President Haynes Urges Utility Companies to Make Job Quality Standards Part of Energy Efficiency Programs

President Haynes testifying at the EEAC public hearingPresident Haynes testifies at the EEAC public hearing

Energy Efficiency Advisory Council Public Hearing - Tuesday, July 14
 
Testimony of Robert J. Haynes, President, Massachusetts AFL-CIO
 
Good evening, members of the Advisory Council. For the record I am Bob Haynes, President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, the state’s largest labor organization, representing 750 local unions in the building trades, public and private sectors that represent approximately 400,000 working families. I want to begin by saying that the Green Communities Act and the establishment of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council is an extremely important first step towards reaching the promise that emerging green technologies and public investment in energy efficiency programs can have on our society, our economy, and working families throughout this country and the Commonwealth. However, it is just that – a first step.
 
Energy efficiency programs present a tremendous opportunity on a number of fronts: Through investment in these programs, we, as a society, can reduce our output of greenhouse gases, we can put money back into the pockets of working families – money that is currently escaping through drafty windows and poorly insulated homes – and in doing so we can create thousands of quality jobs for individuals who currently do not have access to employment or training opportunities. However, this is not guaranteed to happen simply by throwing money at the problem. We need to ensure that this investment – made by consumers – does in fact accomplish these goals.
 
One important step that utility companies must make to ensure that low income families have access to these money-saving programs and the quality jobs they create, is to bundle homes and neighborhoods in order to build demand within a geographic area. The current scattered system of demand and contracting makes it difficult to train a significant number of local residents within a certain area; especially in low-income neighborhoods. By bundling homes in a targeted geographic area, community groups will be able to organize block-by-block and create large-scale demand for retrofits, while also putting people to work in their own neighborhoods.
 
We must also ensure that utility companies set requirements for responsible contractors that provide adequate training and certification for local residents. Utilities must also require and enforce job quality standards for contractors and subcontractors, and ensure that workers have the free opportunity to unionize, if they choose.  
 
New investments in energy efficiency have given many workers in this country hope: Hope that smart public investments will help kick-start the industries of the future and lead us out of our current economic abyss. Hope that by providing retrofits to the families who need them most, we will bring back jobs to our inner cities – some of the most economically depressed areas in our country. We have seen too many other industries in this country take the low road and rake in profits without providing any real benefit in the way of family-sustaining jobs. Our communities will not sit by and watch the Wal-Mart-ization of one of the most promising industries we have on our horizon.
 
I’d like to draw on the words of President Obama, who said on election night that his victory alone is not the change we seek, “It is only the chance for us to make that change, and that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.” The Green Communities Act is not change, but it does provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to make change. We can grow the middle class and create a vibrant new sector in the Commonwealth, but only if we demand high job quality standards and design our programs so we can create quality training programs.  
 
I urge this Advisory Council and utility companies in the Commonwealth to ensure that we all benefit from our collective investment in energy efficiency programs.
 

 

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