Green Economy

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California Workers' Rights: A Manual of Job Rights, Protections and Remedies

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UC Berkeley Labor Center

California Green Economy Public Funding Tracker

The California Green Economy Public Funding Tracker provides information on open funding opportunities from California state agencies related to climate, clean energy, and the workforce. It includes programs supported or administered by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), California Energy Commission (CEC), California Climate Investments, Strategic Growth Council, California Workforce Development Board (CWDB), and more.

UC Berkeley Labor Center

Factsheet: Workforce Standards for an Equitable Economy

California’s economy is growing, but millions of workers are being left behind. The state can do more to ensure every Californian has access to a family-sustaining career by incorporating workforce standards into public spending and regulations. This factsheet describes workforce standards and how policymakers can apply them in this critical moment for climate and infrastructure spending.

Sam AppelandJessie HF Hammerling

California’s Climate Investments and High Road Workforce Standards: Gaps and Opportunities for Advancing Workforce Equity

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.

Virginia ParksandIan Baran

Fossil fuel layoff: The economic and employment effects of a refinery closure on workers in the Bay Area

On October 30, 2020, the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County, California, was permanently shut down and 345 unionized workers laid off. The findings in this report focus on these workers’ post-layoff job search, employment status, wages, and financial security. The Marathon refinery’s closure sheds light on the employment and economic impacts of climate change policies and a shrinking fossil fuel industry on fossil fuel workers in the region and more broadly.

Jessie HF Hammerling

The Inflation Reduction Act Charts a Path that is Pro-Climate and Pro-Worker

After decades of inaction and failed attempts, the U.S. has finally passed federal legislation addressing climate change. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is groundbreaking not only in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also in how it demonstrates that we don’t have to choose between good jobs and action on the climate. By including strong labor standards in incentives for clean energy and energy efficiency work, the IRA will help build a high-road green economy, creating good jobs and clear pathways into them.

Robert Collier,Sanderson Hull,Oluwafemi Sawyerr,Shenshen Li,Manohar Mogadali,Dan MullenandArne Olson

California Offshore Wind: Workforce Impacts and Grid Integration

Our study addresses two separate but complementary questions for California in the years and decades ahead: 1) what benefits would the emergence of a major offshore wind power sector create for California workers and communities, and what policies might optimize these impacts; and 2) would offshore wind power be a competitive source of renewable energy in comparison to other clean energy sources?

Doug Bloch

Freight drivers deserve better than a race to the bottom

Third in the Guest Blogger Series: Voices of Labor and Allies from Labor in the Climate Transition Conference. “Freight and delivery companies are finding ways to pass on the responsibility of cleaning up fleets to individual drivers, while minimizing their own investments. This is what corporations do when we don’t have policies that protect workers or incentivize companies to do the right thing.”