In New York, Unions And Climate Activists Sing Duets, Braid Each Other's Hair, Save Planet. And Joe Biden Helped!
Climate policy and industrial policy making out under the bleachers!
Oh my. Over at the American Prospect, Robert Kuttner has gotten some Labor Nice Time in his Clean Energy Nice Time, and the two flavors go great together. Specifically, Kuttner looks at how much has changed at General Electric from the bad old days of ‘80s CEO Jack Welch, who infamously accelerated outsourcing and offshoring of jobs at GE, and in American manufacturing in general. Welch hated unions so much that he once proclaimed, “Ideally, you’d have every plant you own on a barge,” so you could move it anywhere you could get cheaper labor.
That’s why it was a pretty big deal when in May, General Electric and the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE), part of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), announced what’s called a “labor peace agreement” — an agreement that unions won’t strike while they seek to organize workers, and the company won’t engage in any activity aimed at preventing organizing.
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As Kuttner ‘splains,
CWA has pushed GE to go all-union in two proposed new offshore wind turbine production facilities in the Hudson River port of Coeymans. It was the first such labor peace agreement signed by GE, and it represented a 180-degree reversal from Welch-era GE labor tactics. Even President Biden sent a note of congratulation.
The agreement is especially important because since then, GE won a $300 million bid in October from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, to build giant offshore wind turbine blades and nacelles (the enclosures that house the electricity-generating innards of wind turbines). The two factories will create almost a thousand new union jobs, as well as another 1,000 jobs in construction and other support work.
You know what America probably could use? Some WPA-style murals to depict the wonders of this clean energy transition we’re embarking on. Kuttner describes a scene fit for any large wall you might have handy.
Offshore wind turbine blades are so large, about the length of a football field, that they cannot be transported overland. Manufacturing facilities must be located either at ocean ports or on the banks of navigable rivers. Blades from GE’s new plant at Coeymans, south of Albany, will literally be floated down the Hudson to be shipped to domestic and foreign customers, much the way tree trunks from the upper Midwest were sent downriver into sawmills in the 19th century.
When I have some time, I may have to see what I can get the AI to churn out. Oh, wait, that’s bad for workers. Damn me.
When GE initially announced its plan for wind turbine factories in January, it didn’t say boo about unions, but the successful bid only came together with the peace agreement between GE and the union. And it certainly helps that New York is all in on the green jobs — even before the passage last year of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides financial bonuses for clean energy projects that create union jobs.
All this is part of a longer-term New York state program supporting a zero-emission electricity system aiming for 70 percent renewable energy by 2030. By then, New York will have 10,000 megawatts (MW) of distributed solar energy using rooftop panels and community solar projects. Large-scale solar will have reached around 16,000 MW and onshore wind capacity 4,000 MW. Offshore wind aims to achieve 9,000 MW of wind energy by 2035, enough to power up to six million homes.
Kuttner notes that the IRA’s subsidies and labor incentives didn’t play a role in GE’s recent contract in New York, but that GE does credit the IRA for its decision to expand an onshore wind turbine factory in Schenectady.
So the combination of Biden’s pro-union industrial policies such as the IRA, and state-level policies like New York’s, have produced an important change in the collective-bargaining climate. They provide unions with additional leverage.
“IRA matters and the state provisions both matter,” says Michael Fishman, the longtime union leader who now serves as president and executive director of the Climate Jobs National Resource Center. As Fishman makes clear, this only works when combined with militant union activity on the ground.
Hell yes. If that’s supposed to be some kind of socialist hellscape, then paint us into the picture, please!
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I like this Doktor Zoom feller. He frequently posts well researched pieces that don't make me lay on the floor in the fetal position sucking my thumb.
The GE plant in Schenectady hasn't been very busy lately ... this will be good for the Albany area and the Hudson River shippers.
As a note: GE is cleaning up the Hudson River from all the PCBs that were created at the (then) power transformer plant in Schenectady. The Schenectady site was cleaned up years ago, IIRC. Funny what happens when you don't have a greed hound capitalist running your companies.