New Push for ‘Green Collar’ Jobs

  • A solar panel installation training program run by Grid Alternatives. (Photo by Kristi Coale)

A new employment program is tying the need low-income people have for
good-paying work to the imperative of meeting the nation’s growing energy
demands. The “green jobs” movement trains out-of-work people and former
blue-collar workers to install solar, wind and other alternative energy
systems at homes and businesses. Kristi Coale reports what started as a
local program might soon be coming to the rest of the nation:

Transcript

A new employment program is tying the need low-income people have for
good-paying work to the imperative of meeting the nation’s growing energy
demands. The “green jobs” movement trains out-of-work people and former
blue-collar workers to install solar, wind and other alternative energy
systems at homes and businesses. Kristi Coale reports what started as a
local program might soon be coming to the rest of the nation:


It’s a sweltering, sunny day – one when people are encouraged to reduce
their energy use. And so it’s fitting that a small group of young adults is
busily installing solar panels on the roof of a house.


People honk their car horns as they drive past this house. Solar power is
supported here in California. The workers on the rooftop stop to cheer, clap,
and pump their fists in response. The atmosphere here is electric. And that’s
to be expected because these young trainees, like Andre Collins, are the
embodiment of a vision, one that takes low-income people, often people of
color, and trains them to work in the fast-growing alternative energy
industry.


“They’re green jobs, because they’re healthy and right for the people and the
environment and they’re green also because they’re taking the people who
would otherwise be poor and putting green in their pockets.”



Andre Collins is one of 15 people who are completing a 9-week training
program in solar panel installation. This program is run by Grid Alternatives,
a non-profit that installs solar in low-income communities. Grid uses
volunteers recruited by local youth employment and job training
organizations. This installation is a graduation of sorts and so these trainees
are thinking about the job market.


“I’m just proud to be a part of this, and I can’t wait to make money.”


Some non-profits are stepping up to make training programs like this
possible. So are cities. The city council in Oakland, California approved a
quarter of a million dollars for such a program, a sum that’s possible thanks
to a settlement between energy companies and the State of California. Six
years ago, when rolling blackouts hit California, companies such as Enron
raised their rates. While Enron and others didn’t admit to any wrongdoing,
they gave the state one billion dollars. Some of that money is being used to
train lower-income people in what’s come to be known as green jobs…
installing solar panels and tankless hot water heaters, converting vegetable
oil to fuel.


Renewable energy industries are worth big money, already 40 billion dollars
a year worldwide. These new industries hold the promise of putting tens of
thousands of people to work in the U.S. Van Jones is president of the Ella
Baker Center for Human Rights. He says support for green jobs is redefining
the environmental movement:


“…A social uplift environmentalism that is less about the Birkenstocks and
the tofu, though that stuff is all beautiful. It’s more about the hard hat, the
lunch bucket, more of a working class, we-can-do-it environmentalism I
think is the next step in the environmental revolution.”


Jones is leading that revolution in cities like his hometown of Oakland,
which has fallen on hard times. Jones says what’s missing in struggling blue-
collar cities like Oakland are good-paying, skilled labor jobs, jobs that used
to come through unions.


“And it’s time to really rebuild the labor movement with we think the new
face of working class America which is more Latino, more black, more
Asian and also with a new consciousness around doing things in a more
ecologically smart way.”



Oakland is the first city to declare a green jobs corps. But there could be
many more. Cities across the country might get a chance to start their own
programs, thanks to pending federal legislation:


“This bill will allow for three million workers here to be able to enjoy this
kind of training and advancement.”


That’s California Congresswoman Hilda Solis describing a bill she’s
authored in a YouTube video. The Green Jobs Act of 2007 proposes to
dedicate a half a billion dollars to train people to do green collar work. This
fall, the U.S. Senate will take up Solis’ bill. Many believe creating green jobs
will not only revitalize the economy and the environment, but also reinsert
something that has long been missing from these communities: hope.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kristi Coale.

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