Ensuring Green Jobs are Good Jobs

[irishbobcat]

Ensuring Green Jobs are Good Jobs
Green jobs are not simply band-aids to be used during difficult economic times, but are integral to our long-term economic growth.  Therefore, while most of the conversations to date regarding green jobs have focused on the quantity of jobs, it is just as important to ensure that these new green jobs are quality jobs.  Quality green jobs, should be well paid, have benefits and be career track jobs.  According to Good Jobs First, by creating good green jobs, we can address not only plummeting unemployment rates and climate change issues, but also combat deeply rooted social problems, such as poverty and inequality.
Strategies for Creating Quality Jobs:  The fact that many of the companies that will be pivotal in building our clean energy economy receive taxpayer support, either directly or indirectly, can be used to encourage more employers to embrace strong labor protections. Good Jobs First has outlined numerous actions state and federal leaders should consider to ensure that green jobs are good jobs, including:
·   Attach self-sufficiency wage requirements to subsidies;
·   Apply wage standards to government contractors;
·   Strengthen prevailing wage requirements;
·   Adopt best value contracting;
·   Expand the use of project labor agreements;
·   Add labor standards to LEED standards;
·   Use claw backs to ensure job quality standards;
·   Use web-based disclosure.
Providing Training So Residents Can Participate in a Clean Energy Economy:  A clean energy economy and the jobs it creates will be limited by the available workforce.  Although many green jobs will require workers either to transform their job skills so that they can be utilized by new industries or to obtain new skill sets, green jobs are well within the reach of lower-skilled and low-income workers if effective training programs and appropriate support are made easily accessible.  Therefore, in order to ensure that residents have the skills necessary to obtain good paying green jobs, states need to invest in workforce development and worker training programs.  The first step to crafting green job training programs is for states to identify the actual skills that their clean energy economy demands.  Once a state identifies the skills that will be needed for their green economy, they need to develop or revamp training programs so that they prepare a qualified workforce. 
State green job training programs should aim to, among other things:
·   Create region and sector specific economic development that is locally sustainable.  In determining high-demand industries to invest in, it is imperative to use good labor and industry data.
·   Measure and evaluate performance to determine the success of programs and identify areas where improvements could be made. 
·   Build partnerships between industry, labor groups, government and communities that can help guide workforce development and tie training to practical experience.
·   Tie economic development to community development.  Develop career pathways that provide workers with accessible training in manageable increments that will help them acquire better jobs with higher wages and better benefits.  Training programs should be created in a manner that accommodates family obligations and other challenges.
Some states and cities have already developed coordinated workforce development and training programs for green jobs.
·   In 2008, the Governor of Washington submitted legislation that in part created a green jobs initiative.  Three components of the legislation included a detailed analysis of the labor market to determine the kind and quality of green jobs in demand, partnerships of key stakeholders to develop strategic plans for closing skills gaps for green jobs in specific industries, and the establishment of a fund to pay for training and other worker support.  The Legislature approved the bill and while changes were made to the original legislation, the link it establishes between climate protection and green jobs provides a good model.
·   Oregon provides a good model for how states can implement within institutions and workplaces, education and training programs aimed at developing a skilled green workforce.  Click here to read Opportunity Maine's Case Study of the Oregon program.
·   The Los Angeles Infrastructure and Sustainable Jobs Collaborative has created a Green Careers Initiative.  The Collaborative brings together community partners, such as industry, unions, and education institutions, to plan and implement a seamless education, training, and workforce infrastructure that connects low income and other disadvantaged populations to good jobs with career paths within the energy-utility industry.   

By ensuring the Green Jobs are good jobs, we can put poor, working, and middle class Ohioans and Americans in employment situations which will help turn our economy around.

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party
www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/