As the Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul negotiate the final budget, organized labor is paying close attention to how our state is envisioning union labor’s place in the green-energy economy.
We know that the future is clean, green jobs. The question remains: How good are those jobs? By prioritizing workers in our climate plan, we can create career-oriented union jobs to build New York's sustainable future.
The Climate and Community Protection Fund, included in the Senate’s budget, creates the investment mechanism we need to begin funding infrastructure and green jobs to meet the mandates in New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. But funding is just one brick on our path to a green-energy economy. In a recent letter released by the climate and labor advocacy organization ALIGN, 10 unions, including UAW 9A and our siblings in UAW Region 9, called for strong labor standards in the Climate and Community Protection Fund. Including these priorities in the budget will mean delivering both on the Climate Act’s implementation and its promise of 200,000 new green jobs by 2030.
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