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Who Gets the Green Jobs, and Are They Any Good?
— Tiffany Ten Eyck
Green-economy group Green for All
called for a shift in priorities at a recent rally in Oakland. But who
gets the green jobs, out-of-work building trades members or
underemployed workers who have long faced barriers to unionized trades
work? Community-labor partnerships are coming up with creative answers.
Photo: Jen Roberts.
Just because a job’s green doesn’t mean it’s good.
With everything going green—if it really is—what does that mean for
our workplaces? A union-backed report by Good Jobs First cautioned that
job creation in the new “green economy” often means more low-wage,
low-benefit work with companies hostile to unions.
The warning could apply to thousands of new jobs that will be
created with $5 billion of February’s $787 billion stimulus package
tagged for home-weatherizing programs to help low- and moderate-income
families save energy—and money. While some funds already existed for
these programs, the Department of Energy said states could receive up
to 30 times more money for home retrofitting.
SUDDENLY FLUSH
The coffers are suddenly flush, but how the work will be done is up
in the air. Coalitions across the U.S. have been racing to develop
programs to divvy up the work, with building trade unions at the
forefront.
Who gets the jobs—building trades unionists, less employed than ever
during the recession’s construction slowdown, or underemployed workers
who have long faced barriers to unionized trades work? And how can we
make sure green jobs become union jobs?
Community-labor partnerships in Newark, Los Angeles, and Seattle are
answering these questions. They’re creating a blueprint to help
building trades unions dig into the green economy, while bringing new
workers, many of them women and people of color, into the unions.
Building trades unions have done weatherization work in the Puget
Sound for years, but a new program allows them to gain jobsites and
claim ground against non-union compa
nies.
Building trades unions, faith allies, and community organizers with
the Sound Alliance in Washington state recently won a bill in Olympia
adding prevailing wage criteria to $15 million in stimulus cash marked
for retrofitting. Pilot programs will retrofit 7,500 buildings in the
state.
Alliance organizer Joe Chrastil said union contractors have a
definite advantage, because it’s hard for non-union contractors to meet
prevailing wage and training requirements.
The unions will also gain ground in newer areas like residential
retrofitting, where homeowners previously didn’t have a way to pay a
living wage for union workers, said Soph Davenport, a sheetmetal worker
in Local 66.
The IBEW, Sheetmetal, and Pipe Trades unions, among others, are now
training more of their members to run energy audits and install
energy-efficient heat and water systems. However, they won’t be the
only ones.
The coalition is using the glut of work to open up the trades to a
new workforce, composed of women and people of color who’ve taken
entry-level classes in construction or pre-apprentice programs, and
who’ve struggled to get into the unions in the past.
For Sean Bagsby, the alternative energy director for IBEW Local 46,
the program is helping to “infuse life back into the infrastructure” of
the trades, whose declining and aging ranks are being bolstered by
underrepresented workers and younger workers.
Both Bagsby and Bill Hayden, a rank and filer and e-board member of
Local 46, criticized training models used for some federally subsidized
weatherization projects in low-income communities. Entry-level
candidates take dumbed-down classes on specific tasks, and, as Hayden
puts it, “when that work is done, there’s no other work for them.”
While many receive training, they don’t make good wages, and only a few make it into the union.
“We don’t want to see more green sweatshops,” Hayden said.
Instead, recruits to the pilot program are entering apprenticeships
to become full journeymen. The unions adjusted some of their
qualifications, like weighing initiative against test scores, said
Hayden.
How are members in the trades, at times insular—and historically exclusionary—institutions, handling the flood of changes?
“I haven’t heard any nega
tive comments,” Hayden said. “I’m not
saying there won’t be some, or that some people won’t feel
disenfranchised, but so would the people who normally aren’t included.”
PUTTING NEWARK TO WORK
Laborers Local 55 is one of several partners involved in developing
a pilot program in Newark, New Jersey, that will train 300 residents in
green retrofit work by the fall.
“We knew a lot of stimulus money was going in urban areas, but no
one was making sure workers in urban areas were getting the work and
that it was good work,” said Rob Lewandowski, a spokesman for the local.
The union developed, and funded, a six-week training program for
underemployed or unemployed residents in the city, allying with
community group Garden State Alliance for a New Economy to do the
legwork of finding trainees.
Rather than little training, wages of $8 to $10 an hour, and no path
to future work, the newly hired retrofitters will be paid between $17
to $22 an hour, with $5 an hour in benefits. While the wages are less
than some tradespeople earn, the training is an instant path to union
membership and a step toward higher pay and more permanent work with
the union.
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“We want to build people’s skills in full residential construction
so when that market comes back, the same contractor doing
weatherization is likely doing residential,” Lewandowski said.
The Laborers’ New Jersey program hasn’t met resistance from other
trades. Much of their work may focus on basic weatherization, rather
than heat and water system installation. But with many building trades
unions clamoring for work, similar programs in other cities could spell
more job competition.
CREATING DEMAND
Years before stimulus money became an option, labor, community, and
environmental activists in the Los Angeles Apollo Alliance began
organizing to create new jobs. A big-tent coalition pushed a city
ordinance to retrofit more than 1,100 buildings. It was convened by
SCOPE, a nonprofit that helps low-income and people of color
communities gain access to jobs in growing sectors.
Joanna Lee, a SCOPE staffer, said organizers wanted an ordinance
that not only created demand for good, green jobs, but also ensured
that local residents could access the jobs—and that quality training
programs connected them.
“Community folks can enter some of these jobs at entry le
vel and
gain work experience, and then be funneled into the building trades or
continue on in the public sector,” she said.
In April 2008, the city passed the ordinance, with provisions that
guaranteed good pay, work for underemployed local residents, and
set-asides that ensured half of buildings targeted for retrofits come
from these same communities.
As in Washington and Newark, the LA trades administer much of the retrofit training.
But with members of building trades unions struggling to get work as
the construction industry craters, Lee said the size of the project
means that entry-level workers won’t replace current building trades
union members once the work starts later this summer. The building
trades will pick up some contracts, along with much of the skilled
work. Local residents, once trained, will start on less-skilled parts
of the work. If all goes according to plan, they’ll end up in a better
situation.
“It’s essential to get them into the unionized pipeline—we see that as a strategy to get folks out of poverty,” Lee said.
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