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Green Jobs Must Also Be Good Jobs |
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Creating green jobs must be a key part of our economic future, and it holds the key to solving the dual issues of global warming and economic growth. But the jobs will only boost the economy if there are guarantees to prevent employers from seeking to make profits on the backs of workers.
For three days last week, more than 2,600 union and environmental activists and lawmakers gathered in Washington, D.C., to discuss how to create a new wave of green jobs that will both stimulate the economy and provide a clean future. Participants at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference focused on transforming the struggling economy through a range of environmental investments in green technology, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Conference organizers said the goal was to develop a “New Green Deal” that would create jobs, increase energy independence, reduce global warming and expand the clean energy and green technology markets.
In addition, the conference highlighted the potential of a green economy to build a new social agenda that lifts Americans out of poverty, improves public health and strengthens the middle class.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka set the theme for the conference, saying:
The American labor movement believes that we must have a strategic approach to greening the economy centered on domestic investment in new technologies, the creation of good jobs and in leading a shared international response to both these issues.
The conference coincided with the debate in the Senate over President Obama’s stimulus package, which includes extensive incentives for green jobs. But there must be worker protections to ensure that the jobs created provide a decent living for workers, said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). And that includes passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
Said Cohen:
If we extinguish workers’ rights, the chances for a green economy are nonexistent. We’re not protectionists—we’re people who believe in a sustainable economy. We can’t just depend on markets. And if we do, we’re likely to come up with answers that are at best incomplete.
When it comes to workers, we can’t just be another commodity thrown in a landfill. We want good jobs, we want green jobs, we want union jobs, and we’re going to take a stand.
Both the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), two of the co-sponsors of the conference, strongly support the Employee Free Choice Act. Speaking at a Capitol Hill rally last week, Sierra Club President Allison Chin said:
As we build the clean energy economy and create the millions of new green jobs that will put our economy back to work, we need to make sure those green jobs are also good jobs. Protecting workers’ most basic rights, including the right to choose how and when to form a union, is an essential part of building a clean energy economy that lifts up all workers.
Economists estimate that as many as 2 million jobs could be created in two years with a $100 billion investment in green infrastructure and retrofitting buildings. But those projects will only stimulate the economy if the money is invested in this country, says United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.
He argues that it is essential to keep the Buy American provision of the stimulus package, which would require manufactured goods used for projects funded by the legislation to be produced in the United States. Gerard says the provision is in line with longstanding procurement laws already in place.
This isn’t about a trade war. It’s about making sure we’re not putting our jobs out to bid for China.
To ensure that the green jobs are quality jobs, the AFL-CIO announced it is creating the Center for Green Jobs. Starting with $1 million from the Working for America Institute, the federation’s workforce and economic development arm, the center will partner with affiliated unions to help pave the way to good union jobs in a variety of the country’s unionized and greening industries. The center also will spread the lessons of AFL-CIO affiliates that have successfully joined the green economy, especially in manufacturing.
A key element of the Green Jobs Center’s work will be a partnership with the National Labor College to develop a “green” certificate program for students of the college. That program will dovetail with an effort by the center and the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) to help construction unions recruit and train the “green workers” for tomorrow’s jobs.
The BCTD is working to ensure that its more than 1,100 training programs create the skilled workforce needed for a clean energy future and provide new opportunities to join the middle class for workers in underserved communities, nontraditional workers and communities of color.
At a press conference, BCTD President Mark Ayers said:
A lot has been said recently about green jobs. But that conversation has been far too focused on the potential quantity of these jobs.
The core mission of the Center for Green Jobs will be to cultivate an equal focus on the quality of those jobs and to ensure that they are available to all Americans.
USW Vice President Fred Redmond summed up the feelings of many of the conference participants when he said a clean environment and good jobs go hand in hand:
We’re here to commit that we cannot have good jobs without a clean environment and we cannot have a clean environment without good jobs. We owe it to future generations to build the green energy fair trade economy.
Other speakers at the conference included Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson; Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.); Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.); Govs. Martin O’Malley (Md.) and Kathleen Sebelius (Kansas); Laborers President Terry O’Sullivan; Teamsters President James Hoffa; and Jared Bernstein, economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
The Feb. 4-6 conference in Washington was coordinated by the Blue Green Alliance, a partnership of the USW, CWA, Laborers, SEIU, Sierra Club and NRDC.
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