Envisioning a green economy in NYC

Here is my newsy report from a conference I attended tonight.  I am posting it because it is the sort of event that does not seem to get picked up by the NYC press, perhaps because it seems wonky.

A group of self-proclaimed “strange bedfellows” gathered in Lower Manhattan on Monday night to offer up a definition of green jobs that they hope will be durable.  Representatives from New York City’s labor, industrial development and environmental justice communities convened with the Apollo Alliance, a national group of environmental and labor interests that wants the Obama administration to devote $50 billion a year of its $800 billion-plus stimulus package to green jobs, in a forum that emphasized combining green jobs with fair labor practices.

“I visited with the President Thursday and his opening statement was, ‘Labor, welcome back to Washington,’” said Jerome Ringo, the president of the Apollo Alliance.

Participants said that New York is already in place to create labor-friendly jobs, suggesting that a green economy in the city would build atop the existing structures of labor, industry and the environmental movement.

Construction is all ready to take up the work, said Steve McInnis, the political director for the Carpenters Union, which has 25,000 members, and said the union could recruit more.  The New York City Housing Authority is another builder that commits to greening housing stock and has prevailing wage standards in place, said Mijin Cha, the director of campaign research for Urban Agenda, the group that convened the night’s event.

The city can promote its local economy by assuring that contractors who use local materials in their projects get preference on bids and that production of metal for green products like wind turbines employ local manufacturers, said Adam Friedman of the New York Industrial Retention Network.

Members of the panel encouraged the audience, which filled the seats in the conference room of the New York City Carpenters Union headquarters, to contact their federal, state and local representatives and encourage them to support the Apollo Alliance’s blueprint for spending green job money in New York.  Recommendations include rehabbing subway lines, funding home retrofit programs and green public housing programs, and adding more money to a green job training program at the City University of New York.

Panelists spoke with urgency about the need for strong labor standards in green jobs, which in many cases would appear to be met if the jobs go directly to current union members.  With green as trendy as it is, some worried that the term might be co-opted by other parties before people catch on to the Apollo Alliance’s definition.

“Don’t just say ‘green jobs,’ say ‘green-collar jobs,’” said Cha.  “Wal-Mart just announced green jobs.  That is the worst thing ever.”