California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the biggest state-funded green jobs training program in the nation. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
California is putting together
a huge green jobs training program.
Lester Graham reports it will mean
thousands of workers trained for a
growing part of the economy:
Transcript
California is putting together
a huge green jobs training program.
Lester Graham reports it will mean
thousands of workers trained for a
growing part of the economy:
Last week, lost in the news of wildfires and state budget problems, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the biggest state-funded green jobs training program in the nation. California is leveraging federal stimulus dollars with state money and public-private partnership matching funds.
“This $75-million program will train more than 20,000 workers for clean and green jobs in the future.”
Green jobs – such as repairing hybrid and electric cars, installing solar panels and building wind turbines.
Governor Schwarzenegger says this Clean Energy Workforce Training Program is where economic growth starts.
“There are still people out there who think that protecting the environment will slow the economy down, but it’s quite the opposite here in California and all over the United States.”
Some business leaders say the green sector likely will be the only growth sector in this economy for a while.
President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown.
(Source: Kmadison at Wikimedia Commons)
At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:
Michelle Forte has been a dye maker at the General Motors plant in Parma, Ohio for 15 years. She says everyone at work is worried about the future of the plant, and the prospects of the whole company.
“It’s a scary industry to be in right now. They keep on sending our work to China. And my job could be next, you just don’t know. It’s scary to live in that environment every day. You go into work and it’s negative all the time.”
Forte hasn’t gotten a raise in 6 years. And in the future, if she stays as autoworker, she’s going to be making a lot less.
“I will tell you what I made last year, and that was $80,000. And this year, with the concessions that we’ve took and the overtime that we’ve lost, I will be lucky to make $60,000. So, yeah, it’s a drastic cut.”
Forte decided to take advantage of job training money available at GM. She gets up a five in the morning to start work, then after her shift she heads to school.
She and two co-workers have started taking courses at the new Green Academy at Cuyahoga Community College. They’re learning what it takes to install solar panels, wind turbines, and to make buildings energy efficient. It’s tough getting home after 10 at night. But Forte says learning to work in the clean energy field is a positive step for their future.
“Because we wanted to get in on the ground floor. If it breaks open like we think it is, we want to have the education under our belt already.”
But most autoworkers aren’t betting on an explosion of green jobs. At least, they aren’t spending their time in training classes – even if they’ve already been laid off.
Joe Rugola is president of the AFL-CIO of Ohio. The union represents everyone from musicians to office workers to electricians.
Rugola says people who’ve been laid off have to make impossible choices if they decide to start training in a new industry – do they continue looking for jobs to keep the unemployment check coming in – or do they go to school for retraining?
“Am I going to go for training, if I’m already laid off, am I going to risk my unemployment benefits, and go for training in an industry that may or may not produce real work down the road? A person in that situation should not have to make that choice.”
And that’s the big gamble. Do they invest time and effort to retrain for jobs that might never materialize?
President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown.
Andrew Dorchak is a researcher with the Case Western Reserve University law library. He coauthored a study titled Green Job Myths.
The first myth: that there is a common understanding of what makes something a green job.
“We’ve figured out that there wasn’t a really good definition of green jobs. Especially if there are political subsidies involved that might be problematic.”
Problematic because many of the jobs classified as green today aren’t making wind turbines and solar panels in the Midwest. They’re lobbyists, administrative assistants, and janitors working for environmental organizations in New York and Washington.
And he’s concerned the definition of green jobs will get even wider as government pockets get deeper.
“It’s subject to maneuvering. To people fighting to classify their jobs as green.”
Dorchak says companies will chase the subsidies. That could take away from government money to create productive jobs.
Jobs that could help people like Michelle Forte find work – and improve the environment at the same time.
The creation of 'green-collar' jobs may help the Rust Belt's unemployment problems (Photo by Lester Graham)
The nation’s economy is in decline, and
the middle states that make up the Rust Belt have
been hit particularly hard with job losses. Some
Midwest states have turned to a new type of
manufacturing and the so-called green collar jobs
it creates. Marianne Holland reports:
Transcript
The nation’s economy is in decline, and
the middle states that make up the Rust Belt have
been hit particularly hard with job losses. Some
Midwest states have turned to a new type of
manufacturing and the so-called green collar jobs
it creates. Marianne Holland reports:
Nationwide, just over half the states have passed some sort of laws or incentives geared at
getting green manufacturing jobs. In the nation’s rust belt,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Ohio already have green policy in place.
Ron Pernick is a co-founder of CleanEdge. That’s a national green manufacturing research
organization. Pernick says those jobs, are in one of the major growth sectors in American
manufacturing. They’re growing at a rate of about 30% each year. In Iowa, property tax abatements are given to green manufacturing. In Illinois, the state has passed laws requiring utilities to get a portion of their energy from wind or solar power. Pernick says public policy translates to more jobs.
“If you think about creating new industry, you can’t export development. You’ve got to
hire local people to put in the wind turbines, to install the solar farms, to put solar on top
of rooftops. And those jobs can never be exported.”
But other states have been slow to change policy to embrace green manufacturing. In Michigan, green energy legislation has been tied up in
the State Senate. An in states like Indiana, there are no laws or business incentives even on the table to attract the green
manufacturing industry.
Indiana State Representative Ryan Dvorak blames the big power companies for lobbying against incentives to create green jobs.
“I’m not sure why they have so much sway in the state with the different legislators but
they don’t want to give up any ground basically. Obviously they make their money by
generating and selling electricity, so any loss in market share, they’re motivated to
stop that legislation.”
The power companies say they’re just looking out for their customers.
Angeline Protegere is a spokesperson for Duke Energy. Protegere says renewable energy is
moving forward without state regulations. She says Duke understands that some day
regulations will come. But she says that will be at a high risk.
“We constantly have to balance our environmental responsibilities with our economic
responsibilities to our customers because they pay for the cost of pollution control
through their bills.”
And the power companies’ lobbyists persuade legislators it’s in the best interests of the people to block incentives for green jobs. Representative Dvorak thinks his colleagues are being misled.
Jesse Kharbanda is with the Hoosier Environmental Council. He says in his state and others that ignore the green jobs opportunity, workers are being left behind.
“We’re obviously in this situation where Indiana has historically had a formidable
manufacturing base and that base has been continuously eroded because of globalization.
We’re not in any time going to fundamentally change Indiana’s economy and so we have
to deal with the labor force as it is. We have a good, technically minded labor base, but
the question is: what sectors are we creating in the state to employ that technical labor
base. And one of them ought to be the green technology sector.”
Kharbanda says it’s a state’s public policy, tax breaks, and other incentives that will attract the
most green collar jobs. Without those incentives, unemployed factory workers in Rust Belt
states will have to hope for some kind of recovery in manufacturing, or take lower paying, service sector jobs.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the biggest state-funded green jobs training program in the nation. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
