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Greening Wisconsin's Workforce

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Greening Wisconsin's Workforce GREENING WISConsin’S WORKFORCE Training, Recovery, and the Clean Energy Economy scalating economic crisis and a bold federal response have intensified the About COWS regional promise of green jobs — that a green wave might lift all boats, Erebuilding a prosperous industrial heartland on a sustainable bedrock of The Center on Wisconsin Strategy energy efficiency and renewable energy. Recession, climate change, and energy (COWS) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan insecurity may not signal the end of the middle-American dream. A coordinated state “think-and-do tank” dedicated to response to these challenges could build a vibrant green economy based on clean improving economic performance and energy and decent jobs for all. living standards in the state of Wisconsin and nationally. Based at the University The task is enormous, and urgent. Wisconsin lost nearly 73,000 jobs in the last of Wisconsin-Madison, COWS works twelve months, with more than half of that loss in the last four months. Precipitous to promote “high road” strategies that job loss across all sectors follows years of anemic overall job growth and dramatic support living wages, environmental decline of the state’s critical manufacturing sector, which lost over 14 percent of its job sustainability, strong communities, and base between 2001-2004 and shed an additional 13,000 jobs even before last fall’s public accountability. www.cows.org economic collapse. 1 But the challenges in Wisconsin’s labor market predate the recession and require Acknowledgements long-term solutions. If green jobs are to begin restoring regional prosperity, any stimulus plan to create them must address larger underlying challenges facing the Author Sarah White is a Senior Associate state’s working families. at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy More than one in five Wisconsin workers hold poverty-wage jobs.2 Those without (COWS). post-secondary education can no longer earn their way out by dint of hard work, and Thanks to Adrienne Pagac and Nicole social supports are inadequate to close the gap. Nearly a quarter of working families Kaufman at COWS for research in Wisconsin are low income.3 Living below 200 percent of the federal poverty line assistance; and to Conor Smyth at the — a bar that often serves as a proxy for self-sufficiency — these families face serious Wisconsin Technical College System and increasing problems making ends meet. Factoring in race highlights further for invaluable insights on bridges and inequality: a breathtaking 47 percent of Wisconsin’s minority working families are low pathways. income.4 COWS produced this report as part Building a green economy offers one compelling solution, and the American of the Working Poor Families Project Reinvestment and Recovery Act holds much promise to help the state do so. (WPFP), a national initiative launched Additional injections of federal dollars may accompany climate and energy bills later in 2002 to strengthen state policies to this year. But money isn’t enough. better prepare America’s working families The state and key stakeholders need to spend it on building a high-road recovery: for a more secure economic future. WPFP creating and retaining high-quality jobs, developing appropriate training pathways, is active in 23 states and the District and providing broad access to both. To do this, workforce policy-makers and of Columbia; COWS leads the project practitioners need to think smart, build partnerships, and deliver equity. in Wisconsin. The project is managed by Brandon Roberts & Associates and The state’s technical colleges will play a key role here. This paper offers a brief supported by the Annie E. Casey, Ford, overview of green-collar training programs already in place at campuses across the Joyce, and Mott Foundations. More state, related Recovery Act resources, and some suggestions as to how the technical information on the project can be found college system and its partners can most effectively move forward in greening online at: www.workingpoorfamilies.org/ Wisconsin’s workforce. index.html. 1 January 2008 to January 2009, based on BLS Current Employment Statistics. 2 We define poverty-wage jobs as those paying a wage that is insufficient to lift a full-time (40 hours a week), year-round (52 weeks a year) worker to the poverty line for a family of four with two children. In 2007 dollars, the “poverty wage” was $10.11 an hour or less; if someone worked full-time for the entire year at this wage, his/her annual earnings would be $21,029. 3 Working Poor Families Project analysis of 2006 ACS. Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short (October 2008). Available at www.workingpoorfamilies.org/pdfs/NatReport08.pdf. C O W S 4 Ibid. center on wisconsin strategy 2 greening wisConsin’s wORKFORCE WHAt is a Unfortunately, there are no green-collar Clearly many PhDs, architects, and guarantees on job quality: both high and engineers hold green jobs and directly Green Job? low roads can lead to a technically “green” contribute to the building of a green The Obama Administration is succinct: economy. States interested in the high economy. But publically-funded workforce road will define and promote green jobs development projects should promote “Green jobs involve some task associated as family-supporting jobs that contribute green jobs accessible to those with less with improving the environment, including significantly to preserving or enhancing than a four-year college degree. These reducing carbon emissions and creating environmental quality.8 jobs represent the bulk of employer and/or using energy more efficiently.” 5 demand and range from entry-level to highly-skilled work in a multitude of This broad definition — which accurately 10 2. Job Content industries. In the renewable energy and describes a green universe comprising energy efficiency sectors, for example, portions of positions spread across a What do green collar workers do? While green-collar work includes manufacturing, vast range of occupations and industries job quality is often a question of economic assembly, transportation, construction, 6 — quickly gives way to complexity. To development policy and labor standards, installation, operation, and maintenance. employ “green jobs” as a meaningful training looks to skills and certification. [see appendix on page 11] category for economic and workforce And for those who focus on training, the development, state policy-makers must most meaningful thing to know is that refine their definition through critical green jobs are not, for the most part, new 4. Job Targets choices in five areas of policy and jobs. practice. If states, regions, and workforce Where are the green jobs? Some are intermediaries learn their labor markets, atop wind towers or green rooftops. But they can more effectively determine 1. Job Quality more are hiding in plain sight. The vast which green sectors make sense to focus majority, in fact, will be found in traditional on, build partnerships to align demand, 7 Green jobs can and should be good jobs. occupations and industries fortified, in and adjust training programs to mediate some cases, with new green skills. Green- supply. The most promising clean energy Good jobs pay more than a poverty-level collar workers are machinists, assemblers, sectors, most of which are supported wage. They also offer benefits, at least and truck drivers; pipefitters, insulators, through the Recovery Act, include energy health care and ideally pensions, paid sick and carpenters; technicians, mechanics, efficiency building retrofits, mass transit, leave, safe working conditions, reasonable and maintenance workers; bookkeepers, smart grids, wind power, solar power, schedules, organizing rights, and a receptionists, and customer service and advanced biofuels.11 Other growing modicum of job security. And because representatives. [see appendix on page 11] green industries include environmental low-road economic practice condemns remediation, waste management, and a substantial number of Americans not urban agriculture. only to short-term, low-wage jobs, but 3. Job Training also to long-term poverty traps, a good Perhaps most exciting for Wisconsin, job is one with an accessible pathway to Most green-collar jobs are and will be building a green economy could revitalize advancement. middle skill jobs requiring more than high the manufacturing sector, both in and 9 outside of clean energy industries. 5 The White House Task Force on the Middle Class, Green Jobs: school, but less than a four-year degree. A Pathway to a Strong Middle Class (Staff Report, February 2009), available at www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/mctf_one_staff_ 8 For an analysis of labor standards and employer practice in three report.pdf. clean energy sectors, see Philip Matera, High Road or Low Road? Job 10 See Harry J. Holzer & Robert I. Lerman, “America’s Forgotten 6 Thinking of jobs as positions or full-time equivalents (FTEs) Quality in the New Green Economy (Good Jobs First, February 2009), Middle-Skill Jobs: Education and Training Requirements in the Next addresses the problem of associating the concept of “green” with a available at www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/gjfgreenjobsrpt.pdf. Decade and Beyond” (The Workforce Alliance, November 2007), particular occupation or industry, and relates it, instead, to the fraction available at www.skills2compete.org. 9 “Middle Skill” in this context refers to the level of education and of any job’s activities that are dedicated to the green enterprise training required by a particular job, not the actual technical proficiency 11 For a discussion of green sectors and related occupations, including (environmental remediation or betterment, climate adaptation and of the worker. The term focuses policy attention on the sorts of critical issues of scope and scale, see, e.g., Roger H. Bezdek, Green Collar mitigation, etc., including, but not limited to, clean energy). workforce training provided by community and technical colleges, Jobs in the U.S. and Colorado: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century 7 The notion that a green job is by definition a good job was put labor unions, and community organizations.
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