Green Economy

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The Labor Center Green Economy Program conducts research on issues of job creation, quality, access, and training in the emergent green economy. In addition, we provide research and technical assistance to state agencies, labor, and other stakeholders who are engaged in developing and implementing policy related to energy and climate change in California and nationally.

If you are interested in searching our Federal Infrastructure Funding Database, a one-stop center for unions, community-based organizations, employers, government agencies and others interested in applying for funds available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, please fill out this short form. The database tracks notices of funding opportunities from various federal agencies and provides a description of the grants, application links, key dates, webinar dates, and other useful information.

Research & Publications

Press Coverage

Inside Climate News

California’s Oil Country Hopes Carbon Management Will Provide Jobs. It May Be Disappointed

A 2023 study from the University of California Berkeley Labor Center found the majority of unionized oil workers laid off from a refinery in Northern California in 2020 were able to find new work — mostly in the petroleum industry — after the facility suddenly shuttered, but took pay cuts amounting to nearly a quarter of their previous salaries. Only 43 percent of their new jobs were unionized.

Politico

Labor unions are still giving Democrats climate headaches

“We don’t really have a great plan for building high-quality, unionized jobs in the clean economy in the industrial sector,” said Sam Appel, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center who wrote a report finding that around $13 billion out of $32 billion in state climate investments isn’t connected to workforce standards.

E&E News

‘Not a fan’: UAW workers give thumbs-down to Biden’s EV plan

“The core issue is how employers are deploying these new technologies in a way that explicitly weakens the union,” she said in an email. “All of the jobs in the supply chain, from lithium extraction and battery manufacturing all the way up to automotive assembly, could be union jobs.”—Jessie HF Hammerling, UC Berkeley Labor Center

Politico

Transitions: Blue-Collar Green Jobs

A University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center report out Wednesday measures the state’s progress so far, finding California has put in high labor standards for large, publicly funded construction projects such as utility-scale solar and multifamily housing development.

Program Contact

Gray version of UC Berkeley Labor Center logo.

Francisco Arzú

Co-Director, Green Economy Program

Jessie HF Hammerling

Co-Director, Green Economy Program

Carol Zabin

Senior Advisor on the Green Economy

Sam Appel

Practitioner in Residence