 Hi everyone it's so good to be here and we are super lucky to have these really dynamic administration officials who I'm just gonna call Julie and Polly because you have long handles so I hope that's okay. So yeah this is a really interesting time obviously in economic development because us a few industries in particular are being super charged with a lot of federal investment and there is an appropriate focus as Mary Alice outlined on making sure those jobs are decent and you know in the past there has been a focus in federal contracting on the lowest bid wins because that's an efficient way to spend our government dollars and I think changing that paradigm is a real challenge and I think it's the sort of generational commitment that's been underway for many years. So I first just thought I would sort out broad and ask you guys since your roles are different how do you see your role in this larger project of trying to make sure jobs in general or specifically those supported by federal dollars are family sustaining with you know infused with worker power well-paid have with long-term retirement security all the things we've talked about. Maybe I'll let the MacArthur genius kick us off here. We hang on her every work. Now Polly can you forgive me because we've been working together closely since we came into this administration together but thank you so much for the question thank you for having me it's so good to be here with my friends at New America and also Deputy Secretary Trottenberg and I so let me say a couple of things one is that you know we keep talking about this like unprecedented level of federal investment and just to really like hit home what we're talking about the amount of investment that we are currently making in infrastructure just in you know roads and bridges and highways is more than what was invested in during the Eisenhower administration when the national highway system was built the amount that we are investing in innovation right in through like chips and science is more than the investments that were made during president Kennedy's administration when we sent a man to the moon and the amount that we're investing now in just you know climate there's really no comparison to any Prime Administration so it really is an incredible time I think an incredible exciting time to think about how federal investment can really shape private you know other local city state and community opportunities for us at the Department of Labor you know we really see ourselves as partners to those to our sister agencies who are charged with putting out that funding and specifically on a couple of fronts one is on what's already been talked about today is job quality right this is a moment in which you know it's the right thing to do at any time but you know it's the right thing to do sort of by the things that you mentioned right sometimes you know history tells us the lowest bid is not always the it in the long run the lowest cost right it's not always the best investment and so really thinking about how good jobs are part of building this future that we want is you know I think this is an opportunity for that it's also a moment in which workers are you know we've seen a shift in how workers and worker power right we've seen you know people talk about the great resignation but the reality is that more people have been higher there have been more hires than there have been resignations in the last couple of years which means that people are really leaving bad jobs for better jobs and leaving better jobs for even better jobs so this is a moment which workers are you know really demanding they're see the table they're organizing in unprecedented ways and so job quality becomes a greater imperative because of that so we view our role as helping to support our sister agencies in having good job standards attached to federal funding again recognize that federal funding can really drive behavior that's why our secretary secretary Walsh launched the good jobs initiative which has MOUs with various agencies we talk about that a little bit more today but the other piece is our work to make sure that these good jobs that are created are distributed in a way that advances equity equitable outcomes that includes communities have been for so long excluded even in the best of times and so really looking at how we you know use this moment not just to advance policy goals not just create good jobs but to really combat systemic racism and other forms of exclusion because a lot of these jobs are being created have not been equitably available to all communities so really thinking about how we do that in a sustained way is very exciting for us well let me just follow on and and and Mary Alice new America thanks for having us here today it's great to be here with with my colleague Julie and Lydia from the New York Times thank you thanks to all the journalists who are doing amazing work in these challenging political times I think just to underscore a bit of what Julie's talking about in particularly I'll speak about it from the transportation context I think you know as a sector transportation is one of the most highly unionized and comes sort of comes to the table even before the big infrastructure bill with some statutory labor protections including a couple that are very well known prevailing wage and Davis Bacon which you know already set sort of a foundational stage in in terms of wages and working closely with the unionized sector in transit so you know we start off luckily in a place where we have a lot of good jobs and the infrastructure bill has given us the opportunity to expand you know sort of the transportation workforce both internally at us do t for starters and then obviously in transportation agencies all over the country as well as in private construction firms etc you know our focus has particularly been as this extraordinary set of opportunities arises exactly what Julie is talking about how do we make sure that we don't miss this moment to get to all the communities that have not been well served in transportation in terms of employment opportunities training opportunities and also on the procurement side in procurement and wealth building opportunities and that's where I think our partnership with DOL and our two secretaries Buddha judge and Walsh but also particularly Julie because she has been such a leader in this