Green Hope or Green Hype? — Ashley Hufnagel

image: 

Franklin Figaroa and Carlos Bámaca [not their real names] are part of a new frontier, the “green economy.” They are among the “green collar” workers Americans have been hearing so much about, but they hardly feel special.

Franklin and Carlos work in a recycling plant in Dundalk. They spend five days a week working on an assembly line, picking non-recyclables from the “mix” before it heads to the compacter. It might be “green,” but it is not so clean.

“Sometimes, half the stuff we get coming in with the paper is actually garbage,” Carlos explains. “There [are] only five of us, and a lot of times we can’t get all the garbage out.”

Franklin worries a lot about safety. “They don’t really give us any safety equipment, and there is a lot of noise,” he says. “If a chemical gets in our eyes, or we fall, it could cause long-term problems. Right now we are getting paid very little, but we could end up having to pay a lot of money in the future for the effects.”

Both men started at $7 an hour and are now making $8. But they are articulating an all-too-common reality for low-wage workers in the US: hard work, low-wages, and an uncertain future.

This is the new green poverty, and it’s not new at all. Poverty was on the rise long before “green” became a buzzword. Through globalization, the offshoring of manufacturing jobs in the US, and increasing automation, the nation has experienced tremendous job loss. A service-based economy and growth in temporary labor entered the picture as weak replacements.

This seemingly bleak landscape is ripe for hope and perfect for hype. The three frontrunning Democratic presidential candidates—Obama, Clinton, and Edwards—all called for “green jobs” as a way to restore jobs lost to offshoring, boost the economy, and fight global warming. In 2007, President Bush signed the Green Jobs Act authorizing $125 million to train workers for green collar jobs. Indeed, it seems like everyone is on the bandwagon.

The growing green economy is being described as a revolution on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. Whether hyperbole or an accurate prediction, this suggests Americans don’t have to change economic or social relations. We don’t have to make any systematic change, we can just throw on a fresh coat of green and “brighten” up the economy. We don’t have to change those same market systems that have created both poverty and global warming. It is not our values that must change, but our monetary investment, and the market will fix everything. What is ultimately appealing about this scenario is that it demands absolutely no change from the American people, especially as consumers. The problem is that a green economy along these lines will do little to create jobs worthy of dignity and will only encourage the continued growth of consumer society to the detriment of the environment.
Nevertheless, there are bright spots in this rather dire picture. In some cases, labor unions and environmentalists have joined forces, proving that their interests are not mutually exclusive. They thus strengthen the case of their demands. Perhaps the most well known of these partnerships is the Blue Green Alliance. The Blue Green Alliance is an initiative of the United Steelworkers Union, Sierra Club, and other environmental and labor groups. The alliance is currently operating in six states: Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin, with the intent to expand in 2008. The group focuses mostly on educating the public and pushing for investment in green jobs and clean energy technologies. But with only 12 percent of American workers in unions, the Blue Green Alliance is limited in its ability to articulate a broader vision for a new “green collar” workforce.

On the other hand, Green for All, a national organization based in Oakland, California, seeks to include marginalized and poor communities in the fight against global warming, through the development of green collar jobs. Green for All advocates for local, state, and federal commitments to job creation, job training, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the green economy. But they are adamant that “green collar” cannot simply be exciting rhetoric. The country is on the brink of economic transformation, and they recognize the need to define “green collar” in terms of jobs that pay family wages. According to Green for All, these new “green collar” jobs could employ low-wage workers, as well as many unemployed people, in jobs that pay living wages and that have opportunities for increasing skill levels, while improving the health of our planet. It believes this inclusive vision would benefit the rural and urban communities that our current economic model most adversely affects socially and environmentally. They focus on job creation and job training, because it is a way to both stimulate the green economy while ensuring the opportunities that come with this new economy benefit all.

Perhaps we are not in the midst of an economic revolution, but there will undoubtedly be opportunities in clean energy, sustainable farming, and green building. Americans are now engaged in a mainstream dialogue about this growing economy, and I am glad that groups like Green for All and alliances between labor and environmentalists are voices in this larger conversation.

It will only be those demanding a just green economy that will ensure that it doesn’t benefit only the few. That being said, I am wary about seeing the green economy as the “Great Green Hope,” because I don’t see it changing those social and economic relationships that create poverty and economic destruction in the first place. When I asked Franklin and Carlos what was most important to get across in this article, Carlos talked about a living wage for all workers everywhere, and Franklin said, “that they see us as human beings.”