jobs

Announcement - Global Climate Jobs, June 29, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

No jobs on a dead planet!

Trade Union Climate Summit #unions4climate 14 & 15 September, 2015 Paris

You can download a flyer for the summit here: flyer_climate

• Join trade union leaders, experts & activists campaigning to mobilise for a zerocarbon future
• Showcase how the union movement is working to de-carbonise our workplaces and industries
• Campaign to secure jobs with a Just Transition as industries transform
• Let’s ensure workers have a right to know about how employers plan for a zerocarbon future and what governments can do.

Guest speakers include: Laurent Fabius (French Minister of Foreign Affairs & upcoming COP21 President); Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber CBE (tbc) (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact); an interview with Naomi Klein (Canadian author This Changes Everything); Hassan Yussuff (CLC Canada President) and Jerry Dias (Unifor Canada President); Guy Ryder (tbc) (ILO Director General); Sharan Burrow (ITUC General Secretary), and Global Union Federation and National Union leaders.

PLACES LIMITED TO 250 PARTICIPANTS REGISTRATION CLOSES 15 JULY

Does this sound like you?
• Are you passionate about climate change and concerned for a just transition to a zero-carbon economy?
• Has your union committed to support climate action?
• Do you have plans or ideas for union actions on climate?

Join the Trade Union Climate Summit on 14 & 15 September in Paris

Agenda: Industrial Transformation – Opportunities for growing decent jobs out of an ambitious climate agenda – Just transition – Building alliances – Mobilisation towards COP21 and beyond, and more.
Show-cases: Experiences from unions working to secure jobs and save the planet. Panellists from unions, environmental and development NGOs, employers, experts & activists will take part in debates demonstrating how unions are ensuring a zero-carbon world.

Language: The meeting will be conducted in English, French and Spanish.

Where: French Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) Paris, France

Registrations: Places are limited – the deadline for applications is 15th July

Send nomination to Anabella.rosemberg@ituc-csi.org with your name, union, country
 and an indication that your union leadership supports this nomination.

We have limited funds, but let us know if you’re from a developing country
and need some support to come.

This meeting is organised by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), in cooperation with Global Union Federations, Sustainlabour, the One Million Climate Jobs campaign, and French national trade union centres CFDT, CGT and FO. It is supported by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

Contact: Anabella Rosemberg, Anabella.rosemberg@ituc

By GAIA - Partnership for Working Families, MassCOSH, and the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, June 23, 2015

Zero waste is the future. Growth in the recycling economy has the potential to not only conserve the environment, but also create 1.5 million new jobs. But research indicates that recycling work can be dangerous, with injury rates more than double the national average. By addressing this problem, local governments have an opportunity to secure the sustainability and health of their cities while ensuring that recycling jobs are good jobs. Recyclers deserve safe working conditions, as they protect public health and the planet from waste, pollution, and resource depletion.

The environmental necessity of recycling is well-established: achieving a 75% recycling rate would yield greenhouse gas emission reductions equivalent to shutting down one-fifth of all U.S. coal power plants (Tellus 2011). A growing number of cities recognize recycling as a key component of their local climate action plans (West Coast Climate and Materials Management Forum 2012). In short, recycling provides proven benefits for clean air and waste reduction, and along with other zero waste strategies it can offer a critical pathway for municipalities to achieve sustainable growth.

Recycling can also play a key role in urban job creation strategies. At our current national recycling rate of 34.5%, the U.S. recycling industry employs nearly 1 million people and generates billions of dollars of economic activity annually (Tellus 2011, USEPA 2012).

Studies have shown that recycling creates at least 10 times as many jobs per ton of waste as disposal in either incinerators or landfills, and that investments in recycling, composting, and recycling reliant manufacturing could produce 1.5 million more jobs across the country.

But recycling workers face serious hazards on the job. In too many cities across the country, sorters work in loud and dusty facilities where they are often exposed to extreme temperatures. Working long hours, they lean over conveyor belts sorting materials – pulling out things that don’t belong, ensuring the best quality materials are bundled together for the highest value. They work with heavy equipment in dangerous situations – climbing onto and into massive conveyor belts and balers to clean them. They maneuver past huge front-end loaders and forklifts, and walk by heavy bales of material that, when unsafely managed, can fall on workers who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Moreover, they deal with an array of inherently unsafe materials that should not be on the recycling line – used needles, chemicals, dead animals and broken glass. As a result of these unsafe conditions, recycling workers face above-average injury rates and are sometimes even killed on the job.

