Recognizing Iam District 751's New Everett Union Hall

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751 on the opening of the new Everett Union Hall.

The new union hall replaces a previous hall that was dedicated in 1996 and provided space for meetings, town halls, solidarity barbecues, celebrations and other union business.

While the old hall served IAM for nearly 30 years, the building was not suitable to meet the needs of the nearly 16,000 IAM members working at Boeing's Everett facility. In particular, the old hall did not have the capacity to support training for new and future aerospace workers. The new Everett Union Hall will house business representatives, support staff, classrooms, shops, labs and a full training area that will allow IAM to offer certification programs and training in conjunction with Boeing and other organizations.

One of the hardest things in high tech industries is finding a workforce that has the skills and training required to do the work.

This new hall will allow the union to provide hands-on training for generations of aerospace workers, allowing current workers to learn new skills and providing an opportunity for future aerospace workers to get the training they need to find family-wage aerospace manufacturing jobs.

This new union hall is not just a building--it is an investment that will benefit the entire region by building the workforce in Washington state and incentivizing aerospace businesses to keep their work in the region.

Congratulations to IAM, and I look forward to visiting the new hall.

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