![]() ![]() “This is a big deal for me, as a father, as a husband,” Hirschfeld said. The shipyard was down to just a handful of union employees not long ago, he said, but new wind farm and other projects have breathed life into the facility and made him hopeful. John Hirschfeld, 50, a shipyard security worker with the local electrician’s union who was in the audience, said Biden's message Thursday made sense. "The labor movement has legitimate cause for concern and they are aggressively in discussions with Congress and with the White House about how to make certain that current members have the opportunity to be represented by a union and to have good quality jobs as a result," Harris said. The Biden administration has pushed new funds to help workers like coal miners find new jobs, but more can be done, Harris said, including increased investment in community colleges and apprenticeship programs. Seth Harris, who previously served as Biden's top labor policy adviser at the White House, said unions have made progress in some green industries, like agreeing contracts for wind farms, but are still struggling to get a foothold in a solar industry dominated by China. "I believe Biden when he says that green energy jobs will be union, the question is just how many jobs will there be," Eiding said. Many of those laid off workers struggled to find similar paying jobs and he fears the same for any worker hurt by the energy transition.Įiding also believes the green economy will struggle to replicate the employment from refineries and power plants, which require 24-hour, 365-day staffing and significant annual maintenance. ![]() Pat Eiding, long-time president and current treasurer of Philadelphia AFL-CIO Council, said a rash of refinery closures in the region over the past two decades crushed some local unions. Unions will benefit from an expanded power grid, a boom in manufacturing from clean energy supply chains and new industries like hydrogen, Zaidi said, noting Danish renewable energy group Ørsted's recent partnership with North America's Building Trades Unions.īiden's union push comes as business and labor are divided over who will benefit from the changing economy, the Screen Actors Guild is on strike and the Auto Workers are bracing for a possible labor shortages unless there are new union protections for EV battery plants.Ī potential economically-damaging strike by Teamster-represented UPS (UPS.N) workers looms next month. Clean energy jobs, a wide category including wind and solar power, nuclear, and grid technologies and battery storage, made up 3.1 million of those.Īli Zaidi, Biden's national climate adviser, says the president is pushing to make sure unions are part of the energy transition, and to get unions and companies working together. grew 3.8% in 2022, to more than 8.1 million, led by fast growth in clean energy jobs, the Department of Energy said in June. "The initial promise of jobs is spectacular but after the equipment is built they can run it with a fraction of the people," Minor said. ![]() She worries clean energy projects like solar and wind farms, along with hydrogen pipelines, oversell and under deliver when it comes to long-term, full-time employment. ![]()
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