Support a Just Transition to Clean Energy and Help Make Sure Green Jobs are Good Jobs!
In the coming decades, Massachusetts must make significant investments in clean energy infrastructure in order to reach net-zero carbon emissions, but working people can't be left behind. Urge legislators to support climate legislation that will ensure green jobs are good jobs and that helps transition workers out of the fossil fuel industry without worsening income inequality. Climate change is a challenge that must be faced head-on, but it cannot be at the expense of middle-class workers and their families.
Read the National AFL-CIO's proposal for a just transition to clean energy here.
- Creating an Office of Just Transition to assist workers who have been displaced due to the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy and provide them with immediate access to employment and training opportunities in the clean energy industry.
- Creating a Just Transition Advisory Committee tasked with developing a comprehensive Just Transition Plan for the Massachusetts energy sector.
- Implementing “Climate Adjustment Assistance” benefits that are similar in type and duration to federal Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits, in order to financially support and provide enhanced training opportunities to workers displaced from industries dependent on fossil fuels.
- Requiring employers to submit a Workforce Reduction Plan any time job dislocations occur as a result of the transition from fossil fuels.
The Clean Energy Workforce Standards and Accountability Act (HB.1955 / SB.1198) ensures green jobs are good jobs by:
- Ensuring that clean energy projects receiving public investment will create quality, family-sustaining jobs through the application of the state’s prevailing wage law.
- Requiring potential developers and contractors to make important disclosures during the bidding process, including:
- Disclose whether they have ever contracted with organized labor and whether they have a plan to ensure labor harmony and standards during all phases of the construction, development, and operation of the project
- Certification they are in compliance with anti-discrimination laws, wage & hour, and employee misclassification laws
- A plan to enhance workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Whether they utilize apprentice training in order to create career pathways
- Requiring the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to create a comprehensive workforce development plan to:
- Help transition workers in fossil fuel-intensive industries to jobs in the clean energy industry
- Connect workers in Environmental Justice communities to jobs in the clean energy industry
Tell your legislators to pass An Act Relative to a Just Transition to Clean Energy (HB.1955 / SB.1198) and The Clean Energy Workforce Standards and Accountability Act (HB.1954 / SB.1197) today by emailing them the form here.
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