The following blog is cross-posted from the Good Jobs, Green Jobs website.

Even months after Super Storm Sandy, power hadn’t been restored to all residents on the East Coast. That was one of the many events that brought a serious problem to light: Our infrastructure systems — the energy, water and communications networks we rely on and use every day — have not changed, in many ways, since they were originally designed, and they are not able to keep up with the demands of 21st century living. This was the discussion of the second plenary panel during the 2013 Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference on Tuesday, April 16.

As Mike Langford, National President of the Utility Workers Union of America, explained, “Our infrastructure is at the end of its life. That is why our national infrastructure earned a grade of D+… Don’t we deserve an A+ water and energy system?”

Nancy Stoner, Acting Assistant Administrator for Water at the Environmental Protection Agency added, “The good news is that investing in our water infrastructure creates jobs. We owe it to future generations to ensure they have safe drinking water like we have had.”

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke about the importance of using pension funds to fund training programs to support training programs for workers. “We know that if we invest pension funds into infrastructure projects in a prudent, fiducially-sound way, retrofit and upgrade buildings to make them energy efficient, and create those type of jobs and training to allow current workers to upgrade their skills and create a new skill base for new workers, that is a win-win-win.”

Representative Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader of the Georgia House, shared the story of the Atlanta Green Beltway as an example of what can happen when infrastructure projects are done right. This project is re-using 22-miles of historic railroad corridors to connect 45 neighborhoods and provide a network of public parks, multi-use trails and transit.

Eric Rodriguez, Vice President of Public Policy for the National Council of La Raza, spoke about the importance of building relationships and non-traditional partnerships in order to get these types of investments done. “We spend a lot of time talking to ourselves. Building relationships and agenda setting collaboratively takes time and energy, so it is easier to talk to ourselves. Building deeper, collaborative and authentic relationships on the local and national level is what is needed to win.”

Langford pushed conference attendees to be talk about the importance of investing in our nation’s infrastructure to those in their home communities. “Every person needs to be an ambassador for how these types of projects need to happen in their own communities. We need community involvement and education so we can get the investments that are good for workers and good for communities.”

Commuting to work, traveling on vacation, waiting for a flight at your local airport or for a package to arrive in the mail, our nation’s transportation infrastructure has a tremendous impact on everything we do. Good transportation infrastructure makes everything move along more smoothly and bad infrastructure causes costly congestion and delays. 

Too frequently, yesterday’s transportation policy guides today’s roads and transit investments, which has proven problematic. The importance of our transportation infrastructure to both job creation and the environment cannot be understated, which is why tomorrow, the BlueGreen Alliance in partnership with the White House Office of Public Engagement and the U.S. Department of Transportation, will convene the White House Forum on Creating Jobs and Building Better Communities through Transit Investment. 

The BlueGreen Alliance’s Executive Director David Foster and Ray LaHood, Secretary of the US Department of Transportation will convene a panel of speakers which will feature Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Administrator Peter Rogoff, FTA Deputy Administrator for management and Budget Sylvia Garcia, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership Technology & Supplier Scouting Program Manager Carroll Thomas Martin, and Marcy Lowe from Duke University’s Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness. 

Following the panel, BlueGreen Alliance partners Amalgamated Transit Union International President Larry Hanley, SMART Assistant to the General President Marc Norberg, United Steelworkers (USW) International President Leo Gerard, Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Peter Lehner, and representatives from the AFL-CIO will convene industry and citizens groups to identify short and long terms solutions to advance transit and rail investment.  

Public transportation not only helps to maintain and create jobs, it also moves workers to and from their jobs while saving fuel and money. Businesses located near public transportation experience more employee reliability and less absenteeism and turnover. Employers have a larger labor pool from which to choose, and employees are happier because they are not stuck in traffic. 

Every $10 million invested in public transportation results in a $30 million gain in sales for local businesses due to increased foot traffic and decreased congestion on roadways. 

Exploring the obstacles we face every day is crucial to driving transportation policies that will shape the future of our manufacturing, construction, procurement, and planning policies of the future. 

