New Guide Offers Advice for Women Seeking Green Jobs
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If you’re a woman considering a career in the growing clean energy economy, check out this new online guide from the U.S. Department of Labor. “Why Green Is Your Color: A Woman’s Guide to a Sustainable Career” is designed to help women find and keep higher-paying jobs in the clean energy economy.
The online publication (click here) will help workers learn about a range of in-demand and emerging jobs, as well as job training opportunities and career development tools, in the clean energy economy. The guide also serves as a resource for workforce development professionals, training providers, educators, career counselors and women’s advocacy organizations.
Sara Manzano-Díaz, director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau, says many occupations in the clean energy economy remain virtually untapped by women.
This guide is an invaluable resource that workforce professionals can use to help women transition into higher paying jobs that serve as a pathway into the middle class. It is also a tool to help fight job segregation.
Additional resources to help women succeed in nontraditional and emerging job sectors are available by contacting the Women’s Bureau at 202-693-6710 or click here to visit its website.
Laborers Train Society’s ‘Left Behind’ for Green Jobs; Launch Green Local
With the graduation of seven newly certified weatherization technicians from its Eastern New York Laborers Training Center, the New York State Laborers’ Union (NYSLIUNA) is blowing holes in several right-wing myths all at once, proving that jobless people do want to work, government programs can spur the creation of good jobs and labor unions can lead the way to prosperity.
Working in partnership with Peter Young Housing, Industries & Treatment (PYHIT), a non-profit that provides treatment, housing and vocational training to disadvantaged people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, the Laborers trained these first members of Green Jobs Local 58, chartered by the Laborers (LIUNA) as the first local in the Albany, N.Y., region dedicated exclusively to green jobs. Participants in the training had to be clean and sober for at least six months in order to be accepted into the program.
Thanks in part to the state’s 2009 Green Jobs/Green New York Act and a new program launched by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the demand for the retrofitting of homes to be more weather-resistant and energy-efficient is expected to climb. (Through the NYSERDA program, residents will be able to finance the weatherization of their homes via their monthly utility bills.)
The new Local 58 members will work for Eagle Street Construction, one of PYHIT’s vocational enterprises. Local 58 Business Manager Frank Marchese Jr. told the Albany Times Union that the workers would earn $14 per hour, plus a benefits package. He told the paper: Read the rest of this entry »
Climate Change Talks a Tough Climb
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AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh, a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), sends us another in a series of reports on the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations taking place now in Durban, South Africa.
Dorje Khati, a Sherpa and trade union member, has carried the ITUC climate message to the top of the world. After a 15-hour ascent to the top of Mount Everest on May 22, he planted the ITUC flag on the summit of the world’s highest mountain to represent the hopes and dreams of millions of workers for a global climate agreement.
Dorje is here in Durban with the flag and using it to inspire ITUC delegates and governments alike.
Mountaineering shares a lot in common with climate change talks: Reaching your goal can be a hard climb. The first week was filled with stories of hardened positions and dire predictions of failure. But a Saturday Day of Action march for climate justice helped inspire our global delegation.
Sheet Metal Workers Go for the Gold Platinum
When it comes to actually implementing green technologies, the building trades unions are in the vanguard. In St. Louis, Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) Local 36 is seeking the highest ranking, LEED Platinum, from the U.S. Green Building Council for the local’s new 95,000-square-foot headquarters and training center building. (LEED stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.”)
The new building features 357 photovoltaic panels, which will provide most of its power, as well as toilets flushed by a rainwater-collecting system. The roof is planted with sedum, which reduces heating and cooling costs and filters airborne particulates. Three geothermal heat pump systems provide heat and air conditioning for the training center offices, while a fourth geothermal heat pump system “will be used in the classroom to teach future technicians how to maintain and install the emerging technology,” according to a statement issued by Local 36, whose building also houses the union’s International Training Institute for the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Industry (ITI).
Dan Andrews, training coordinator for Local 36, says the building’s value goes beyond its immediate environmental impact. In the Local 36 statement, he explains:
It’s a living lab. The building itself is a training entity. I walk people through the building to show them how a LEED building is built.
Climate Change Talks Need to Address Investing in Good Jobs
AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh, a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), sends us the first report on the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations taking place now in Durban, South Africa.
