Utility Workers Unveil New Energy Policy in Copenhagen

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Utility Workers President Michael Langford, right, and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.

Utility Workers (UWUA) Secretary-Treasurer Gary Ruffner and Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, write about a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Ruffner, UWUA President Michael Langford, UWUA Regulatory Affairs Director Carl Wood and Baugh are attending climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Read our previous blogs on the climate change talks here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

The long cold wait of our delegates to get into the Bella Center was rewarded by a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who spoke to the need for diversity of clean energy sources and strongly promoted the ramping up of efficiency measures.  

During the meeting UWUA President Michael Langford shared the union’s new paper on energy policy. Chu also talked about the need to return manufacturing to the United States and our need to ramp up the weatherization of homes.

The UWUA plan calls for rebuilding our infrastructure to reverse the damage done by years of neglect by the market-driven, deregulated utility industry.

Other points in the UWUA policy include:

• Training and retooling our workforce to operate and maintain the utilities of the future.   
• Maximizing existing technologies to increase efficiencies and reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants while investing in carbon-neutral nuclear power.
• Developing promising technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration, wind, geothermal, solar, biofuels and other renewable energy sources, to jump-start the next generation of power plants.
• Protecting and extending the democratic, transparent and accountable regulatory framework that secures our future by protecting consumers, encouraging energy conservation, rewarding the use of sustainable energy sources and requiring investment in the workforce and infrastructure.
• Working with our global partners to raise standards everywhere. Utility services such as water, waste, gas and electricity are fundamental building blocks of society and we must work together to ensure  quality standards globally. 

Lauren Asplen from IUE-CWA asked about the energy rebate program potentially subsidizing the offshoring of good jobs. She gave the example of an appliance plant in Indiana that is being closed while the company opens a new one in Mexico. The new facility will manufacture energy efficient refrigerators that will qualify energy efficiency rebates. Chu recognized that “the issue of companies offshoring operations existed prior to any benefits,” but he also recognized the need to “bring back manufacturing jobs.”  

He also spoke of the need for scale, saying the weatherization funding in the recovery act “will cover maybe a million homes in a nation of 130 million homes.” He said to be serious, we need to “ramp up to 3-5 million homes a year over 20 years.” He also made the point that

We don’t need fly-by-night operators; we need competent qualified people doing the work.

A spokesperson for the Laborers identified the need to do weatherization work at scale in local areas to attract good union contractors. Roger Toussaint, president of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 100 in New York City, spoke about the benefits of mass transit, noting:

In New York, 80 percent of the emissions come from buildings, when in most cities it is 40 percent. This is because they have such a large mass transit system and far less auto emissions. 

This was a good meeting. We are hopeful that this summit will result in ways to create good jobs without driving more manufacturing to countries without environmental standards. The global environment requires global solutions and standards.

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