Jessie HF Hammerling is the co-director of the Green Economy Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. She works in collaboration with government, industry, unions, and community stakeholders to understand the impacts of the energy transition and to develop strategies for decarbonizing the economy that generate quality jobs and equitable outcomes. In prior years, Dr. Hammerling worked with the Labor Center’s Technology and Work Program, where she helped lead research to inform worker-driven responses to managing technological change. Dr. Hammerling has a Ph.D. in geography from UC Davis and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
This guide provides an overview of economic and workforce development public funding resources in California. It is designed to support potential applicants in two key areas: identifying relevant funding and integrating “high-road” strategies that prioritize community and worker benefits.
States can act to preserve and advance President Biden’s most important accomplishment: a set of policies aimed at growing jobs in strategic clean energy sectors across the U.S. while supporting fair wages and equal access to employment.
In this report, we discuss the challenges and opportunities facing Contra Costa as it prepares for the cascading effects of an energy transition that is already unfolding. We propose a just transition framework to guide an economic development strategy capable of addressing the specific challenges facing Contra Costa and setting the county on a path toward a more resilient, healthy, and equitable local economy.
This report presents a current snapshot of the state’s progress in implementing several of the strategies outlined in our 2020 report A Jobs and Climate Action Plan for 2030. Specifically, we review existing high road standard policies in California, and assess the reach of high road standards across the state’s proposed climate investments in California’s 2022-23 state budget.
Understanding how technological changes may unfold in different industries is essential for developing effective solutions to the challenges that workers face. In this report, we synthesize the findings of five industry studies: trucking, warehouses, health care, retail, and food delivery.
As the state navigates the energy transition, it needs a clear and comprehensive plan to provide real support for refinery workers and communities affected by closures.
“I have a lot of concerns about what will happen to the workers at Valero if it shuts down, based on the experiences of workers at Marathon Martinez, and the fact that the permanent workforce at Valero is not represented by a union,” Hammerling says.
An unlikely alliance of labor and environmental-justice groups is working to ensure the region is prepared for a future without big oil.
“We do not currently have the plans in place to ensure a just transition, but we have learned a lot over the last couple of years about and learned from workers and communities who’ve been affected by closure so far about what a transition can and should look like and how to actually make it happen,” said Jessie Hammerling.
“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
Discussion of the Labor Center report “Fossil Fuel Layoff. ” As we make the necessary transition away from fossil fuels, Forum discusses what kind of jobs will be lost, and gained, in the green economy and what can be done to minimize harm to the workers whose jobs will be erased and to the communities who depend on their industries.
The more recent Inflation Reduction Act provides upwards of $370 billion in incentives for clean energy projects. The incentives are structured to encourage domestic production of various clean tech products.
“In the aggregate, there are going to be many jobs created in the clean energy economy and supply chain,” said Jessie Hammerling. “But the real critical challenge to get right is to make sure that they are good union jobs that pay comparable wages with similar benefits and job quality to the fossil fuel jobs that are at risk here.”
Half a million more construction workers needed as public money floods into infrastructure and clean energy. “When work is paid, it draws more workers into the pool,” said Jessie Hammerling, co-director of the green economy programme at UC Berkeley’s labour centre.
Tech’s effects on job quality — including wages and working conditions — should be as much of a concern for employers as its effects on the total number of jobs available. That’s the conclusion of a new report released by the UC Berkeley Labor Center on how and why employers in key industries are deploying new technologies, and what effects these changes could have on workers.