field for so many years of thinking through we've got the money we have at least on the transportation side a strong statutory framework but how do we now sort of overcome you know generations of barriers to women to people of color from getting into those hide-pay jobs those union jobs and it has been I think one of the most exciting parts of our partnership to really dig in on that question and tackle it in a real kind of multi-dimensional way from looking at pre-apprentice training to looking at how the hiring is happening to looking at all the ways that we can in within our statutory authorities use our grant making process to nudge along more diverse workforces local hiring a lot of the practices that we think will move the needle and I would just say one thing Lydia I think the good news is and look I on the New York City side was involved in a lot of procurements and this question about lowest bid and value for money and I think there is now a growing transition into recognizing that really good project delivery is about a lot of different value propositions including what you do to train your local workforce so I'm encouraged that that I think is now starting to become and we're seeing that in places all over the country and not just sort of you know the big cities of California but places you might not expect it a recognition particularly with this level of transformative funding we got to do more in the end and just get a bunch of projects at the lowest possible cost we want to lift up communities and bring a whole new generation of diverse workers into the transportation field and it's really good to have a concrete conversation about what this actually looks like and I'm sure there's lots of local government officials listening and wondering you know how do I crack these proposals and everything so tell me more from both of you guys's ends of this what it actually looks like are you doing requirements is it just sort of nudges is it like a suggestion that maybe we'll look upon this favorably is it a point system how are these principles being infused into the leverage of yeah I'll take a crack and then it varies a lot from program to program you know both the statutory requirements the let you know sort of the legislative history and how we do this but I'll give a couple of very affirmative examples that I think are exciting we have a program at our federal transit administration which is called low and no emissions program and it's to give grants particularly now we're really focused on converting the nation's bus fleet from diesel to electric it's going to have huge environmental benefits but as part of that program the grant recipients are allowed to take a proportion of those funds and use them to work with their workforce to train them in these new type of vehicles and that's something we're partnering with DOL on so there it's a very affirmative statutory part of the program with dollars set aside we have another program which is for rail grants the program's called Chrissy and there we are allowed to give affirmative grants for workforce development we just gave an eight million dollar grant to Amtrak to work on a whole new training and apprenticeship program for rail workers in our other programs it very much runs the gamut but in a lot of the discretionary grant programs we've been able to put in language where essentially we're talking about you know again training project labor agreements a bunch of good labor practices both to grow and diversify the workforce and to ensure that they have appropriate labor protections and we can look at that as a way to sort of give them extra you know basically extra credit in the grant applications and I'm happy to say look we're sort of the first year in on doing some of these grant programs with some of that language and I think we got a great response we probably have seen you know whereas in previous years we might have just a handful of grantees that had written in talking about what they were going to do on the labor front we're now seeing probably close to a third doing that and I think in coming years we're going to see a lot more so we're really excited about the progress there it's you know it's a it's a learning experience for all of us but you know and again I think we've seen and I know Julie can talk about you know what's been exciting is we've seen examples of communities in really diverse places Louisville Kentucky is doing an incredible project working with their local community so you know not just in the places you might expect to see it well I'll just build on that Polly because I always cite to your point that in including language in your notices of funding opportunities you have seen some shift in in the applications that you get and again that is the power of leveraging federal investments to reflect the values of this administration right and this president has been very very clear that building an economy that's centered on the well-being of workers that is about expanding good union jobs is very much how we build a how we build back and how we you know create a not just a strong recovered economy but but a resilient one I think the other thing I'll just add to that is that the other thing that we've done in addition to working with Polly and our other other departments putting out federal funding in terms of what kind of language can be included in grants is really trying to give concrete examples of what this really looks like on the ground right the other good news in addition to everything that policy which I agree with is that we don't have to invent a lot of stuff out of a whole cloth like there are examples of what we're talking about right sector-based labor management partnerships with true worker voice that's focused on reaching out to communities that would not otherwise get the jobs much less get into the training program there's examples of that and we have an opportunity now you know we don't need to do it on the federal government level right we should you know reward incentivize that kind of good work that's happened on the ground so as another example of you know place that people might not expect you know there's been really good work done by jobs move America along with a company called you flyer where they basically entered into a community benefits agreement to make sure to hire folks from the local community to build