipes, laying broadband fiber, and more.

• While serving in the Senate, Vice President Harris partnered with Senator Sherrod Brown and Representative Judy Chu to introduce the Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act, which would have required OSHA to develop a federal heat standard to protect workers.
• Heat-related injuries and illnesses can happen anywhere in the US and populations unaccustomed to heat stress, such as those in colder weather regions, can be at increased risk of health impacts from extreme heat.
• Last fall, OSHA published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings, a significant step toward a federal heat standard. As work on the rulemaking continues, today, OSHA is announcing the first ever National Emphasis Program (NEP) on Outdoor and Indoor Heat Related Hazards.
• OSHA's heat NEP, for the first time, creates a nationwide enforcement mechanism for OSHA inspectors to proactively inspect workplaces for heat-related hazards. The NEP will give OSHA the ability to proactively launch heat-related workplace inspections before workers suffer preventable injuries, illnesses, or, even worse, fatalities.
• The NEP also establishes heat inspection goals and aligns OSHA's threshold for initiating inspections with when the National Weather Service issues Heat Advisories or Heat Warnings. On days when the heat index is 80°F or higher, OSHA inspectors will be directed to look out for heat-related hazards during all inspections, regardless of if the industry is one of the over 70 high risk industries targeted under the heat NEP.

Additional Background:
Established in April of 2021, The Task Force is comprised of over 20 participant agencies, offices, and White House components, counting 13 cabinet secretaries as members. Its charge is to "identify executive branch policies, practices, and programs that could be used, consistent with applicable law, to promote my Administration's policy of support for worker power, worker organizing, and collective bargaining."

• In February 2022, the Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment released publicly the report it delivered to President Joe Biden that includes nearly 70 recommendations to promote worker organizing and collective bargaining for federal employees, and for workers employed by public and private-sector employers. Additionally, the recommendations include ways to increase private sector workers' access to information about their existing right to join and/or organize a union, and the legally-defined process of how to do so.
• The President accepted the recommendations, and as a follow up, the Task Force will submit a second report to the President which will describe progress in implementation and contain additional proposals for further action. Included in the nearly 70 recommendations of the Task Force are the following:
  • Four agencies – including the General Services Administration and the Department of Interior – will eliminate barriers to union organizers being able to talk with employees on federal property about the benefits of organizing a union. This will include both federal employees and private sector employees of federal contractors. The Departments of Transportation and Commerce and 10 other agencies will establish preferences and requirements for federal grants that promote good, union jobs.
  • The Department of Labor, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Health and Human Services will help ensure that federal contract dollars are not spent on anti-union campaigns and that activities by "persuaders" (consultants that help employers oppose union organizing drives) hired by federal contractors are publicly disclosed.
  • The Office of Personnel Management has launched and will continue to implement a set of strategies that will remove barriers in federal workplaces that impede unions' ability to organize federal workers. This will help to advance the President's objective of having the federal government lead by example as a model employer.
  • Four agencies – the Department of Labor, the Department of Defense, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services – will act to expand awareness of workers' organizing rights and employers' responsibilities when workers are trying to organize.

VP pool report #2

AF2 was wheels up for Philadelphia at 10:45am.

The VP came back to gaggle OTR for a few minutes before take off.

M2 touched down at JBA at 10:28am.

VP walked over and boarded AF2 at 10:32am.

She was wearing a grey suit.

Before boarding she waved at the pool but did not stop to answer one shouted question about the shootings in Brooklyn.

Tarmac greet with VP:
Greeter: Maj. Guy Evertson, Director Flight Line Protocol, C- 32A Pilot

Liz Shuler, President of AFL-CIO is traveling with the VP per VP staff.

VP Pool report #3

AF2 was wheels down at Philadelphia International Airport at 11:20pm.

VP Pool report #4

VP stepped out of AF2 at 11:34am

She was greeted by:
- Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA)
- Congressman Dwight Evans (D-PA-03)

Pool was ushered to the vans as the VP was wrapping up a short conversation with the greeters.

Motorcade rolling at 11:38am.

VP pool report #5 - Brooklyn shootings

ON BACKGROUND FROM WH Official:
The Vice President is being updated regularly regarding the New York City subway shooting.

VP pool report #6

Motorcade arrived at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 Training Center at 11:48am.

We did not see the VP get out of her car.

Pool will be holding at the location until the event.

As a reminder, VP is scheduled to speak at 5pm.

VP pool report #7

On Background: Governor Wolf and Mayor Kenney are participating in the event today. The Governor and the Mayor will each speak.

VP Pool report #8

There were already some speakers on stage when pool was brought out to the risers.

At 4:10pm Senator Bob Casey took the stage, followed by Gov. Tom Wolf.

At 4:16pm, they finished speaking and we now have a musical interlude.

Per staff, about 480 have already gathered and about 40 union members are in stands behind the podium.

And here's a picture of the scene.
[APP Note: The photo mentioned above was not included in the report received by the APP.]

VP pool report #9

The VP walked on stage at 4:45pm.

She was introduced by William Griffin, Third Year Apprentice, Sheet Metal Workers Local 19.

She finished speaking at 5:04pm. She talked for a few minutes with the apprentice who introduced her and posed for a picture with his family.

She waved to the crowd as she walked off stage.

We are rolling to the airport at 5:12pm.

Here are some quotes:

About Sec Walsh
"he and I get on quite well we really do enjoy to this company. we've we've developed a real friendship and you know, some people might look at us and say, well, what could they possibly have in common? You know, I grew up on the other side of the country. But he and I were raised with the same values."

"The last eight years have been the hottest on record. And many of the jobs that the bipartisan infrastructure law created will require workers to work outdoors outside to build back up our nation's infrastructure. And that means during the summer months in particular, they will be working outside in the heat building bridges, replacing lead pipes, laying broadband wire"

"Heat is a workplace safety issue."

"Some people who don't understand, need to understand that the workplace to get the jobs done that will make life easier, for most people in our country, that workplace is not not necessarily an office with air conditioning."

"our administration is going to continue this fight until every worker is protected by using every tool at our disposal to mitigate the danger posed by extreme heat."

As always, please check quotes against tape.

Before the VP, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh took the stage, speaking for about 10mn.
"This administration is not afraid to say the word 'union'"

Speakers:

• Ryan Boyer, Business Manager for the Philadelphia Building Trades Council, delivered opening remarks.
• Joseph Sellers, General President of the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association
• Mayor Jim Kenney
• Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon
• Congressman Dwight Evans delivers
• Chairman Bob Casey
• Governor Tom Wolf
• Liz Shuler, President, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
• Secretary Marty Walsh, U.S. Department of Labor
• William Griffin, Third Year Apprentice, Sheet Metal Workers Local 19

VP pool report #10

We are wheels up at 5:36pm

Motorcade arrived on the tarmac at 5:22pm.

VP stopped to take a picture with her team on the ground and then boarded AF2 at 5:24pm without taking one question on whether it was the admin's position that what is happening in Ukraine is a genocide.

While we were holding this afternoon the VP did 2 interviews:
The Philadelphia Inquirer (Print)
WPVI 6ABC Action News (TV)

VP pool report #11

AF2 was wheels down at JBA at 6:08pm.

VP walked out of AF2 at 6:20pm.

She waved to the pool, walked over to M2 and took off at 6:26pm.

That's a wrap on your pooler's first AF2 trip.

Hope you have a great evening!