Washington, D.C. — October 03, 2025 — North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) President Sean McGarvey issued the following statement:

“The shutdown and job cancellations over the past 48 hours are creating chaos and uncertainty for America’s construction workforce. As of this morning, with more unnecessary job cancellations and delays threatening to further divide us as a nation, roughly $28 billion in federal funding is being withdrawn from dozens of states across the country. Over 300 Department of Energy project awards have been canceled, and major transportation projects are now also threatened in major hubs like New York and Illinois. These are not headlines or talking points; these targeted actions attack the jobs of blue collar workers and create deeper construction industry market instability in both red and blue states. Real jobs and real paychecks are in jeopardy from these devastating blows to American workers and their families.

“Two cancelled project awards alone, the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub and California’s ARCHES Hub, would have created more than 135,000 construction jobs, most under project labor agreements to ensure cost and schedule stability and a locally trained, highly skilled workforce. These are major projects with bipartisan support that would grow the hydrogen industry and strengthen America’s energy and national security.

“Unlike Members of Congress, building trades workers only get paid when they show up to work. This chaos threatens their livelihoods. If they cannot work, they do not get paid. Lawmakers need to remember: memes do not pay the bills. Political games and social media fights do not build projects or keep families afloat. Shutdowns, delays, and cancellations deliver only chaos, and our members are the victims of Washington’s dysfunction and chaos culture.

“Our members are ready to build. But we cannot do our job unless Congress and the White House do theirs. It is time for Washington to get to work and have a sense of urgency. Our elected officials should not be anywhere but together in a room working to resolve this unnecessary crisis.”

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Media Contact: Betsy Barrett, (202) 997-3266 | bbarrett@nabtu.org

About NABTU: North America’s Building Trades Unions is an alliance of 14 national and international unions in the building and construction industry collectively representing over 3 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada. Each year, our unions and signatory contractor partners invest almost $2 billion in private-sector money to fund and operate over 1,900 apprenticeship training and education facilities across North America that produce the safest, most highly trained, and most productive, skilled craft workers found anywhere in the world. NABTU is dedicated to creating economic security and employment opportunities for its construction workers by safeguarding wage and benefits standards, promoting responsible private capital investments, investing in renowned apprenticeship and training, and creating more construction career pathways to the middle class for women, communities of color, Indigenous people, veterans, and the justice-involved. For more information, please visit nabtu.org.