Although the President recently signing a two-year surface transportation bill (MAP-21) into law on July 6, 2012, it’s necessary to keep preparing for the next surface transportation authorization. We must continue to look ahead and prioritize investments that will create jobs, improve efficiency and protect the environment. 

Madison College in Wisconsin offers a Certificate in Renewable Energy Technology which prepares students for careers in energy management and renewable energy technology.

Chris Folk, an Industrial Maintenance Instructor and AFT Local 243 member, recently gave the BlueGreen Alliance a tour of several of the renewable energy projects students have worked on including a solar-powered transit center and two wind turbines.

Paul Morschauser, Senior Diesel Tech Instructor and AFT Local 243 member, discusses the Madison Area Technical College Diesel & Heavy Equipment Technician program along with MATC's biodiesel instruction.

This blog is cross-posted from the American Federation of Teachers. If you missed it, you can also read what Michael Williams, Senior Policy and Legislative Advocate for the BlueGreen Alliance, had to say about the Green Schools National Conference in his earlier blog.

The Lorax isn't the only one speaking for the trees. AFT members from California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and Texas, as well as our union allies from  the AFL-CIO and the BlueGreen Alliance, attended and presented workshops at the second annual green schools national conference Feb. 27-29 in Denver.

Members from the United Federation of Teachers in New York City and the Douglas County Federation in Colorado gave presentations about their school programs, covering the gamut of environmental initiatives, starting with recycling and progressing to vertical vegetable gardening and wind power. In each case, school employees initiated the programs, which became wildly popular among students and the community.

Ritz has bumped up attendance from 40 to 93 percent, helped create 2,200 youth jobs and won an award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. His speech at Columbia University, "From Crack to Cucumbers," along with several videos, including a TED talk in January , have drawn a national following, including an invitation to the White House.

Another UFT member, special education teacher Mitch Porcelan from Brooklyn, gave a presentation about his efforts to reconnect students to the natural environment and create meaningful learning experiences. His students, who spend time gardening and studying outdoors, have improved their performance significantly on standardized tests.

Members of the PeaceJam Club from Ponderosa High School in Douglas County, Colo., presented a session on their extraordinary environmental efforts addressing recycling, e-cycling, energy management and renewable energy. The PeaceJam Club, sponsored by school secretary and AFT member Debbie Ruiz, is part of an international education program that brings together students and Nobel Peace Prize laureates. As the students explain it, most wars are fought over natural resources, so their club aims to prevent war by protecting natural resources.

Ponderosa building engineer Carey Kalisch, also an AFT member, has spearheaded room-by-room HVAC scheduling using digital controls, and energy savings by cutting down on the number and type of lights. But it's not all on him. One student explained that it's "really important to be polite to teachers" when requesting fewer overhead lights in a classroom. Teachers will be persuaded, he said, when they see that the result is calmer kids and fewer headaches.

Beyond energy savings, Ponderosa PeaceJammers students also have mounted an enormous recycling program, reversing their school's ratio of garbage to recycling. Ponderosa now recycles 81 percent of its trash stream. The kids have helped organize several electronics recycling events that have seen nearly 500,000 pounds of electronics collected to be recycled responsibly. The PeaceJam Club won a $10,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind for Schools Program to install a wind turbine, and Ruiz wants to build an outdoor classroom nearby.

"These kids get it," says Ruiz. "They’re not interested in the usual teenage things or consumed by the usual teenage angst. They realize the world is a bigger place and they have a responsibility to make it a better place."

Among other AFT delegations at the conference, members of the Denver Federation for Paraprofessionals and Nutrition Service Employees took away some useful lessons from organic food vendors, said local president Bernie Jiron. The most useful was learning about the advantages of gluten-free food in preventing asthma and allergy attacks, particularly in children with disabilities.

And educators attending a session by David Sobel of Antioch University learned that teachers may be frightening little children inadvertently with stories about how humans are wrecking the earth—without saying what kids can do to help. Sobel urged educators to train students as environmental stewards, beginning with getting kindergartners outside to play in the natural environment.