Many recycling sorters are employed by temp agencies, further increasing the likelihood that they won’t have the training or experience needed to do their job safely. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Occupational hazards can be mitigated, and in some cases eliminated, with a combination of engineering controls, improved safety systems, work practices, and extensive training.

There are important actions and best management practices that cities can and should take to improve recycling jobs. Cities that offer curbside recycling service generally contract with private companies to process recyclable materials collected from households. To ensure safe and dignified recycling jobs, municipal governments must require rigorous health and safety standards in recycling contracts.

This report offers a unique inside look at the working conditions faced by recycling workers across the United States, as well as a series of specific policy recommendations that municipal decision makers should follow to improve industry accountability and health and safety outcomes. It also includes practical recommendations for public education programs that can prevent dangerous materials from entering the recycling stream. Our analysis is based on occupational health studies, OSHA reports about health and safety violations, articles from news media and industry trade publications, interviews with recycling workers, and first-hand observation of recycling work.

Our findings underscore the need for urgent action to improve health and safety conditions for recycling workers. Improving the recycling sector overall is not only possible – it’s imperative for averting today’s ecological crises, and protecting the health and well-being of this important group of climate workers who protect us all.

Read the report (PDF).

By David Spratt - Climate Action Moreland, June 2015

Hazelwood Power Station (HPS) was built between 1964 and 1971, and comprises 1542 megawatt (MW) of capacity over eight generators. It was privatised by the Victorian Liberal Party Kennett government in 1996 for $2.35 billion.If HPS had stayed in public hands, it would likely have been decommissioned in 2005, but in 2004 the Bracks Labor government extended its operations till 2031, allowing Hazelwood to move a road and a river to access 43 million tonnes of brown coal deposits in a realignment of the mining licence boundaries. The owners have a 30-year mining licence due for renewal in 2026.HPS and the land on which it operates are owned by the Hazelwood Power Partnership. Since 7 June 2013, the four partners have been subsidiaries of International Power (Australia) Holdings Pty Ltd. This company is in turn jointly owned by subsidiaries of Engie (formerly GDF Suez SA) (72 per cent ownership) and Mitsui & Co Ltd (28 per cent ownership). Engie is a global energy company with corporate headquarters in France. Mitsui & Co Ltd is a global trading company with corporate headquarters in Japan.Currently HPS produces more than 10,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy annually and is supplied with up to 18 million tonnes of coal each year from the adjacent Hazelwood mine, releasing around 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. Today HPS provides approximately 21 per cent of Victoria’s baseline electricity supply.

The Victorian Government has expressed a desire (though it does not yet have a policy) for a significant expansion of renewable energy in Victoria. This has widespread community support and must be done quickly and at a large scale because climate change is already dangerous. Scientists warn that two degrees Celsius of warming could occur in just two decades, so preserving a safe climate and a healthy future requires rapid de-carbonisation.

Expanding renewable energy requires coal-generating capacity to be removed from the market because oversupply is crowding out and preventing new investment. The Australian energy market operator says there are about eight gigawatts of surplus generating capacity across the national market, equivalent to five Hazelwood power stations. This includes up to 2.2 gigawatts of brown coal generation that is no longer required in Victoria in 2015, which is greater than Hazelwood’s capacity. Power companies have been lobbying government for capacity to be reduced, and senior Victorian energy department bureaucrats are aware of the need to close coal power stations in order to roll out renewables.

The Victorian Government has committed to being a leader on climate change. Closing down excess coal generation is a key test of the government’s climate credentials. Coal-fired power stations are the world’s largest source of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Victoria cannot make the necessary emissions reductions without addressing the operations of Hazelwood and/or Yallourn power stations.

Hazelwood power station is old, unsafe and dirty. Based on emissions intensity, it is the third-dirtiest coal power station in the world and the dirtiest in Australia, releasing around 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, almost three per cent of total Australian greenhouse emissions. The Hazelwood majority owner, Engie (formerly GDF Suez), owns the third-most polluting coal-power station fleet in the world. The full – health and carbon pollution – social costs of Hazelwood totalling $900 million per year are borne by the community, rather than the plant’s owners.

A steady stream of local jobs can be created in the Latrobe Valley with the rehabilitation of mines and decommissioning of plant, which will require a significant workforce stretching well over a decade. The Latrobe Valley needs a strong jobs package and an economic transition plan and new industries because the move from coal to clean wind and solar renewable energy is now both urgent and inevitable.

Hazelwood power station and mine are a health hazard to local residents, exemplified by the autumn 2014 mine fire. The owners of Hazelwood have abused their social licence and forfeited the right to profit from a power station that is now a major health hazard – both to local people and to all peoples who face the uncertainties of living in a hotter and more extreme climate.

