WASHINGTON – Two of President Joe Biden’s prevailing priorities – combating climate change and protecting workers – clash as his government prepares for a comprehensive, green recharge of the US economy.
Biden’s effort to move quickly to electric cars, renewable energy and clean manufacturing brings to the fore long-standing tensions between organized labor and environmentalists, two reliable democratic constituencies whose interests do not always converge. At stake are millions of well-paying jobs that support the American middle class, but are concentrated in industries that pollute a lot and that Biden wants to phase out.
The gap between ‘green and blue’ comes into focus as Biden prepares a multi-million dollar infrastructure and work package to ease the economy following the Covid-19 pandemic, even as its administration pushes for pipelines and some oil and gas drilling projects. offers the promise of well-paying jobs.
No one seriously doubts Biden’s real bona fides. After making a vow to be ‘the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen’, he made a dramatic payout this week by publicly supporting Amazon employees in Alabama who vote or they must unite.
Similarly, most climate hawks could not be happier with Biden’s commitments to aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions through exhaust pipes and power plants. But the pressure to stand up for the burgeoning green industries needed to achieve it sometimes comes at the expense of laborers.
“The cleaning technology sector as a whole, whether you’re talking about renewable energy or other clean technologies, is usually lower wages, non-union – and that needs to change,” said Anna Fendley, director of United Steelworkers. Biden and whose million membership includes oil and gas workers.
Take electric power. Biden, in an executive order a week after taking office, set a goal to zero carbon dioxide emissions by the power sector by 2035, a high target that should quickly increase wind and solar power. He also wants the workers who do this to earn prevailing wages and the right to join a trade union.
It’s like this: work in wind and solar just doesn’t pay as well. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor, a power plant earns an average of $ 79,400 per year, compared to $ 46,900 for a solar power installer and $ 56,700 for a wind turbine technician.
In general, it is still better than the average job available these days for someone looking for work in the economy with pandemics. But the pay cut compared to the salaries offered for jobs on fossil fuels is hampering efforts to find new jobs for those who lose their livelihoods as the U.S. takes it down from dirtier fuel.
One reason may be that almost all wind and solar power work has not been combined. In facilities that produce electricity from natural gas, 11 percent of the workers are united and 10 percent coal. That drops to 6 percent in wind power generation and just 4 percent in solar power, according to 2020 data from the U.S. Energy and Employment Report, an annual survey.
“It has not always been a good job to lay a pipe or become a coal miner. It has become a good job because of decades of organization,” said Robert Pollin, who teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the Consulted Department of Energy. .
Wind and solar power plants are mainly concentrated in the installation, which means that there are fewer long-term jobs if the sites are running than oil and gas. And much of the hardware is imported from overseas, also from China, rather than manufactured by U.S. laborers, energy analysts said.
As the industry has taken shape over the past two decades, wind and solar companies have argued that with high costs and low profit margins, they cannot grow and replace coal and gas as quickly as they pay unions at the same time.
“The argument is wrong,” said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, which aims to unite labor and environmental groups. He said higher wages are not a major factor in how quickly renewable energy can expand because the projects are capital intensive, and most of the budget is spent on procuring solar panels and wind turbines – not on labor. “Even if your workers pay a family-supporting wage, it will not increase the total cost of the project.”
Similarly, Biden wants Americans to dump their gas-fired vehicles for electric cars and trucks, with a view to the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: the exhaust pipe. Since Biden took office, General Motors plans to be fully electric by 2035, and other major carmakers have taken similar steps.
For workers who have relied on skilled, high-paying car work for decades, the shift creates serious uncertainty in their future. This is because electric vehicles, which use simpler electric motors rather than transmissions and combustion engines with more acceleration, require far fewer workers to build the same number of motors. The United Auto Workers union said earlier that as many as 35,000 jobs could be at stake.
All electric vehicles manufactured in the US are currently manufactured with non-labor, such as Teslas, or imported with most parts, which do not pass the “American-made” test of Biden. Even the core of electric vehicles, the lithium-ion batteries, are largely outsourced to other companies that supply them to car manufacturers but may not pay the same wages and benefits.
“Electric vehicles have the lowest quality in the U.S. and Canada in general,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry at the Center for Automotive Research in Michigan.
Biden’s move to the Keystone XL oil pipeline also caused early tensions with some elements of organized labor. TC Energy Corp., the Canadian company that wants to build the controversial oil pipeline, said it had laid off 1,000 people following Biden’s decision in January.
AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who endorsed Biden, criticized the president for not having other jobs ready for the same workers when he turned down the pipeline, although Trumka and other top union leaders Biden’s climate and work plans priced differently.
As the Biden government prepares to focus on jobs and infrastructure packages after the pandemic bill is finalized, lawmakers and working groups are already examining how to meet the president’s dual goals for workers and the climate. protect, best to ensure each other’s expenses.
In a comprehensive climate bill introduced this week by chairmen of the House Democratic Committee that calls for the use of renewable energy, there is a provision that requires money to be spent on contractors who pay ‘no less than the local prevailing wage’ not – a tariff determined by the department of labor. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Told NBC News this week that she plans to reintroduce a bill that would provide Medicare and free higher education to unemployed coal workers.
Last month, Biden met with major union leaders on infrastructure and promised that good work would not have to be sacrificed. And Gina McCarthy, his domestic climate tsar, said in a recent interview with Vox that ‘well-paid union works’ would be central to the package, adding that’ President Biden does not think this is a secondary consideration. ‘
“Biden has the playbook,” said Walsh of the BlueGreen Alliance. “Now let’s see how they do it.”