Green Collar Jobs

We've heard a few buzz words on the campaign trail about green collar jobs but what exactly is behind the rhetoric?

Green For All is a nonprofit looking to create a green economy not only as a way to stop global warming, but also as a path to economic justice for the economically disadvantaged.

FANTASTIC! A multi-dimensional solution that would:

  • Create New Industry
  • Generate American Jobs
  • Increase US exports
  • Reduce energy imports
  • Reduce Global Warming

US investment initiatives certainly could create a new industry to bring about economic fairness, especially for US domestic diversity.

Alas, there is a hitch.

While these think tanks claim green collar jobs cannot be outsourced, oh my, think again!

Sure, low paying service jobs for installation probably cannot be outsourced, but the real middle class job generator is Research, Development and Manufacturing. Currently the globalization agenda to offshore outsource any middle class job is speeding down the Race to the Bottom road without even a bump.

If corporations cannot offshore outsource the job, they lobby to bring in cheap foreign labor to displace those very Americans this organization is trying to promote. Once again, few will look at the global migration agenda in terms of wages and labor.

This new industry needs (I'm going to say it) some protections to ensure a strategically critical emerging technology industry grows strong in the United States, employs her citizens and helps not only the environment but the U.S. economy.

Senator Bernie Sanders, with Hillary Clinton did pass a Green Jobs Amendment ( here is the actual amendment(pdf)), where retraining for these positions does have priority to the economically disadvantaged. But high skills jobs are heavily targeted for labor arbitrage also!

To date, I am not aware of any initiative to fund further educational and job opportunities for those who already have skills in Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics. Many STEM professionals have been displaced by the globalization wage arbitrage agenda. These are the very scientists and engineers who could innovate a new industry based on alternative energy advances. Yet, ensuring that Americans are first up to be employed for jobs in America, while an obvious domestic economic truth, gets buried under lobbyist rhetoric as either protectionist or worse, racist. Jobs for Americans 1st, in America, in their own nation, is simply not racist, especially when realizing US domestic diversity has been disproportately hurt by globalization and wage arbitrage is an age discrimination vehicle. Putting Americans first in their own country is in the national interest, the US economic interests. Americans first will very much assist the middle class, US domestic diversity and the impoverished, where talent and skills are lost daily to global labor arbitrage.

American Solar Energy Society Green Jobs Report (pdf) states:

The study’s two most striking findings are the size of these industries and the broad economic benefits that could accrue if regulators and policymakers support aggressive growth in these sectors. In 2006, more than 8 million Americans worked in these industries and RE&EE generated $933 billion of revenue. By 2030, under an aggressive deployment forecast scenario, there could be more than 40 million Americans employed in these industries—about one in every four working Americans. And in the aggressive scenario, the RE&EE industries could generate $4.53 trillion in annual revenue

These growth projections are incredible, yet where is policy or legislation to ensure those new jobs in manufacturing and R&D are going to US professionals? Where is legislation and policy to insure manufacturing starts and stays in the United States?

Retraining for a STEM Professional is an additional Masters degree, university level course work in specialty subjects which segue to alternative energy theory from other Science background areas. Retraining for Professionals is also co-ops and internships. Not only can a professional worker contribute almost immediately in the workplace, co-ops and internships ease transition into newly created research and development career areas as well as advanced manufacturing technology, which often require advanced skills.

Will Americans, be given as a priority and thus supported and enabled to create these jobs of the new alternative energy economy? US professionals are displaced by insourcing (importing cheaper labor), offshore outsourcing and age discrimination daily. Will tax incentives as well as R&D credits, investments be only available to initiatives that are incorporated in the United States and employ US workers exclusively, in the United States?

Center for American Progress Green Collar Jobs Report (pdf). Yet, note the lack of discussion on insourcing and offshore outsourcing.

Green for All above links to an partner who advocates for illegal immigrants. Now how exactly will they ensure US domestic diversity get these new jobs when their partners seem to be representing the US Chamber of Commerce, enabling illegal, cheap labor or other de facto methods to flood the US labor market with oversupply?

Why is it never mentioned to retrain those in poverty with four year college degrees? It is completely possible, when someone is bright enough and hard working enough, for that person to obtain a four year degree in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Yet US diversity, disproportionately impoverished, includes single mothers, older workers, Blacks, Hispanics. So why is this idea of offering a true career path, a major educational investment, never mentioned for US domestic diversity? Is there some sort of underlying bias against single mothers, women, older displaced workers, American Hispanics, Blacks which implies somehow a subset of all of these people cannot achieve a university degree in Scientific areas?

Interview with the founder of Green for All:

Meta: 

Comments

RO

Spot on, my good man. I agree, we need to bring up that oh-so-aweful "p" word that the free trader/Kudlowites hate. The fact remains, its our tax dollars going to support this, and it should be those very people who benefit the most from such investments. Though not too sure abuot 1-4 Americans working in that field. That screams of a bubble to me. Still, America needs to rebuild its industrial base, and it looks as if Uncle Sam is going to re-ignite it, so let it be his children that get the jobs.

as a P word navigator

it takes a very long time to navigate the razor edge of labor economics versus one's personal values of diversity, equality, economic justice and humanitarian goals.

It's a mine field so it's tough to figure out, esp. for those who cannot read labor economics texts, how labor supply/population/economies interact, what the real causes and effects are.

One of the things I cracked awhile ago was slave economics throughout history, also w.r.t. forced migrations. That's when I realized not all things are what they appear to be on the surface!