Green Labor Journal - Working for a Substainable Future

Leo Gerard on the Blue Green Alliance

An interview with the International President of the United Steelworkers

By Jerry Brown Dec 03, 2009

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Leo Gerard on the Blue Green Alliance
By Jerry Brown
An interview with the International President of the United Steelworkers

Editor’s note: GLJ asked Leo Gerard several questions about the Blue Green Alliance.  The Blue Green Alliance is a national, strategic partnership between labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. Here are his responses.

Blue Green Alliance

GLJ: What was the turning point in the Blue Green Alliance, after prior labor-environmental efforts did not get off the ground?

 

We then quickly started having what I would call working meetings in four states: Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and if my memory is right Michigan.

Then, Carl [Carl Pope, President of the Sierra Club] and I went on a joint tour with Sierra Club folks and Steelworker folks.  And talked about what we were wanting to do, and laying out the infrastructure of that – and that led into the 2006 election cycle.

We succeeded because people felt that they had made a difference.  We also did some joint fund raising together, where we had to go to explain to people what it was we wanted to do and how we wanted to accomplish it.

Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference 2010

GLJ:  What will be the main focus of the May 2010 Green Jobs, Good Jobs Conference in Washington, D.C.? Last years Conference was inspiring.

LG: The 2009 Conference was more strategically planned than the previous one. That first one was held in Pittsburgh the year before. We were hoping to have between 500 and 600 people. We ended up with 900 and were turning people away.

Right after that conference, David [David Foster, Executive Director, Blue Green Alliance], Carl and I got together. We strategically scheduled the 2009 Conference to follow immediately after the presidential election.  Last year, we planned for 2,500 people and ended up with about 3,000

This year, we’re going to have to focus on jobs.  Particularly, there is a lot of concern about the way that Stimulus Package money has made its way into funding a high level of imports of green products into the United States – especially wind turbines and solar panels.

There is also some concern that China wants to buy into green industries in America.
Not to manufacture the equipment, but to be able to operate the facilities, whether they are wind farms, solar farms, biomass or some other form of renewable energy ─ linking this with their domestic technology and jobs agenda.

I think that by the time we get to that next Conference, jobs are going to be the big issue.
And how Congress tackles climate change legislation is going to have a direct impact on what happens on the jobs front.

Stimulus Package and Jobs

GLJ: Looking at the Recovery Program that the USW endorsed before the election, and at President Obama’s Stimulus Package, where are the jobs, and especially the green jobs, being created?  [The Stimulus Package refers to the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February 2009.]

LG: Well, let me say a couple of things, all of which directly impact green job generation. First of all, we ─ the Union and the Executive Board ─ felt that the Stimulus Plan was an important first step.  We thought there was much too much attention paid to tax cuts for people who didn’t need tax cuts.  And, that the money could have been better targeted towards state aid and towards specific manufacturing incentives.

Having said that, I think the big problem is that the Stimulus Plan was not enough, and that even a second SP won’t be enough, because America lacks a manufacturing strategy for the country that is short, medium and long term.

So, if we talk about a Second Stimulus, I would see it as a second installment on a short-term job strategy that needs to be complemented with a long-term job strategy.

Currently, there are only two countries that I know of in the OCED (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), who believe that future success is based on not having a manufacturing plan.

These countries are the United States and Canada.  And the same green washing that’s going on in Canada is going on here in the U.S: lots of rhetoric about green jobs being the future, but most of that industry is fed by imports.

I believe America needs a medium-term strategy ─ a five to ten year program of infrastructure rebuilding and modernizing our public buildings, including schools and local, state and federal government buildings.  

Since the largest single emitters of carbon are residential, commercial and industrial buildings, we need to launch a 10-year program of retrofitting all buildings that were built prior to 1960 and bring them up to current green building standards.  This requires a decade-long process of public building retrofitting and modernization.

This green building program must include a provision for a guaranteed amount of domestic content.  I’m not sure that it has to be every single piece, but certainly a guaranteed minimum amount of domestic content.  This would then encourage manufacturers of glass, air handlers, and heating/cooling equipment to assess their commitment to carbon reduction.

And we should also score them on their life-cycle carbon footprint.  So, if a company is bringing in a wind turbine from Germany, or a huge commercial piece of air conditioning equipment from China, then they should get charged the carbon equivalent for manufacturing it there, shipping it across the ocean, putting it on a truck or train and transporting it to the facility.

This way, the closer a product is made to the place where it is going to be installed and used, the more carbon-reduction points the manufacturer would score.

Another major program America sorely needs is a long-term, 20-year plan for high-speed rail infrastructure. Without a doubt, rail is one of the most carbon-efficient ways of moving goods.  So, if we are going to be serious about reducing oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, we need the high-speed rail system to move people and goods through all U.S. high population corridors.

To those who say that we’re going to invest in mass transit for a two-year period, I say ─ to be blunt ─ that’s B.S.  In a couple of years, you’ll barely make a dent in the system and that’s simply not long enough to encourage domestic manufacturing. This short-sighted approach leaves the development of this major green transportation industry in the hands of the Germans and the Japanese.

Furthermore, once we pass legislation that starts charging companies for carbon emissions, then one of the best uses of those funds would be to retrofit all of our coal fired power plants, which are a major source of greenhouse gases ─ and accelerate the development and commercialization of viable carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies. This will allow America to maintain a diversified energy strategy and utilize our vast coal resources well into the future.

Climate Change Bill

GLJ: With health care reform, job creation, and economic recovery on top of the Administration’s domestic agenda, what are the chances of passing climate change legislation this year?  And, what’s your response to the nay-sayers, who claim that it is going to cost jobs?

LG: Well, again, I think it is a matter of what kind of Climate Change bill you get.  If you get a bill that doesn’t have a strong border adjustment – an enforceable border adjustment mechanism ─ it will cost jobs.

If you get a bill that doesn’t give sufficient carbon allocations and credits to energy-intensive industries, it will cost jobs. If you have a bill that doesn’t call for a minimum of domestic content, it will cost jobs.

So, I think it is all about what kind of Climate Change bill.  And, I believe that what we’ll see is a collision between the pure “free” traders, that don’t want to do anything except pretend that the economy is unregulated ─ or pretend that there is such a thing as “free trade” ─ and the people that really want to pass a good climate change bill.

If you want to have a good climate change bill, you’ve got to make sure that it’s a bill that creates and protects jobs while it cleans the environment.

There are two things that I’ve said for quite some time, ever since we created the Blue Green Alliance. Number one is that the agents of the status quo are the ones that say “you can’t have both good jobs and a clean environment.”

What our position has been (not just mine personally, but the USW for the last 20 years) is that “you are going to have both – goods jobs and a clean environment – or you’ll have neither.”

Today, the greatest threats to our children’s future are the destruction of the environment and of good-paying jobs.  The United Steelworks outlined a strategy for addressing these challenges in our 2006 report “Securing Our Children’s World: Our Union and the Environment.”  This report was a precursor to the formation in that year of the Blue Green Alliance.

For additional information, see Blue Green Alliance, United Steelworkers and the original, seminal 1990 USW report “Our Children’s World".