A report published this week challenges the assumption that newly created green jobs will be "good," middle-class jobs.
The report "High Road or Low Road: Job Quality in the New Green Economy," authored by Good Jobs First and commissioned by Change to Win, Sierra Club, the Laborers’ International Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, examined existing green jobs in manufacturing, construction and waste-management. The research revealed wide variations in wages, benefits and labor conditions, with some green-collar jobs paying as little as $8.25 an hour without benefits.
Senate Finance Committee member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and House Energy and Commerce Committee member Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) drew attention to the report, urging congressional leaders to make the creation of high-quality green jobs a top priority.
“We must adopt an economic recovery package that recognizes the power of innovation, promotes policies that make sure workers get a fair break, and invests in innovative green technologies and programs to slow, stop and eventually reverse the progress of climate change,” Inslee said.
Stabenow said "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act doesn’t create just any green-collar jobs. Rather the recovery package creates good-paying, green-collar jobs that will help strengthen the middle class of this country.”
While the report found that many green employers opposed efforts by workers to organize unions, several of the companies profiled took a collaborative approach.
According to the report, wages were generally highest where local officials attached strict labor standards to economic development subsidies, or where workers were represented by labor unions. Wages were lowest where job quality requirement were weak or poorly enforced and where workers had no union representation.
Among the report’s other findings:
- Just one of the renewable manufacturing facilities surveyed paid an hourly wage that was sufficient to support a family of four, while a quarter paid wage rates below the levels necessary to meet the basic needs of an adult with one child.
- Low wages were found in the construction industry where significant green job growth is anticipated. The authors report that half of nonunion workers in basic construction trades earn less than $12.50 per hour while a third make less than the federal poverty wage for a family of four ($10.19 per hour).
- The report authors also found examples of green-collar jobs that provided middle-class wages and benefits in each of the industries surveyed. These include: production workers in a Salem, Oregon solar plant where the average hourly wage is $22; union plumbers who earn $36 an hour plus full benefits in Portland, Oregon; and workers organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters who start at $20 an hour in a cutting-edge San Francisco recycling facility.
Hundreds of workers, environmentalists and business advocates gathered on Capitol Hill yesterday for a Green Jobs Advocacy Day to educate lawmakers about job-creating opportunities that exist in the green economy.
The report is available at the link below.
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