electric buses I mean so how do we you know kind of reward and incentivize that kind of behavior so that it's scaled across the entire economy is really exciting so presenting specific examples of things that are working connecting people so that you know they can learn from one another it's something we've been a lot of time doing we did a good job summit which Polly you know very kindly came to speak at where we brought together folks working on the ground at cities in states right between unions and employers and you know and intermediaries and sector leaders to talk about what they're doing and I think sharing those kinds of examples is a key part of how we get where we want to be so I hear a lot of reward incentivize showcase provide extra grants if you do this thing like but not a lot of requiring mandating you know etc and I'm wondering if there's a hesitation to do that if there's a trade-off between getting procurement contracts out the door in a timely fashion and making sure that all these good things are part of them well I just think I think you have to look at carefully for each agency at what we're allowed to do statutorily I mean that's usually the limiting factor here and again as I sort of said at the outset you know we have a couple of long-standing statutory tools in the transportation sector I mean we have prevailing wage if you're using federal dollars on a project if to pay a prevailing wage which is you know typically a very good wage in terms of raising a family and having a middle-class lifestyle ditto Davis bacon ditto another provision we have 13c which affects how we work with Department of Labor on with transit workers so those are very strong statutory foundations beyond that I think you have to be again as a federal agency use every tool in your disposal but you have to be somewhat careful about exceeding your statutory mandate and I think you know one thing some of your audience may have seen something we're very you know we're proud of but as proof controversial is our our federal highway administration put out actually an internal memo talking about what particularly was the vision for formula dollars where we as an agency have sort of far less discretion talking about the workforce pieces climate pieces you name it and it's it's proved controversial you know with real pushback on Capitol Hill you know accusing us of potentially overstepping our statutory you know authority so I think you have to find that sweet spot and I think one thing I think we're proud of being in this administration I think we've leaned in really hard wherever we can to try and really make the case and set up a you know a structure that's going to incentivize what we're all talking about here today which is you know a diverse well-trained workforce that's working on these infrastructure projects and hopefully you know starting a whole new set of career paths for folks as well as again I want to just hit up also on the procurement side doing a lot to up our DB equals and making sure that women own and minority owned firms really get a piece of the contracting work and can create that generational wealth so I would say I think we we push as far as we can given our statutory authorities but Congress also obviously has to say in how these programs are designed and implemented to add on that no I mean I think that's right you know for us at the Department of Labor we we didn't get any of the funding in terms of you know these bills and so our work has really been in support I think you know Polly's absolutely right that there are places where there are statutory requirements like prevailing wage which we think are very very important and really invaluable and then there's other places where you know the the nudge the incentivize and then like I said there's the even soft like you know how do we demonstrate what is possible and demonstrate that it's actually really good in community so that even where it's voluntary or more folks are likely to do it right I think it's clear that people are not going to be able to enjoy the safe roads and new bridges and you know infrastructure in this administration is broader than roads and bridges right the the broadband and the clean water flowing from your pipes if you don't have the economic security that comes with a good job and so recognizing that that is ultimately what's best for you know to make the investments go as far as they can you know we're hopeful that if we show how it can be done that there will be more that you know that it'll be done at scale and they'll be looking back by 10 years from now we will say that you know it didn't happen just because we required it but it did happen because it was the right thing to do and we made it easy to yeah so I mean well taken that there are statutory limits and that Davis Bacon and the Service Contract Act are super powerful and have made these jobs better jobs over the years and transportation sector that one of the most unionized sectors in the economy I mean we start off from a place where you know more to do but where transportation jobs are pretty traditionally unionized and therefore good wages good benefits you know good lifelong training right well let me do a slight tangent question before getting to the real other question but those statutes do tend to in my experience fall apart a little bit on when things get to like contracting and subcontracting and enforcement and making sure that everybody's really is enjoying the benefits of those laws or sometimes if they don't totally extend to like concessionaires you know folks you work at the Pentagon and at the McDonald's inside so are are you doing something you can to make sure that even those laws benefit as many people so whose wages are ultimately paid by federal tax dollars as you can well I think you're you're sort of getting into a bigger question here and one that I think is a really good one and it's increasingly I think becoming a campaign I know Unite now and and other unions around the country have been looking at you know one place they've been looking at we've been working with them on is what's happening at airports which is exactly that question which is a lot of airports get a lot of federal grants you know typically you know there'll be an airport operator that is maybe a public authority maybe the private authority and then is contracting out a certain amount