Bringing good jobs to coal country

The coal country of the US has always been the victim of persistent poverty and traumatic job losses. This has driven workers in the region to value the few high-paid coal utility and mining jobs and fearfully anticipate the possibility of high downward mobility.

The federal climate infrastructure investments have paved the way for residents to move on to a diversified clean economy ripe with opportunities for middle-class jobs for almost everyone. The Appalachian Climate Technology Coalition (ACT Now) in southern West Virginia talks about the ability of clean industries to create more than 6,000 good jobs. The Biden Administration Build Back Better Regional Challenge award is helping with $62.8 million for this.

ACT Now believes in 10 converging ‘opportunity industries’ which include sustainable manufacturing, electric vehicle transportation, renewable energy, energy efficiency, reforestation, reclamation, and regenerative agriculture. These sectors will capitalize on the natural and repurposed fossil fuel assets of the region as well as its energy export grid and transportation infrastructure, trade skills, and work ethic.

With the partnership of unions of miners, carpenters, electricians, and utility workers, these new jobs will be good, union jobs. ACT Now project complies with federal wage and benefit standards, incorporates local hire provisions, and requires unions to incorporate racial equity in recruitment and hiring. With the aid of a six-week program of well-paid work and classroom training and the chance to enter union pre-apprenticeship and then apprenticeship, low-income workers can access jobs in ACT Now projects.

This is only the beginning of cola country employees gaining the access to better jobs. Some features of the ACT Now initiative that needs to be incorporated in all publicly funded, government-regulated projects to build better jobs are:

• Strong labor standards to ensure better pay and a higher number of union jobs
• An approach that allows workers to train and transfer to their union job where they prefer to live
• A focus on diversity and inclusion for better opportunities for everyone