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Solar panel installation at Bennett High School in Buffalo with workers in the PUSH Hiring Hall program (Credit: PUSH Buffalo) |
In addition to providing workforce development and training, state and local policymakers can cultivate partnerships with project developers to create local hiring requirements and incentives for employers and small businesses. These arrangements are often project-specific, and promulgated through project labor or community workforce agreements.
Project labor and community workforce agreements are binding legal documents that lay out the employment terms and conditions of a specific project or projects. Examples of these provisions include “agreements on targeted or local hiring, wages and benefits, health and safety training, and processes for communication and resolving conflicts among stakeholders.”See footnote 1 Generally, there are several parties involved in the creation of a project labor or community workforce agreements, which can include labor unions, contractors, developers, project owners, and a local government body, when applicable.See footnote 2
Essentially, local hiring requirements and/or project labor agreements require that employers on a project set aside several jobs for local and/or disadvantaged members of the community, or that they look to specific workforce agencies that help to staff these individuals for employees.See footnote 3 These legally binding partnerships are an innovative way to facilitate a resilient economy in frontline communities by ensuring job opportunities are available to residents that will be directly impacted by the project.
A successful hiring program centered around clean energy and resilience addresses the roles and responsibilities of contractors and subcontractors; has a centralized coordinator and job center for community members to use and apply to; provides some sort of apprenticeship or training program; and works with the private sector to find and manage projects appropriate for local residents’ skill sets.
Additionally, local governments may also need to establish MWBE contracting and subcontracting ordinances and regulatory schemes to avail themselves of certain grants issued by federal agencies. For example, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, federal funding was allocated for recovery efforts that were distributed by FEMA and HUD. FEMA issued guidance for local governments that included provisions for ‘socioeconomic contracts.’ This language required that state agencies take affirmative steps to assure that small, minority, women-owned businesses participated and submitted in the grant proposal process. Additionally, once funding was awarded, grantees were to take all “necessary affirmative steps to assure that minority firms, women’s business enterprises, and labor surplus area firms [were] used when possible.”See footnote 4 Similarly, some HUD statutory disaster recovery provisions require that recipients of specific funding must use best efforts to contract economically disadvantaged business owners residing in the project area to complete said project.See footnote 5 Local governments must be in compliance with these provisions to achieve minimum goals for contracting in order to receive federal funds.
The fewer people in a community that are unemployed — and the more that are employed in a resilient, clean energy job — the more likely it is that the community in question will (1) Be able to recover more quickly from a climate event; (2) Be able to withstand some shocks; and (3) Avoid the impacts of a climate event altogether.See footnote 6
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Endnotes:
1. Jamie Worker, et al., Good Jobs in a Clean Energy Economy through the Clean Power Plan, Center for Community Change (September 2017), View Source. | Back to contentBack to content
4. See 44 C.F.R. § 13.36. Back to contentBack to content
5. 12 U.S.C.A. 1701 U, § 3. Back to contentBack to content
6. Content, U.S. Economic Development Administration, View Source (last visited September 30, 2019) | Back to contentBack to content
7. Kim Slowey, The Dotted Line: How Contractors Can Navigate Local Hiring Requirements, Construction Dive (November 14, 2017), View Source. | Back to contentBack to content
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