of airport you know certain more of airport concessions and other things and looking at the potential nexus there you know again you have to look a bit at least for DOT at the you know sort of our statutory authorities you know where an entity is a direct recipient of federal dollars we have a lot of you know a lot of strings we can pull where you know they're using their dollars for one thing and then they have contracting in another area there's not always the same nexus but listen I think we intellectually we totally get where those campaigns are coming from and we want to see if there are ways that we can make progress there and I think ideally when an entity or an ecosystem is getting a lot of federal dollars we should figure out a way make sure that all the jobs that are involved there you know are getting the right you know the right set of wages benefits etc but you know statutorily the further remove the dollars sort of get from what an agency is directly given out the less you have necessarily potentially and you know the kind of hooks that you have when the dollars are direct I mean it's just such an important point and so I just want to thank you for raising it you know I think as much as we celebrate the historic investments and the good things are being done it's important to take a really clear-eyed view about the you know very real struggles of working people across our economy and part of it due to the things that you've talked about right subcontracting which for decades has been used as a way to insulate those at the top of the chain from responsibility for workers at the end that chain now you know this president has taken steps to try to address that too right through executive orders you know $15 minimum wage across the entire you know for all federal contractors you know misclassification is another big one right which is a part of this where for a very long time not just individual employers but whole industries have made it a business model to basically skirt a century of labor laws by calling people who should be employees independent contractors and so we have just issued a proposed rule to try to reverse the last administration's weakening of rules about independent contracting and you know then that requires enforcement so it's just a really it's just an important reminder of the of the many challenges in the workplace and the importance of a whole bunch of different pieces right besides you know just the sort of federal investments we need we need strong labor laws we needed force for those labor laws and we need to you know we eat you know it's we have a president who's been very clear that workers organizing and the freedom to organize a really really important part of that equation you're not gonna make a pitch for extra appropriations to get this all done that was like a wide open I can't remember what I'm allowed to do so I'm not gonna do that well this might okay just at the risk of asking you to do something else you're not allowed to do so I mean we've established there's limitations on what you can do and I'm just curious to know like what would be the obvious statutory changes to allow you to make these dollars work harder for people I mean I want to I think Julie will have a lot of thoughts on that I'll just give sort of one thought I mean we do speak about the big infrastructure pillar it was the bipartisan infrastructure law and look I'm I'm super proud to be part of an administration I say this about president Biden he was a legislator and if you look at what we have accomplished legislatively in the past year and a half the bipartisan infrastructure of the inflation reduction act I mean we have done a faint you know a fantastic list of legislative accomplished and some of them bipartisan which he's proud of so I think you know I can answer that question but I also want to say you know he is a he is a he is a president who is very much grounded in you know sort of working with the Congress and getting the best we can so I think you know politically just to hit on something Julie said I think one thing that we're finding exciting here is that what we're doing on the ground I think is sort of opening up minds and winning over some hearts and you know I have no doubt that our administration will probably be back again with Congress next year trying to perhaps gain more ground on some of these issues but I want to be careful I don't know that I want to say exactly what the agenda would be but I do think I know this president and our administration were fiercely committed to continuing to make advancements on this and we'll see what the legislative landscape looks like next year but I have a hunch and I'm sure Julie has some thoughts on this you know we will be coming back over and over again legislatively well I'm gonna shift a little bit and then please correct me if I should answer the question more directly but one of the things that I say a lot inside the Department of Labor is what are we doing to unleash our full power the full power we've already been given right the full power that we've been given legislatively budgetarily and and through other and through other rules right I think oftentimes in government there's a sense that we have to have new things in order to do more and while there that is certainly true and I agree again with everything that Polly said there's also a tremendous amount of work that can be done within government agencies to just unleash the full power that we've already been given so as an example right part of the whole conversation about workforce is around the workforce innovation opportunity actor we owe up right which is you know billions of dollars you know much of it in formula grants to states around building a workforce right trying to answer this question that is all around us right how do we make sure we have the workers to do the things that we want to do and again our answer is you make them good jobs and you focus on equity and you make you know make sure that you are tapping the full talent of the American workforce but part of that is also making sure that there's innovation and bold innovation going on within the workforce world so we've been really you know like leaning into how do we make sure that we owe is utilized in the full creative way that it can be used to support some of these we're talking about sector-based labor management