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Don’t Ban Chula Vista Jobs – Vote No on Prop G

A broad-based coalition of labor, civic and business leaders are calling on voters in Chula Vista, Calif., to vote no on Tuesday, June 8 on an anti-union ballot initiative -Proposition G.  

Spearheaded by the Associated Builders and Contractors and out-of-state right-wing political groups, Proposition G would prohibit the Southern California city from using project labor agreements for government-funded construction work.

PLAs are project-specific, pre-hire collective bargaining agreements that set out terms and conditions of employment on construction projects.

For many Chula Vista business and civic leaders, Proposition G is so radical that it would threaten the city’s economic development; costing Chula Vista needed jobs and money

Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce CEO Lisa Cohen told La Prensa San Diego:

Proposition G is bad for business. The top priority of the business community in Chula Vista is job creation and it has become clear that Proposition G appears to interfere with that mission. The potential consequences of Proposition G are so devastating for Chula Vista that a supermajority of the Chamber’s board voted to oppose it.

Nearly every elected official, including the mayor and the majority of the city council have come out against measure.

For building trades members, passage of the initiative would spell disaster, cutting out union members from working on most construction projects in Chula Vista and banning the city from making payments into a union benefits’ fund.

“If they pass it here, ABC is bragging that they will take it across California,” said Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569 Business Manager Allen Shur.

This effort is a part of the ABC’s “10 in 2010” campaign in California that is designed to get local jurisdictions to enact policies to prohibit PLAs.  

Says Building Trades President Mark Ayers in a letter to union leaders:

(ABC) has already succeeded in Orange County, and the next fight is Chula Vista.  If they win here, they will have momentum going into other fights in California, and you can rest assured that we will see this strategy replicated in short order in other states.

With polling showing a tight split among voters, the No on G coalition is planning to contact more than 30,000 of them and get them to the polls.

Building trades leaders are focusing on educating their members, making sure that they know that this is an anti-union measure.  

“We’ve spent the last couple months walking precincts, making sure everyone knows that Proposition G is bad for Chula Vista,” Shur said.

“Our opponents have already spent more than $3 million on this campaign. We don’t have that kind of cash, so we are relying on our grassroots efforts to get out the vote,” he said.

To get involved in the No on G campaign, click here.

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IBEW Organizer Looks to Unionize Green Industry

There are not many union locals with an environmental organizer on staff.

But because the renewable energy industry is a growth sector in a slow economy, Electrical Workers union (IBEW) local Local 569 in San Diego is sparing no effort to make sure jobs working with green technology are pathways to good-paying careers.

In a recent interview with CleanTechies blog, Local 569 Environmental Organizer Micah Mitrosky talks about her job:

Our mission is to make sure that as our economy shifts to a low-carbon, sustainable economy, that we’re creating middle-class jobs with health benefits, skilled career opportunities … We want to make sure that, as we’re bringing in these new greener technologies and new green ways of doing things, that we’re replacing those with better middle-class career opportunities.

While most of the economy contracted last year, the renewable energy sector saw record growth and is gearing up for an even bigger year in 2010. And thanks to Local 569’s commitment to aggressive marketing and advanced training, it has successfully been making inroads into the green energy industry.

As reported in the March issue of the Electrical Worker, the IBEW’s monthly newspaper:

(D)espite a sluggish construction market, the alternative energy sector-particularly solar photovoltaics-continues to be a vibrant and growing part of California’s economy and it is keeping members of Local 569 busy.

“Without all the solar work, our unemployment rate would be twice as a high,” says Local 569 Business Manager Allen Shur.

More than 10 percent of the 2,200-member local are busy installing and maintaining solar panels on commercial projects. Solar power has even allowed the local to crack the traditionally nonunion residential market.

“One of our contractors did more than 800 homes alone,” Shur said.

Mitrosky, a former Sierra Club organizer, says she faces many of the same challenges that confront most union organizers.

We’re running into the same things with (the) industry that we’ve always run into. They’re working hard to keep wages low, offshore jobs, cut corners on safety if it means a few cents more in profits.  It’s the same old story that unions have faced for a century.

But despite the obstacles, she says she is hopeful about the growing partnership between the alternative energy industry and the IBEW.

We’re looking at the electric car. I know that’s going to require a lot of skilled electrical work … I’m looking at some energy efficiency retrofit possibilities. Are there some ways to partner with municipalities here in our region?  Energy efficiency is the low-hanging fruit. It’s a way to create jobs quickly, save electricity right away, reduce your greenhouse gases and there’s a lot of public funds and utility funds available for that.

To read the whole interview, click here.  

California

IBEW Green Training Facilities Open Its Doors to Congress

During the Memorial Day break, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will invite congressional representatives to tour union job-training centers around the country to show them why they are the right choice when it comes to creating a renewable energy work force.

“The IBEW has developed one of the most advanced green training curriculums in the electrical industry and it makes sense that federal and state authorities partner with those who are already doing the work to meet the needs of greening our economy,” said IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill.

From retrofitting buildings to installing wind turbines, new opportunities are opening up in the green energy sector as millions of stimulus dollars are made available for training and investment in the new energy economy.  

But expected rapid growth of those jobs will require tens of thousands of skilled electricians who can safely and professionally install and wire solar panels, wind turbines and biofuel plants, a demand that it is already being met by the IBEW.

The National Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee – a partnership between the IBEW and union electrical contractors – unveils its Green Jobs Curriculum next month, which collects more than 70 green training lessons the NJATC has been using into one single curriculum.

The comprehensive program, which covers everything from automated building operations to solar photovoltaics, will be woven into the fabric of current IBEW apprenticeship training and will serve as a resource for more experience electricians looking to upgrade their skills in the growing green jobs market.

“If Congress is looking to invest stimulus money wisely in training a new green work force, they don’t have to look any further than one of our training centers,” Hill said.

 

Some of the centers that will be open for tours include:

– Pittsburgh Local 5’s 47,000 square-foot facility has trained more than 1,000 electricians since it opened in 2000. This year there have been more 400 applications for the program, the most interest the local has seen in years, said Training Director Bob Gieder.  Next fall, the center will be kicking off a solar installation “train-the-trainer” program to turn out skilled solar instructors to serve Western Pennsylvania.

– Lisle, Ill., Local 701’s 90,000 square-foot facility has received many awards for architectural design since it first opened more than five years ago, but the real action is inside, says Training Director Edward Rossi. Nearly 100 apprentices are getting hands-on experience with solar and wind hook-ups by practicing on solar arrays and wind turbines on site.  

The training centers not only guarantee that the sustainable energy industry will be staffed by the best-trained electrical workers, but they make sure that green jobs are good-paying union ones that will grow the middle class and put our economy back on the road to recovery.

Community colleges across the United States are reporting a surge in enrollment for classes that offer training for green-collar jobs.

But while the average college student ends up more than $20,000 in debt by the time they graduate, IBEW apprentices start making money the moment they are accepted into a five-year program, which combines both classroom and on-the-job training.

“They earn while they learn,” Gieder said. “Where else do you get paid for learning how to do a job?”

“Decent wages and benefits mean that our apprentices can stay in the area and contribute to their community,” Le Sueur, Minn., Local 343 Training Director Andy Toft said. “They become taxpayers, buy homes and cars and make their neighborhoods a good place to raise a family.”