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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 2010)
Aug. 20, 2010:NWLP 8/17/10 10:49 AM Page 7 Chinese wind energy firms to make components in U.S. PITTSBURGH (PAI) — United Steelworkers has convinced two big Chinese wind energy companies to es- tablish supply chains in the United States to make wind energy compo- nents for the firms’ planned wind farms here, union officials said. Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said the pact means creation of at least 500 to 1,000 high-paying factory jobs making the estimated 8,000 compo- nents in each 250-ton tower generating electricity on a wind farm. “Our objective is to get to 100 per- cent domestic sourcing” of the wind farm components,” Gerard said. “Right now, it’s at 50 to 60 percent.” The memorandum of understanding between the union and A Power and Shenyang Power says that the firms will build wind farms here, with U.S.- made components, “wherever feasi- ble.” Components include wind farm towers, blades and cement footings. The Steelworkers Union represents workers in all those industries. As part of the memorandum, the Chinese “made clear they would not oppose” any Steelworker organizing drive among the workers in the wind farm supply chain plants, Gerard said. “This is an understanding we have with sev- eral other employers,” he noted. The sites for the wind farms and for the supply chain factories have yet to be selected, but the union said one will be in Nevada. Others will be close to sources of materials, such as the steel for the wind farm turbines. No overall cost estimates were given for the planned wind farms or their supply chain factories, but Gerard said the two Chinese companies have already committed to spend $90 mil- lion to buy land for the wind farms. “You want to use this model for U.S.-Chinese economic development,” Gerard said. A Chinese-sponsored wind farm in the Texas high plains, since scrapped, would have cost $463 million. Unions, led by IBEW, derailed that project when they revealed the farm would be using stimulus dollars for the construc- tion but that its components would be made in China and employing 2,000 people there. The components would have shipped to Texas for assembly only, creating 300 jobs. Local 21 Motion July 2010 Union certifications and decertifications in Oregon and Southwest Washington, as reported by the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board Recognition elections Name of employer Date Name of union Boeing (simulator technicians) 7/19 IAM-WW Dist. Lodge 1 Results: Union Union Yes No Location Klamath Falls 4 0 Recognition by card check Name of employer Date Name of union Location Number of employees Bend 17 Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office 7/15 Deschutes County District Attorneys Association Requests for recognition election Name of employer Name of union Hickory Springs Manufacturing Company Machinists District Lodge 24 Akzo Nobel Coatings Teamsters Local 324 Location Number of employees Portland 31 Salem 36 Samaritan Dialysis Services Service Employees International Union Local 49 Corvallis 27 Fred Meyer Jewelers United Food & Commercial Workers Local 555 Hillsboro 5 AUGUST 20, 2010 ... Pelosi touts Portland retrofit program (From Page 1) Ana Gonzalez, hired by Neil Kelly in late-July, was front-and-center at the Pelosi press event as an example of someone who found work thanks to the program, which got a $1.1 million ini- tial grant from stimulus funds. Gonza- lez, 41, worked six years in quality as- surance at Adidas, then got a job at a domestic violence non-profit. After re- ferring women clients to Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., Gonzalez decided a job in the building trades would be a good career move for her too. She went through the group’s seven-week pre-ap- prenticeship program for women, and found work at Neil Kelly. Now she’s a member of Carpenters Local 247, earn- ing $15.85 an hour in the union’s new weatherization technician classification. She will also have full-family health coverage once she logs 250 hours on the job, thanks to a $6.44-an-hour employer contribution to the union health and wel- fare trust. Neil Kelly’s new Home Performance division has seven employees: three new hires including Gonzalez, and four who transferred from the company’s other di- visions. That’s in a home remodeling company that shrunk from 165 to 130 in the recession. Neil Kelly’s home per- formance division works exclusively with Clean Energy Works, and is doing about 60 of the 500 homes in the pro- gram’s first stage. It’s the company’s only growth spot right now, company president Tom Kelly told Pelosi. Program-wide, Clean Energy Works Portland reports just 16 new jobs created a year into the program — 11 in the pri- vate sector and five for the program it- self. Yet, Mayor Adams told Pelosi Clean Energy Works will be responsible for NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS 1,300 jobs in the next three years as it itors had given him to ask: “What do rolls out statewide, thanks to a second you say to critics who argue that this is just a payoff to the unions before the stimulus grant of $20 million. Clean Energy Works Portland direc- election?” “How can people be opposed to tor Andria Jacob explained the 1,300 jobs figure to the Labor Press. It uses a this?” Pelosi replied. “It doesn’t make U.S. Department of Energy economic sense. They say it’s going to add to the model which estimates a job is created deficit. Where were they during the for every $92,000 spent; and it assumes Bush Administration when the biggest the program will meet a requirement growth in debt was created?” If local green job results appear mod- that it find a five-to-one funding match est, it’s worth noting that for the stimulus funds. in a $3.5 trillion federal Pelosi’s staff also “It’s not about wanted to make a government spending. budget, the $1.1 million and $20 million grants to point that the stimu- lus-funded project It’s about government Clean Energy Works are would employ not just investing to stimulate pretty modest sums. And those are one-time stimu- the workers doing the the private sector to lus act grants. Asked by retrofit, but the work- the Labor Press about fu- ers manufacturing the take the lead.” ture federal funding for equipment and sup- plies they installed. But Clean Energy the program, Pelosi and Blumenauer Works is too small to meet the threshold said only that Congress is instead dis- triggering the Recovery Act’s “Buy cussing home energy tax credits and re- America” provision. Adams obliged, an- bates, the cost of which would be offset nouncing an “emerging” supplier strat- by ending some oil companies’ tax egy that he said would make sure the breaks. “It’s not about government spend- program favors American-made goods. Contractors taking part in Clean En- ing,” Pelosi said. “It’s about government ergy Works Portland hadn’t heard any- investing to stimulate the private sector thing from the City about a preference to take the lead.” For Tom Kelly, seeing this work for U.S.-made supplies. At the Fichts’, the insulation and furnace were made in come and go with government policy America, but the tankless water heater would be an unfortunate bit of déja`vu. “Back in the ’70s, in the Jimmy is Japanese. Jacob, the program director, said Carter era, our company had a division Adams’ comment referred to a staff-per- with 30 employees putting in insulation, son at Portland Development Commis- putting in solar hot water heaters, doing sion who is developing a domestic and storm windows in people’s houses,” Kelly told Pelosi. “In those days we local content proposal. While there was no national media at called it weatherization. Now we use the Pelosi press event, it did get local words like ‘energy retrofit.’ ” But the coverage. In the Fichts’ living room, a programs went away, Kelly said, and the freelance TV cameraman hit Pelosi with industry dried up, when Ronald Reagan one of the three questions Fox News ed- swept into the White House. PAGE 7