partnerships with job quality and equity at their center and so we have launched a campaign that's called yes we owe a can that is meant to make it clear to everyone in the we owe a world that there's lots of myths and restrictions that have come up around we owe that aren't that are myths and how do we break those down so that we are again utilizing the resources that are already there I love weird acronym puns that's great well so the previous discussion with Mayor Norton talks a lot about the importance of care and and jobs here as a enabler of people doing jobs you know the build back original build back better plan had a lot of money for that that was not did not make it into final version I know that these are not people you employ secretary you know Deputy Secretary Trottenberg but I'm just wondering to both of you like do you think the current flight of federal investments can be kind of leveraged to try to lift up those professions as well even though right now they directly pay for hard infrastructure right well so I you know I think I can say this on behalf of the entire administration right you know president Biden vice president Harris we're very clear that care is infrastructure and that you know as as you said as you know my friend I didn't put the national domestic workers alliance says all the time it is the the work that makes all of the work possible and so the you know the ambitions in build back better around making sure that we truly invest that infrastructure the same way we invest in other infrastructure was really broad and unfortunately you know Congress didn't pass it so you know for us that has meant that we have shifted to try to find other ways of utilizing powers that we have to make sure that there is an investment in care workers that we you know as we look at who's getting job like this whole conversation about you know making sure that there are women people of color in these good jobs that we're making does require some amount of making sure that there's a care infrastructure so that people can go to work right and that's partly why in all these workforce development you know you know training partnerships that we care about we're also interested in investments in support systems right funding for things like care like transportation and you know tools other things that that you know our sort of work adjacent things that that that make work possible and so we have we've been trying to really look at ways to do that we are utilizing you know and encouraging investments of we owe a dollars and others into a care care training programs that will both again make sure that we meet the need for care and elevate those care jobs and so there's you know frankly just a lot more work that needs to be done there and we are you know we're deeply aware of it and looking at creative ways to certainly one of the other things is you know coming from California and seeing what local and state entities are doing in creative ways to lean into the need for a strong air care infrastructure I think there's also again you know we don't believe that the federal government should do it all need to do it all or you know or can do it all and so figuring out how we support creative work on the local level in this space is also something that's exciting for us got it you know like daycare centers on you know job sites maybe so I'm gonna take questions so you know there's as we've talked about a ton of dollars coming through the pipeline but if I'm an 18 year old and I'm like answering the call to go build bridges and bike lanes etc. what confidence could you give me that these jobs will be around after this cycle of investments like that they will be sustained that we will be entering a you know generations long boom in infrastructure spending because that's a fear I would have yeah I mean I think that fear would be very misplaced we in transportation we actually have an aging workforce so even even before we got this big influx of infrastructure dollars I would say to all the young people I came across this is a great field to get into and again for some of the reasons we're talking about here it is actually relatively speaking a highly you know relatively highly paid and unionized sector with you know look I love transportation I also just think it is a great field to get into and you mentioned some of you know if you you care about your city and you want to see bike lanes or you know you you want to do something about the aerospace industry it offers a lot of opportunities for a really diverse set of careers and I think it is a field that will always always always need talent particularly engineers you know it's interesting I issue you know it's noted I ran New York City DOT for seven years and relied heavily on an amazing set of engineers a lot of them came from other countries you know because even in the US as we train a lot of engineers not nearly enough so you know I am not worried that once you know once we're through these dollars that the field is going to contract one I think these dollars will play out over many years too I think if we do our jobs right and I hope we will you know we're going to change the paradigm here a bit and there will always be a continued interest I think in a more robust level of infrastructure investment in this country so please it's a great field to get into and one one pitch I always make go in USA jobs right now and you can see there's a special link that connects to the to the infrastructure bill with all kinds of job opportunities I you know one joke I like to make at US DOT right now if you've ever thought about coming to the federal government if you ever thought about coming to US DOT with a president and a vice president who love and care about infrastructure some great secretaries and great cabinet secretaries in our administration and and all these new dollars and programs there's never going to be a better time than right now what I can I just build on yeah Holly said just to expand that to also right like you know energy policy you know manufacturing I just came you know this morning there was a meeting at the White House around our like you know what's our industrial strategy around advanced manufacturing and we're not talking in terms of like you know six-month year-long or couple year strategies we are talking about investments that are going to last for you know