Green Labor Journal - Working for a Substainable Future

Green For All Joins "Journal"

Green jobs advocate Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins to contribute monthly column.

By Green For All Oct 30, 2009

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The Green Labor Journal is pleased to announce that Green For All’s CEO, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, will contribute a regular feature column, starting November 2009.
    
Ellis-Lamkins has been instrumental to many of Green For All’s inspiring victories for the growing clean-energy economy and its workers.  

In June of 2009, the organization succeeded in helping to strengthen the American Clean Energy & Security Act, passed by the House of Representatives.  It convened a coalition of civil rights, social justice, labor, faith, environmental, and community groups that won critical improvements to the bill. These provisions, which fund job training and guarantee broad access to green jobs, were championed by members of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses.

Of the victory, Ellis-Lamkins said, “This legislation will not only position America at the forefront of the clean-energy economy but will also create jobs and opportunities for communities that are too often at the margins.”

Ellis-Lamkins and Green For All have a proven record of success locally as well. In Portland, Oregon, they are partnering with local groups on an innovative effort to deliver affordable home energy upgrades to 500 homes.  This initiative includes strong labor standards, and will be the first energy retrofit program to use on-bill financing ─ meaning residents pay back the cost of retrofits directly through their utility bill savings.

In Washington State, Green For All helped pass a law to create a program that will bring energy-efficiency retrofits to low-income residents and 100,000 homes.  This triple-win ─ lower-bills for residents, more jobs for the state, and less global warming pollution ─ typifies Ellis-Lamkin’s approach: finding solutions that are good for the planet and for people, particularly those who need opportunity most.

Under Ellis-Lamkins’ leadership, Green For All’s campaigns have expanded green job opportunities for working families and increased community involvement in the green economy. In partnership with the Hip Hop Caucus, she recently unveiled Green The Block, a new campaign to more deeply engage urban communities in the clean energy economy.
        
Prior to joining Green For All, Ellis-Lamkins headed the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council and Working Partnerships USA. Her efforts expanded the living wage law for working families, and created Community Benefits Agreements that unite developers, businesses, and communities in designing mutually beneficial projects.  Her many achievements on behalf of workers have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, America at Work, NBC News and ABC News.

Ellis-Lamkins brought her bold leadership, and commitment to expanding opportunity, to Green For All in early 2009.

Founded in 2007, Green For All is a national organization that works to improve the lives of all Americans through a clean-energy economy.  Green For All works in collaboration with the business, government, labor, and grassroots communities to create and implement programs that increase quality jobs and opportunities in green industry ─ all while holding the most vulnerable people at the center of its agenda.