Frank Hotchkiss, United Steelworkers (USW) District 4 believes Buffalo is perfectly poised to create jobs and boost the local economy through green industry. Add to that the global aspect of helping to create clean energy, and everyone wins.
From his statement: “Achieving a clean energy economy through green industries like wind and solar are just part of the story. This report is also about job security. Making homes and offices more energy efficient not only saves money and energy, but also represents growth opportunities for workers who build our communities and keep them running,” said Frank Hotchkiss, United Steelworkers, “We’re talking about jobs at every skill level from construction to research, already available here at home.”
Hotchkiss and the USW, in conjunction with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club and the Blue Green Alliance, has helped to compile a report that looks at state-by-state (12 in all) occupations and job skills that would lend to creation of green industry and help toward America’s goal of a clean energy economy. Broken down into six separate categories, they’ve pinpointed the following fields most suited to an already present work force: building retrofitting, mass transit, fuel-efficient automobiles, wind power, solar power, and cellulosic biomass fuels.
Hotchkiss stated: “The commitment to a clean energy economy will not only lead to quality jobs in manufacturing unions and the building trades,” says Hotchkiss, “It will help stop good-paying jobs from continuing to be exported.”
Included in the report are Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. According to Mark Bettinger, Sierra Club, “New York already has nearly 615,000 jobs in the 6 green job categories and the potential for 47, 000 new manufacturing jobs if we put global warming solutions to work.”
Frank Hotchkiss answers more of our questions:
Q. Why do you feel we’re well placed to take advantage of an upsurge in green industry?
A. Buffalo and WNY are ideally placed because we have the workers, education, wind power, sunshine. This should be known as a green city.
Q. What role could the USW play? Are there necessary crossover skills?
A. Steel workers are part of the National Apollo Alliance and the Blue Green Coalition. Our goal is to bring the US to energy independence through the creation of jobs.
Q. Do we have enough steel workers left in the area?
A. We have enough to start. We’re looking to create new green jobs and working to train a new skill base. The skills are there, but this is a change of operations using those skills. It’s a logical fit.
Q. What sort of governmental and industrial backing do you have?
A. This is going to be an educational process for all. We need to instruct our political leaders. We have the technology and lack the political will. The Erie County Legislature is doing a good job, but for the most part, we’re taking baby steps compared to the national movement. The Federal Government needs to make long term commitments to this.
Q. Will you offer vocational training through the unions?
A. There’s all kinds of money available for training. The union has apprenticeships through the Workforce Development Institute, and we’re working to develop a green curriculum at ECC. And there’s state dollars too.
Q. Do you have particular sites in mind?
A. It’s an ‘if come’ thing. I’d like to see an area designated for green technology, but we have the same problem there as we do with brownfields–the subsidy is based on the cost of the project, not including the cost of the clean-up. It gets very expensive.
Q. Aside from boosting the economy, can we help ourselves?
A. Absolutely. And one of the first things to look at is energy efficiency to cut our costs and contribution to greenhouse gases.
Q. Are we behind the game or on the cusp?
A. We’re behind the curve, but we can do it.
The report was authored by Robert Pollin and Jeanette Wicks-Lim of the Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and commissioned by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Also involved with the release of the report are the Green Jobs for America Campaign and the http://www.greenforall.org/resources/center-for-american-progress
“Center for American Progress and Green for All.