decades and you know create infrastructure that's going to need to be updated and maintained and so I think that you know we are looking at jobs not that are going to shift the entire way that we build our economy not just you know temporary projects for the moment new America panels can get you jobs so questions from the audience please step up we have a microphone thanks so much for the both of you for being here Shailen Jotishi from New America my question is for you deputy secretary Sue I love this blog name yes we OA can I actually googled the blog while I was just on my computer definitely recommend folks online check it out my question is actually about that I'm wondering if you can share a little bit not to give away the secret sauce of the series but what are some of the myths around we OA that you'd like the public to know about and the myths you'd like to see dispelled thank you very much oh I really really appreciate that question I also just want to give some credit where it's due so the person who came up with the name is actually in the room and it's my colleague Monica Vareen who's with our our office of public a but so I really do appreciate that question and it's not meant to be a secret sauce the whole purpose of a campaign is to make sure that everybody knows what we're talking about but I'll give a couple examples right one is just very much in line with everything we've talked about here today I think that you know what one of these I like to say is that you know this is not your father's workforce development system it's not your grandfather's workforce development system it's not a system where for a long time the incentive was just to train as many people as possible not necessarily connected to jobs and not certainly not connected to job quality right and so what we measure in the workforce system is what's going to get done and if we do better at measuring what kinds of jobs people got into how long that job was you know what was it a career what are the intergenerational impacts of of our investments I think that it up ends the way we thought about workforce workforce investment another reason you know we came up with this campaign is that in my travels as deputy secretary but also in my you know time in California I think there are that they're just myths people you know sort of handcuffed themselves about what is possible within we owe you know are we allowed to prioritize equity are we allowed to say that we want to measure how many black brown API LGBTQ right you know workers with disabilities came through these programs and so wanting to make sure that that again the programs reflect the priorities that we have one of the things that we found when we first came in and did a deep dive on equity is that systematically African American sort of graduates of we owe a funded training programs end up in jobs where they are getting paid less than their white counterparts so the system has to correct that right that is that is reinforcing systemic barriers it's also it not the purpose of the program and so in order for us to be clear eyed and smart about how we do better we have to be we have to take a look at what what's possible and we all what we're what we're allowed to measure what we're allowed to change and so those are some of the examples but there will be more to come I'm with CompTIA the computer trade industry association this is a question for deputy secretary Chalkenberg I think this historic investment this interesting time we're in is is also such a huge opportunity to look at women and jobs and the sectors we've been speaking to infrastructure transportation tech construction tend to be male dominated and when we look at the jobs and look at the data thank you deputy secretary Sue for queuing this up we do see such a disparity in a category that we at CompTIA have been trying to shift for a long time to get women into tech what are some of the best practices you've seen to incorporate solutions that we can use to lift that issue as well thank you thank you for that great question and they don't tend to be male dominated they are male dominated and it just an interesting little statistics so I ran New York City DOT for seven years I was at US was set on the Obama administration and now in the Biden administration both agencies the gender breakdown is 75 percent male 25 percent female so federal and local and it's been that way for over a decade despite a lot of efforts I think to sort of try and change that gender balance so just to sort of underscore and then if you look at particular sectors maritime very few women aviation very few women transit actually probably the one of the transportation sectors where you see a much more even gender balance so these are long-standing challenges and I've in the course of my career you know tried to work work at them both at the local and the federal level and you know since you're sort of asking for best practices I'll give a couple thoughts on it you know there there is no question that I think at the federal level there's a lot we can do to you know as you're saying nudge incentivize and you know some of the work that we've been doing and working with Julie and DOL has been really exciting it is somewhat bespoke work you know to get sort of folks that don't see themselves in particular professions into those professions can take you know really aggressive and thoughtful recruiting training and working to make sure that the organizations and the companies and questions have you know that welcoming inclusive culture that's going to keep those employees and you know you you mentioned sort of the care economy I mean this isn't a transportation specific thing but it is also true that obviously women for whom still you know they are taking on more of the burden of childcare or caring for for aging parents that can particularly be challenging in fields that have you know sort of 20 set for 24 7 potential schedules if you're driving a train or if you are driving a bus or you want to be an air traffic controller you know there's certain parts of the transportation sector that are very operational and that can be you know that can be you know and not much opportunities as we now know for things like remote work you know 40 percent of the jobs at us do t are not remote work they are operational so you know I think there are things we're trying to incentivize