In July 2010, the Victorian Labor government promised to start shutting Hazelwood and passed climate legislation providing the reserve power to regulate emissions from existing brown coal-fired generators. Restoring the government’s capacity to regulate emissions would be complementary to actions being taken by other governments, including in the United States and Europe.

Read the report (PDF).

By various - International Labour Office, 2015

2015 is a decisive year for global agreements on Sustainable Development and climate change. The ILO calls for a just transition for all towards a greener and more socially sustainable economy. This Journal is focussing on drawing lessons from a few transition experiences in order to analyse how successfully (or not) these processes were managed in the past and how future transitions might be handled in a just manner. Challenges such as policy coherence, consultations and participation by all relevant stakeholders are addressed and lessons learned on these issues are highlighted in the Journal.

Read the report (Link).

By Béla Galgóczi - European Trade Union Institute, 2015

Our planetary limits demand a radical transition from the energy-intensive economic model based on the extraction of finite resources, which has been dominant since the first industrial revolution, to a model that is both sustainable and equitable.

Unfortunately however, energy transformation in Europe has, after a promising start, fallen hostage to austerity and to the main philosophy underpinning the crisis management policies in which overall competitiveness is reduced to the much narrower concept of cost-competitiveness. Regulatory uncertainty, design failures built into incentive systems, and unjust distribution of the costs, have also contributed to the reversal of progress in energy transformation currently observable across Europe.

In this book three country case studies highlight the different facets of these conflicts, while additional light is thrown on the situation by an account of the lack of progress in achieving energy efficiency.

By way of conclusion, a mapping of the main conflicts and obstacles to progress will be of help in formulating policy recommendations. Ambitious climate and energy policy targets should be regarded not as a burden on the economy but rather as investment targets able to pave the way to higher employment and sustainable growth. It is high time for this perception to be recognised and implemented in the context of Europe’s new Investment Plan, thereby enabling clean energy investment to come to form its central pillar. A shift in this direction will require an overhaul of the regulatory and incentive systems to ensure that the need for just burden-sharing is adequately taken into account.

Read the report (Link).

By Staff - New York Energy Policy Institute and Stony Brook University, November 25, 2014

This study assesses the offshore wind energy and its potential economic impacts on Long Island. The study consists of four parts. It first reviews the literature on economic development benefits associated with wind energy development. We also assess the resource and market potentials of offshore wind based on four factors:

• (a) prior estimates of offshore wind potential;
• (b) federal leasing of submerged lands;
• (c) state policies in support of offshore wind; and
• (d) proposed offshore wind projects.

Existing research on the offshore wind supply chain is reviewed. These reviews are followed with an assessment of potential impacts on employment and economic activity in Long Island. This study employs JEDI model developed by National Renewable Energy Lab to determine the job creation and economic output associated with offshore wind development under two scenarios. This study reaches four major conclusions on the economic impacts of offshore wind energy on Long Island.

First, offshore wind energy can bring significant job and economic benefits to local economies. Previous studies provide varying estimates. Job creation associated with offshore wind development ranges from 7 to 42 jobs for each megawatt. It is reasonable, however, to conclude that offshore wind can generate about 20 jobs in a region with well-developed supply chain and approximately $3.3 million of new local economic development activity.

Second, states in the mid-Atlantic and northeast are rich in offshore wind resources, and have also established policies to support renewable energies, in certain cases including offshore wind.Our review of wind resources, siting and permitting restrictions, federal leasing, state policies, and market demand for offshore wind energy suggests that a Long Island-based offshore-wind industry can have a near-term addressable market of approximately 8,850 MW.

Third, the near-term local economic development opportunities are likely in foundations, blades and marine operations. Long Island is competitive in these areas because of its large, skilled labor base, experience in the aerospace industry and maritime industries.

This analysis finds that each offshore wind farm can produce hundreds of Long Island-based jobs and millions of dollars for the local economy. A single offshore wind farm (250 MW) built off Long Island coast can create 2,864 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs on Long Island or about 11 per MW, as well as approximately $645 million in local economic output, under a scenario assuming that the first offshore wind projects will have to use more service providers and equipment manufacturers outside Long Island as the Long Island supply-chain is built out. Under another scenario that assume Long Island offshore wind industry can achieve a scale of supporting 2,500 MW, more than 58 thousand FTE jobs and approximately $12.9 billion in local economic output can be expected. Our analysis suggests that offshore wind constitutes a significant opportunity for job creation and economic development on Long Island.

