Ryan Andreas helped his union push through legislation for a national infrastructure program two years ago, realizing that historic upgrades to America’s utilities, ports and bridges portended brighter futures for him and his co-workers at Travis Pattern and Foundry.

It turned out exactly as Andreas anticipated. He and his colleagues experienced skyrocketing demand for clamps, vacuum tubing and other products after President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) on Nov. 15, 2021, prompting the company to create hundreds more union jobs and expand production facilities.

“It’s benefited us tremendously,” said Andreas, financial secretary for United Steelworkers (USW) Local 289M, which represents nearly 500 workers at two Travis facilities and another manufacturer in Spokane, Wash. “We’ve almost had to turn away business.”

The IIJA unleashed $1.2 trillion for tens of thousands of projects nationwide. It’s upgrading transportation, communications and energy systems while building back manufacturing capacity, generating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs and investing in the middle class.

In Washington state alone, as U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen noted, the program continues to touch all parts of the economy, creating jobs in construction as well as the “transit, trucking, aviation, rail and maritime sectors.” Andreas and his colleagues just wrapped up work on a big order supplying parts to a company serving the rail industry.

Across the country, investment in plants, mills and other manufacturing facilities doubled since the end of 2021 after increasing only negligibly in the four years before that, according to data from the U.S. Treasury Department and the White House. “The factory construction of today means manufacturing jobs for tomorrow,” Livia Shmavonian, director of Biden’s Made in America office, observed in August.

Travis Pattern and Foundry is among the companies committing to facilities and people because of the IIJA. The 101-year-old family-owned business recently completed a new building, adding 45,000 square feet of production space, and it’s now planning another multimillion-dollar addition to its 170,000-square-foot campus.

“We are always looking to hire more people,” said Andreas, noting the contract he and his fellow union members recently ratified delivers significant wage increases, cuts the time needed to reach the top of the pay scale, and provides other enhancements that will help current and future workers build better lives.

Felipe Venegas wears full-body personal protective equipment—and moves carefully and methodically even on the hottest days—because he processes chemicals with the potential to ignite and explode in a heartbeat.

Venegas and his co-workers at Nouryon in La Porte, Texas, put their lives on the line to supply the nation’s need for coatings, cleaning solutions and many other essential products.

Yet the company arbitrarily axed their bonuses about a year ago even as bosses continued pocketing their own premium pay for the work force’s outstanding safety and production record.

It was one more kick in the gut for Venegas and his colleagues, who voted in February to unionize and join the growing numbers of Americans who are harnessing collective power to build better lives. Now, they’re in the process of bargaining their first contract.

Union election petitions filed with the National Labor Relations Board soared in the wake of the pandemic as workers in manufacturing, energy, retail and many other industries organized to level the playing field and win their fair share. Workers at thousands of workplaces, including the Nouryon complex in La Porte, Texas, began forming unions this year alone.

“I just felt we had to do something different,” recalled Venegas, a production operator at Nouryon for 15 years who led several dozen co-workers in their successful drive to become members of the United Steelworkers (USW). “We didn’t see a future. We’re finding it harder to stay in the middle class.”

Workers at Nouryon faced the same quandary as millions of other struggling Americans. Instead of moving ahead, they kept falling further behind without a union, Venegas said, citing paltry wage increases, a lackluster retirement plan and other mistreatment at Nouryon, a multibillion-dollar global company that’s co-owned by the Carlyle Group, one of the biggest investment firms in the world.

Nouryon posts whopping revenue on workers’ backs, and the Carlyle Group’s founders appear on Forbes’ real-time list of billionaires. Meanwhile, Venegas and others at the La Porte plant struggle to pay for their families’ medical care.

“It’s horrible,” Venegas said of the company’s health care plan, which requires hefty premium contributions and deductibles even though the physical nature of the job takes a heavy toll on workers’ bodies. “You have to pay 100 percent before you reach your deductible. My deductible is like $5,000.”

The single mother, determined to provide the best for her family, poured heart and soul into her job at the Cooper Tire plant in Texarkana, Ark.

Yet, Kerry Halter recalled, the woman made thousands of dollars less every year than co-workers performing the very same job. Even worse, under the plant’s two-tier wage system—paying lower rates to more recently hired workers—she’d never catch up.

Fortunately, Halter and other members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 752L drew a line in the sand during contract negotiations four years ago and forced the company to eliminate the capricious pay system, ensuring all workers at the plant began receiving equal pay for equal work.

Those USW members represented the leading edge of a movement now sweeping the country. In one industry after another, fed-up workers are fighting back against the two-tier systems that employers use to cheat and divide them.

In addition to wages, some employers use two-tier systems to give more recently hired workers lower-quality health care or retirement benefits than other workers or to impose unequal compensation systems on people performing the same work in different locations.

“Greedy corporations and CEOs like to see how much money they can save on the backs of their workers,” said Halter, the Local 752L president. “At some point in time, you just have to say enough is enough, and we’re going to stand up and fight for fair wages and benefits.”

Under Cooper Tire’s system, workers who joined the Texarkana plant beginning in 2009 made only 85 percent of what co-workers hired before them did.

That disparity quickly trapped more and more workers in a cycle of exploitation that cost them thousands of dollars in wages every year while also limiting their vacation pay and other benefits. More veteran workers, meanwhile, disliked making more money than co-workers doing the same jobs right next to them.

“It shouldn’t be about your hire date,” said Halter, noting his 1,500 union members—newer and more veteran workers alike—collectively decided to make evening the scales a priority in 2019 contract talks.

Silica dust at the Genesis Alkali mine in Green River, Wyo., is so thick some days that Marshal Cummings can barely see a foot in front of him.

It blankets his clothes, clogs his respirator, coats his hair, blackens his mucus and lodges deep inside him like a ticking bomb.

Exposure to silica can lead to silicosis, a scarring and stiffening of the lungs that leaves miners gasping for air, and it’s also a cause of lung cancer, kidney disease and other major ailments.

Silica robs thousands of their health every year. But now, after years of fighting, Cummings and tens of thousands of surface and underground miners across the country are on the brink of achieving true protections and holding all mining employers accountable for the first time.

President Joe Biden’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recently proposed a rule that would force employers to significantly reduce miners’ exposure to silica dust. It would also mandate air monitoring to ensure compliance with the new standard and require corrective actions when silica levels exceed the rule.

Cummings and his co-workers encounter silica dust while mining trona—a mineral used to make soap, glass and other essential products—and it’s also in the coal they use to power the mine complex.

“Even if you wear a mask, you are coughing up black stuff, and every time you blow your nose, it’s pitch black,” said Cummings, chief steward and safety committee member for United Steelworkers (USW) Local 13214, who credits both his union and MSHA for moving the protections forward.

Silica dust, found in numerous types of rock, threatens all miners. So MSHA’s rule would cover not only Cummings, his colleagues and others in the trona industry, but workers at rock quarries and miners who produce coal, iron ore, copper, nickel, zinc and other critical materials.

MSHA wants employers to combat silica dust through a comprehensive hierarchy of controls. That includes engineering controls like ventilation and collection systems as well as administrative protections like ensuring miners have time to remove dust from their clothes, and providing workers with personal protective equipment (PPE).