at the federal level I can tell you at the local level it's sort of the same at the local level you know in my time as transportation commissioner we worked really closely with the local building trades council with the contracting firms with our own city hiring process and tried to you know chip away at this issue everywhere we went I think we've made some progress but the progress has been still a lot slower than I certainly would like it to be you know I also do a lot of work with an important group in transportation WTS which is the women's transportation seminar it's kind of the leading you know women in transportation advocacy group and they do they have they have chapters all over the country and they are famous you may remember back in the campaign there was the famous talk of kind of for when Mitt Romney was governor in Massachusetts and then later presidential campaign that he was given binders full of women they came from the local WTS chapter in Massachusetts but that's that's part of the process is that networking is that supporting and promoting of women in the field so I think it's all of those practices but but I'll admit we got a long way to go we are we are not there yet yeah I mean can I just build on that really quickly first to say thank you right for I think I do think the again the work that happens completely outside of what the federal government is doing is so key because you know we are all going to be needed to get this done but a couple of really concrete examples is without in any way you know I thought I should let it sit the comment that we have a long way to go because that's really really really important but in the spirit of there are things happening right and like is this a moment where we could really see big shifts because of the investments that we made but also because of work on the ground is a group called Chicago women in trades are you all here in the room who've been doing incredible work so let me just put the camera on you and acknowledge the amazing work that you all are doing to basically transform you know women in the infrastructure workforce and and there's a model that that you all have done so successfully and we are supportive of your efforts to expand your technical assistance to 10 other states to try to to try to you know expand your impact so I'm so glad you're here and we're so proud to support you and then just another piece in terms like the partnerships between organizations and this is you know back to Polly's roots but I know that the DOT gave a hundred and ten million dollar award to the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market Intermodal Facility in New York City and that is improving not only the largest food distribution center in the country but will create a thousand new jobs it has PLAs as Polly's already mentioned so much of their funding does but 10% of their apprenticeship slots slots are actually reserved for public housing residents and 15% are reserved for women trained through an organization called non-traditional employment for women or new new is also funded by the Department of Labor as part of our grants to bring women into non-traditional occupation so there's a lot of work that we're trying to do across organizations across agencies to address this issue but there's much more work that we need to do for sure. One last question. Hi thanks so October is as you know national disability employment awareness month so my question as you know also this is a population that faces major barriers to employment has one of the highest rates of unemployment and joblessness just curious to know if you what you're doing to support this population of disabled workers but also what's working out there that you're seeing thank you. So I'll just mention again the Department of Labor we have an agency called ODEP the Office of Disability Employment Policy and that work that work is focused we've been celebrating ending all month but very much about making sure that everything we're talking about we talked about equity includes workers with disabilities training programs how we measure equity hiring within the federal government so that you know no question that that's you know me that's been left behind also when we talk about communities have been left behind and where there's tremendous talent that we should draw from for all the building that we're doing now. Let me just add to that and sort of dovetailing with everything Julie said and we're working closely with DOL we have our own very robust programs to try and get more people with disabilities into the workforce and led by someone if some of you don't know I'm Kelly Bucklin who's our disability advisor DOT who's phenomenal if you don't know him get to know him but I think another piece of it that we're also putting a big focus on of course is access that has been one of the real barriers for people with disabilities to be fully integrated into educational system or so we are very focused one nice thing from the infrastructure bill it gave us incredible new funding to make mass transit systems all around the country fully ADA funding for Amtrak to make all their stations fully ADA compliant so we are looking for ways not only to help do the training and the recruitment but also to make sure once you've got the jobs that as personal disabilities you can access them and that I again another reason I'm so excited about the infrastructure bill we've never had those kinds of dollars you know specifically devoted to you know particularly fixing mass transit systems where you know it's a multi multi-billion dollar endeavor to retrofit a lot of old transit systems I will also just say just another thing we're proud of at DOT we're also very focused on the question of access in the aviation sector it's been a long-standing issue with the disability community you know how the treatment they get at airports the treatment get airlines what happens with their wheelchairs lavatories on board so we're very focused on rule makings on all those issues and put out a whole people with disabilities bill of rights basically for air travel so thank you for that question really focused on those issues they're super important you know I bet about the infrastructure bill so gotta wrap it up thank you so much this was excellent I think we all learned a lot and I will we will exit stage thank you new America