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July 17, 2020 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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Green jobs, but not for you
Construction unions say state-
subsidized clean energy work is
going to nonunion out-of-state
firms and out-of-state crews.
By Don McIntosh
Parked outside wind farm con-
struction sites throughout North-
eastern Oregon, Mike Alldritt
sees the same thing again and
again: a line of pickup trucks
with Texas and other out-of-state
license plates arriving on the job.
Alldritt, who lives in a tiny
Eastern Oregon community
called Lexington, has been keep-
ing tabs on renewable energy
projects since April 2017, when
he started as a business agent for
the Iron Workers union. Since
then, he says nearly all the work
has gone to nonunion, out-of-
state firms that bring in non-
union crews from outside of
Oregon. And it’s not just the ini-
tial construction that Oregonians
are losing out on, but periodic
maintenance overhauls known
as “re-power” work, in which
fiberglass blades are replaced
and rotors changed out.
These are private projects,
and can hire who they like. But
what burns Alldritt and his fel-
low building trades union repre-
sentatives is that these projects
In a video created by the Oregon Building Trades Council, Iron Workers Local
29 member Clint McCollum speaks out against renewable energy work going
to out-of-state workers when Oregon taxpayers are subsidizing the work.
benefit from Oregon tax subsi-
dies. As of 2019, about a dozen
utility-scale wind and solar proj-
ects in Northeastern Oregon
were saving over $30 million a
year total thanks to the state’s
Strategic Investment Program
(SIP) property tax break, a 15-
year property tax exemption.
“We’ve supported these proj-
ects for years, and when they fi-
nally broke ground, they turned
around and spit in our face,”
Alldritt said. “People need to
understand how important these
jobs are to rural communities.
Union jobs are good living wage
jobs that provide a lot for Ore-
gonians.”
Oregon Building Trades
Council Executive Secretary
Robert Camarillo says projects
that benefit from state tax sub-
sidy should have to meet em-
ployment standards—like re-
quirements to hire local, pay
prevailing wage, and take part in
apprenticeship programs to train
the next generation of workers.
“They wonder why we get
behind fossil fuel projects,” Ca-
marillo says. “When [fossil fuel]
developers come to town they
sign a Project Labor Agreement.
We don’t get that with renew-
able energy developers.”
To figure out what to do
about Oregonians missing out
on so much tax-subsidized re-
newable energy work, Camar-
illo convened an ad hoc task
force: Staff and leaders of five
building trades unions that could
be employed on the projects
meet via Zoom every Tuesday:
Operating Engineers Local 701,
IBEW Local 48, Laborers Local
737, Iron Workers Local 29, and
Cement Masons Local 555.
Task force members worked to
create videos in which Eastern
Oregon residents and union
members say how they feel
about the jobs going to out-of-
state workers. The hope is that
renewable energy developers—
and state lawmakers—will
come to see the value of local
union labor.
The campaign may be on the
verge of getting results. Build-
ing trades union officials have
been meeting with representa-
tives of Oregon’s biggest wind
developer, Portland-based
Avangrid Renewables. Avan-
grid—majority-owned by the
Spanish multinational Iber-
drola—is getting nearly $8.5
million a year in SIP tax breaks
for five large Oregon wind
farms. After hearing from build-
ing trades, Avangrid has agreed
informally to have general con-
tractors consider local union
contractors on future projects.