Read the report (PDF).

By Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood - Rabble.ca, October 29, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

By Judee Burr and Lindsey Hallock, Frontier Group and Rob Sargent, Environment America Research & Policy Center, Environment America - Publication, November 2014

America could meet its energy needs by capturing just a sliver of the virtually limit-less and pollution-free energy that strikes the nation every day in the form of sunlight. With solar installation costs falling, the efficiency of solar cells rising, and the threats of air pollution and global warming ever-looming, solar power is becoming a more attractive and widespread source of energy everyday.

Solar energy is on the rise across the country.The amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in the United States has tripled in the past two years. More than half of all new U.S. electricity generating capac-ity came from solar installations in the first half of 2014, and the United States now has enough solar electric capacity installed to power more than 3.2 million homes.

Read the report (Link).

By Will Blyth, Rob Gross, Jamie Speirs, Steve Sorrell, Jack Nicholls, Alex Dorgan, and Nick Hughes - UK Energy Research Center, November 2014

‘Green’ sectors account for as many as 3.4 million jobs in the EU, or 1.7% of all paid employment, more than car manufacturing or pharmaceuticals. Given the size of the green jobs market, and the expectation of rapid change and growth, there is a pressing need to independently analyse labour market dynamics and skills requirements in these sectors. What is more controversial is the question of whether policy driven expansion of specific green sectors actually creates jobs, particularly when the policies in question require subsidies that are paid for through bills or taxes. There are strong views on both sides of this debate. Politicians often cite employment benefits as part of the justification for investing in clean energy projects such as renewables and energy efficiency. Such claims are often backed up by project or sector-specific analyses. However, other literature is more sceptical, claiming that any intervention that raises costs in the energy sector will have an adverse impact on the economy as a whole.

The UKERC Technology and Policy Assessment (TPA) theme was set up to address such controversies through comprehensive assessment of the current evidence. This report aims to answer the following question:

“What is the evidence that policy support for investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency leads to net job creation in the implementing regions?”

The focus on net jobs here is important: whilst it is clear that jobs can be created at a local scale by spending money on new infrastructure projects, other jobs may be displaced if the new project provides activities or services that would otherwise have been provided elsewhere in the economy. Analysis of net jobs therefore needs to take account of both jobs created and jobs displaced.

Read the report (PDF).

By Joseph E. Aldy - Common Resources, August 22, 2014

On April 20, 2010, the Transocean Deepwater Horizon suffered a catastrophic blowout while drilling in a BP lease in the Gulf of Mexico’s Macondo Prospect. This accident resulted in the largest oil spill in US history and an unprecedented spill response effort. Due to the ongoing spill and concerns about the safety of offshore oil drilling, the US Department of the Interior suspended offshore deep water oil and gas drilling operations on May 27, 2010, in what became known as the offshore drilling moratorium. The media portrayed the impacts of these events on local employment, with images of closed fisheries, idle rigs, as well as boats skimming oil and workers cleaning oiled beaches.

In a new RFF discussion paper, “The Labor Market Impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Moratorium,” I estimate and examine the net impact of the oil spill, the drilling moratorium, and spill response on employment and wages in the Gulf Coast. The spill and moratorium represented unexpected events in the region, and the resulting economic impacts varied within and among the Gulf states. Coastal counties and parishes were expected to bear the vast majority of the burden of these two events, while inland areas were expected to be largely unaffected. The moratorium was expected to affect Louisiana—with significant support of the offshore drilling industry—but not, for example, Florida, which had no active drilling off of its coastline. Beyond the economic impacts, the timing and magnitude of the spill response varied across the states over the course of the spill as well.

Despite predictions of major job losses in Louisiana resulting from these events, I find that the most oil-intensive parishes in Louisiana experienced a net increase in employment and wages. In contrast, Gulf Coast Florida counties south of the Panhandle experienced a decline in employment. Analysis of the number of business establishments, worker migration, accommodations industry employment and wages, sales tax data, and commercial air arrivals likewise show positive economic activity impacts in the oil-intensive coastal parishes of Louisiana and reduced economic activity along the non-Panhandle Florida Gulf Coast. The billions of dollars of spill response and clean-up mobilized over the course of the spring and summer of 2010 positively impacted economic activity, similar to the effect of fiscal stimulus. The geographic variation in labor market impacts reflects the focus of spill response efforts in Louisiana and the absence of oil and thus spill response along the Gulf coast of Florida south of the Panhandle.

Read the report (PDF).