Labor's Green Jobs Efforts Making Progress
The latest issue of the Green Labor Journal showcases a solar air heating training program by the ironworkers union and also the Apollo Alliance, a San Francisco organization promoting energy efficiency, mass transit, and domestic job growth through green technologies.
The U.S. labor movement’s enthusiasm for green jobs has produced a promising program for training solar air heating installers, and soon the National Labor College’s Green Workplace Representative Program will post its 2011 course schedule, according to the December 2010 issue of the monthly Green Jobs Journal. The issue also reports on a recent awards dinner held by the Apollo Alliance, a San Francisco organization of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders that promotes energy efficiency, mass transit, and domestic job growth through green technologies.
The journal is a National Labor College program showcasing green union initiatives. Its editor is Jerry Brown, Ph.D., founding professor of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University.
The SolarWall® installer training program developed by the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers (the Ironworkers) is the first certified solar air heating training program for new commercial and industrial construction and retrofits, according to the union, which says the program will create a trained labor force to deploy the technology, which heats building ventilation air. It is integrated into buildings rather than an external attachment, throughout the United States and Canada. SolarWall was developed by Conserval Engineering, who partnered with the union and Bellefonte, Pa.-based construction contractor G.M. McCrossin, Inc. to develop the curriculum.