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To put this in context, the last administration spent $1.7 billion on capital projects in
their final year. This fiscal year, we will invest $3 billion in capital projects, and
next fiscal year we will invest $3.4 billion, doubling our construction commitment despite the worst
fiscal crisis the state has ever faced. We did that by providing a capital borrowing
plan that’s earned the blessing of Wall St.– another first for the state – and
by leveraging these capital dollars with federal stimulus funds. The result is shovels in the
ground and people at work fising our broken infrastructure in every corner of the Commonwealth.
We have already cut the number of structurally deficient bridges by almost 10 percent, doubled
the highway reconstruction program, and saved or created over 25,000 jobs.
We leveraged about $180 million of
federal stimulus funding for SRF water and sewer construction projects, accelerating
$800 million of municipal construction projects this season and creating 4,000 jobs while
getting you and your families cleaner drinking water.
We’re investing over $100 million next year in our I-Cubed program, MORE jobs program,
Growth Districts Initiative – that’s going to mean jobs and construction in Assembly
Square in Somerville, in the Hamilton Canal area in Lowell, in downtown Haverhill and
along the waterfront in New Bedford.
The Accelerated Bridge Program has already advertised over 73 projects and put your members
to work, cutting the overall number of structurally deficient bridges in our Commonwealth by 10%.
Public higher ed across the state is getting a facelift, and we’re finally making South
Coast commuter rail service a reality, which studies project will generate over $1 billion
in spending and spark one of the largest construction booms the South Coast corridor has ever seen.
By the way, based on current projects, approximately 80% of DCAM construction spending is being
carried out by union workers.
Take our biggest construction project, the $300 million undertaking at Worcester State
Hospital, where I visited today. 96% of the construction spending is being carried out
by union workers through companies like Coghlin Electrical, Chapman Waterpoofing, MJ Flaherty,
and NB Kenney.
Elsewhere, David Borrus and the Pile Drivers Local 56 at the Carpenters Training Center
in Millbury have built a state-of-the-art dive training tank with our help, accrued
over $4 million in wages and benefits and over 55,000 hours of work. Those are but two
of the hundreds of similar stories being told all across the Commonwealth.
And because I am committed to building on this record and making more of these stories,
I have directed that, going forward, Project Labor Agreements be used when necessary.
As a start, we’re going to use a PLA on the new $150 million science facility and
other capital improvements at the UMass Boston campus. We're looking into other projects
across the Commonwealth where a PLA is appropriate. Candidates include the Salem State College
Library, the Lowell Courthouse project, and the UMass Amherst academic building.
And although we cannot use PLAs for federally-assisted
transportation projects until the Federal Highway Administration issues anticipated
guidance on PLAs, my team is already exploring the possible use of PLAs for the Charles River
bridge capital investment program, including Phase II of the Longfellow Bridge project.
So there is a lot going on in Massachusetts, but we need to keep pressing.
By now you should know that I am going to make the tough call if it’s the right one.
I’m sure that there have been times that you’ve disagreed with our administration
on issues or policy, or been disappointed with one decision or another. That’s fair.
Friends can disagree.
But, though it would make my life a lot easier, something I will never do is sell you a bill
of goods. I could stand here and promise everything you want and nothing you don’t. But in this
economy that’s just not possible, and I’m not going to insult your intelligence like
that.
Here’s what I can promise: so long as I have anything to say about it, working families
will have a voice at the table and a friend in the Corner Office. Because the occupant
of that office today is the product of a union household.
What I focus on is not so much what unions need, but what working people need. I understand
that working people also need their roads and bridges fixed. Working people need excellent
schools and education for their children. They need sanity when it comes to health insurance
premiums, both for their family and their business. Some of the working people I know
have family members in long-term disability care who simply can’t take more cuts. Others
are veterans who depend upon those benefits and assistance. Above all, working people
need work.
I came here 40 years ago when I was 14 from a life of poverty on the South Side of Chicago.
From that day forward, Massachusetts people and families and businesses and institutions
have given me more opportunities to learn and grow and prosper than most kids from the
South Side can even imagine. I owe something. Gratitude makes me want to give something
back.
And the thing I want to give is a better chance for someone else. A better school. A better
job. A better community. A better government. A better future.
When CNBC now ranks Massachusetts as the 8th best state to do business in the nation; when
economists predict Massachusetts is recovering faster and stronger from this recession than
the rest of the nation; and when for the first time in two decades we’re gaining population
instead of losing it, I see a brighter tomorrow for every single man, woman and child in this
Commonwealth within our grasp.
Work with me, and let’s build it together.
Thank you.