The 17th annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) opened in Durban with a speech by South African President Jacob Zuma that stressed the need for dialogue, green jobs and investment. As trade unionists, we are here in force to ensure that these goals are met and that any climate agreement includes workers’ voice.
At COP 16, unions made a breakthrough by getting language about a Just Transition, a social and economic perspective on investment in good jobs and decent work, adopted as a part of the Long Term Cooperative Agreement. Now we are here to breathe life into that language. Our primary focus will be on finance, workers’ skills and accountability for meeting Just Transition goals.
Unions’ Partnership with Oregon’s Cool Schools Means Green Schools and Jobs
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The labor movement, the union-owned financial services company Ullico and the state of Oregon are partnering in a $15 million “Cool Schools” initiative that includes repairs, rebuilding and energy retrofits. Says AFT President Randi Weingarten:
We’re gratified that in working together, we can ensure that our children have access to facilities which help them reach their potential.
The partnership of government, unions and businesses will work with to identify appropriate investments in Oregon public schools and infrastructure of up to $15 million.
Already the Cool Schools initiative—launched by Gov. John Kitzhaber (D)—has:
- Performed state-of-the-art audits of nearly 400 schools
- Negotiated with 12 school districts on up to $11 million in low-cost energy retrofit financing
- Made commitments to lend $4.7 million to eight school districts, improving 28 individual schools. Read the rest of this entry »
Bill Clinton: Unions Are ‘America’s Employment Bankers’
Former President Bill Clinton yesterday singled out the efforts of the union movement in creating massive numbers of jobs through union pension fund investments. Speaking yesterday at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), Clinton praised the AFL-CIO and AFT for already providing $1 billion in pension fund investments to improve infrastructure and increase energy efficiency. (Watch the video of the event here. )
He also called on financial institutions and corporations–which are sitting on $2 trillion in cash without creating jobs–to follow the lead of the union movement and “loosen up all this money and put America back to work. If you did that, you’d have a million jobs in no time.”
With AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and AFT President Randi Weingarten on the stage with him, Clinton said: Read the rest of this entry »
Transportation Infrastructure Bill Boosts Jobs and Planet, Says BlueGreen Alliance
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The BlueGreen Alliance says that reauthorizing the fully funded Surface Transportation bill that President Obama today urged Congress to extend is “an incredibly important step in achieving our number one national priority: putting America to work.”
BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster says the bill will not only create badly needed jobs, but it also will have a major positive environmental impact.
Currently, the U.S. spends approximately $1 billion a day on foreign oil, while transportation accounts for nearly one-third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Investing in American-made cleaner vehicles, roads, bridges, tunnels, rail, transit, and better biking and walking can create millions of jobs in infrastructure, manufacturing, and operations.
A cleaner, safer, more efficient 21st century transportation system will reduce pollution and our dependence on foreign oil, create new jobs and opportunity for workers across the nation, and ensure America remains competitive in the global economy.
But House Republicans want to cut transportation and transit infrastructure funding so deeply that it would cost half a million jobs next year alone and send the nation’s highways, bridges and transit systems into even deeper disrepair.
D.C. Community Services Agency Wins Green Jobs Training Grant
This is a cross-post from the Metropolitan Washington (D.C.) Council, AFL-CIO.
The Metro Council’s Community Services Agency (CSA) Building Futures pre-apprenticeship training program has won a $900,000 grant as part of the Jobs for the Future consortium. Says CSA Executive Director Kathleen McKirchy:
This is a big deal. We will get nearly $1 million over three years in partnership with the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region and Wider Opportunities for Women to keep our pre-apprenticeship training program going.
China Drops Some Wind Power Subsidies After USW Complaint
Here’s some good news on the trade front: U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk announced today that China has ended certain wind power equipment subsidies that gave its companies an unfair advantage in the global market.
The action came after the United Steelworkers (USW) filed a Section 301 trade complaint last October charging that China’s government uses hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, performance requirements, preferential practices and other illegal trade activities to dominate the renewable energy market.
The subsidies take the form of grants to Chinese wind turbine manufacturers that agreed to use key parts and components made in China rather than purchasing imports. The size of the individual grants range between $6.7 million and $22.5 million, according to the USTR.
