Urban Agenda - Updates

Update — April 2010

Dear colleagues,

The past few months have been exciting as we continue to deepen our strategic partnership with New York Jobs with Justice. We are now settled into our new space and working to bring our programmatic areas more closely together.

This month’s update highlights some of the work being done to implement the Green Collar Jobs Roadmap recommendations that so many of you worked so hard to bring together. We look forward to continuing to make the Roadmap a reality so our city will be more sustainable, prosperous, and just.

We are also pleased to announce that Josh Kellermann has joined us as our new policy fellow. Josh has already been a huge asset and we are thrilled he has joined our team.

Happy Spring!

In Solidarity,

Joanne Derwin
Director

Urban Agenda Testifies in Support of New York City Councilmember Jessica Lappin’s Bill to Streamline Workforce Development

Councilmember Jessica Lappin introduced a bill to the City Council that would consolidate and coordinate New York City’s workforce development system. The bill would create a central office that would coordinate all the workforce development initiatives administered by city agencies. New York City spends over $900 million a year on workforce development.

Councilmember Lappin’s bill streamlines the existing workforce development system, resulting in a more efficient distribution of services and maximizing of resources. Urban Agenda testified in favor of the bill and pointed out that it embraces several recommendations presented in the Green Collar Jobs Roadmap. Specifically:

Promoting sustainability by coordinating state and city workforce development agencies
Engaging in cross-agency cooperation to develop an adult education curriculum
Expanding Human Resources Administration programs so they include green training and workforce development and catalogue certifications

Coordinating our workforce development system is the first step to implementing these recommendations. Urban Agenda’s coalition partners, NY Jobs with Justice, the Consortium for Worker’s Education, and the Osborne Association also provided testimony in favor of the bill.

Send us your Roadmap Implementation Stories!

Last fall, we released the Green Collar Jobs Roadmap, a culmination of a year-long process that looked at each aspect of the green economy and provided recommendations on how to ensure equitable economic growth. The Roadmap presents the idea that not only do we need market drivers to grow market demand and create jobs, but we also need these jobs to be good jobs that pay family sustaining wages, provide benefits and career pathways, and that are available to all New Yorkers, particularly those that have been historically excluded from economic activity.

The Roadmap was the product of an inclusive, multi-stakeholder process that engaged over 170 organizations. Now, as we move from Roadmap to reality, we see so many of our partners engaging in the hard work of implementing the Roadmap recommendations. We would love to highlight all your efforts, so please forward your Roadmap recommendation stories to josh [at] urbanagenda.org.

Comment by April 30th on the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s “Green Jobs” Definition

There is no widely accepted standard definition of “green jobs.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is developing and implementing the collection of new data on green jobs. The goal is to develop information on: (1) The number of and trend over time in green jobs, (2) the industrial, occupational, and geographic distribution of the jobs, and (3) the wages of the workers in these jobs. The resulting information will assist policymakers in planning policy initiatives and understanding their impact on the labor market, and will facilitate the monitoring of labor market developments related to protecting the environment and conserving natural resources. BLS is currently soliciting comments on the definition BLS will use in measuring green jobs. Written comments must be submitted on or before April 30, 2010. The official comment request can be found here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-5705.pdf.

SPOTLIGHT

Jameelah Muhammad, NY Jobs with Justice and ROOTs

NY JwJ and Urban Agenda have been in a strategic partnership since the beginning of 2010. Jameelah Muhammed, an organizer for NY JwJ, brings a diverse skill set and a passion for social and environmental justice that has provided a spark to JwJ’s organizing efforts. Prior to working for JwJ, Jameelah was a policy and research intern at Urban Agenda and has taken the lead on teaching the ROOTs curriculum, an environmental literacy course that introduces participants to the fundamentals of environmental science, urban planning, public health, and social justice perspectives. Jameelah has taught ROOTs for the New York City District Council of Carpenters Building Works Program and the Consortium for Worker’s Education.

“I really do believe that by teaching the ROOTS of Success Environmental Literacy Curriculum that we are not just educating and training students, but we are empowering them with a set of critical skills that will change the way they view and think about the world. We have the opportunity to go beyond traditional instruction and build a movement, deeply rooted in equality, justice, and sustainability.”

Resources

COWS produced a report titled “Green Skills: How Credential Create Value in the Clean Energy Economy,” which outlines key early steps toward a national credentialing system, describing the core array of certifications and skill standards for workers in clean energy sectors and providing a set of policy recommendations to help move this work in a more consistent direction. The purpose of the report, however, is larger: to suggest a more rational framework for human capital development in a greening economy, and to make the case for a national policy of portable, transparent, industry-specific credentials — and state-supported pathways up to them.
WE ACT for Environmental Justice, along with several other environmental justice organizations across the US, released a report called “Environmental Justice and the Green Economy: A Vision Statement and Case Studies for Just and Sustainable Solutions.” This report describes a shared vision for a just and sustainable economy, and highlights grassroots environmental justice successes that are leading the way.
Globe Foundation in Canada recently released “British Columbia's Green Economy: Building a Strong Low-Carbon Future,” a report that identifies the core green components of the British Columbian economy and the potential economic opportunities associated with building a low-carbon future.
The Canadian Labour Congress and the Council of Canadians just released a report titled “Green, Decent and Public,” which illuminates the role that the public sector should play in generating decent, green jobs.
Green Worker Cooperative released its “2009 Annual Report,” which highlights the cooperatively run ReBuilders Source and its success during this difficult economy, discusses the restructuring and expansion of the Co-Op Academy training program, and spotlights several other co-ops that are being developed in the Bronx.
The Economic Policy Institute has put out several relevant reports on long-term unemployment, under-employment, and how the economic recovery must ensure the creation of good jobs. Find these reports, and more, at www.epi.org.