New York State United Teachers leaders from Rochester helped run the AFT booth, distributing information about healthy school buildings, indoor air quality and green jobs, as well as featuring models of green walls by the Bronx Green Machine.

At the general session, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan drew applause by calling for environmental literacy in the upcoming ESEA reauthorization. U.S. Department of Agriculture official Janey Thornton spoke about the federal government's healthy food initiatives for schools. And community activist Majora Carter wowed the crowd with a presentation about the greening of her rundown neighborhood in New York City.

The BlueGreen Alliance is a coalition of labor unions, including the AFT, the Steelworkers, the United Auto Workers and others, and environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Other allies at the conference included the National Wildlife Federation's Eco-Schools USA program, the Collaborative for High Performance Schools and the Center for Green Schools , which is preparing for its Green Apple Day of Service on Sept. 29. [Annette Licitra]

March 6, 2012 from the American Federation of Teachers

The following post is from David Hecker, the President of the American Federation of Teachers in Michigan.

A few weeks ago, before a joint session of Congress, President Obama outlined the American Jobs Act and said, “…there are schools throughout this country that desperately need renovating. How can we expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart? This is America. Every child deserves a great school — and we can give it to them, if we act now.”

We couldn’t agree more. Across this state, children in Michigan experience what children all around this country experience every day: schools that desperately needrenovation and modernization. Meanwhile, more than 10 percent of Michiganders are unemployed. There is a way we can address both jobs and the inadequate condition of many of our schools. We can modernize them and make them more energy efficient, providing safer, healthier places for our children to learn.

The average American school is over 40 years old, and nearly a quarter of them require extensiverepair just to meet basic health and safety standards. Across the nation, 15,000 schools have air that had been deemed unfit to breathe, according to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). These are the rooms that our kids sit in for hours every day during the school year, working to learn the skills andknowledge that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

In his jobs bill, President Obama is proposing $25 billion to modernize America’s schools. Here in Michigan, that could mean about $926 million of improvements to ourschools, making them more energy efficient and creating good construction, design, maintenance and other jobs in the process. That’s thousands of people being put to work making our schools healthy and safe.

Modernizing our schools will also save taxpayers in the long run. Modern, green schools use 33 percent less energy and 32 percent less water than older schools. Needless to say, that significantly reduces utility costs. On average, energy-efficient, green schools save $100,000 per year on operating costs — enough to hire at least one new teacher, buy 200 new computers, or purchase 5,000 textbooks. If every new U.S. school construction and renovation utilized these greener, modern construction methods today, the total energy savings alone would be $20 billion over the next 10 years.

To create a brighter future for our children, we need to provide them with the best possible education we can. That means investing in our workforce, not cutting the state’s education funding by $1 billion. That means attracting new teachers and working to keep our current teachers in the profession, not denying teachers a voice on the job. And that means ensuring that our children attend 21^st century schools that provide a safe and healthy learning environment.

Leaders in Lansing should focus on closing our state’s unemployment gap and passing policies to modernize and renovate our schools, not on squeezing the teachers who educate Michigan’s kids. It’s time to make a positive step forward for Michigan’s children, educators and communities.

The American Jobs Act and the nationwide effort to renovate and modernize our schools will provide cleaner, safer and healthier learning environments for our children and educators here in Michigan. What’s more, it will create sorely needed jobs that can change Michigan’s economy for the long-run.

We have great students, and we have skilled workers ready to upgrade schools across the state. Now we just need the political will in Lansing and Washington to make it happen.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten posted the following blog on DailyKOS outlining the BlueGreen Alliance Principles on Green Schools and Environmental Education. You can view the original post here.

Today’s students will inherit the awesome task of competing in a global economy while dealing with resource and energy shortages and creating solutions for climate change.

It is the responsibility of the nation’s public schools to prepare our children well and give them the strong civic and academic foundation, as well as the occupational skills and environmental literacy, they will need. To succeed despite the current budgetary woes, we must invest, not disinvest, in a well-rounded, well-supported education and in school buildings that are healthy, high-performing, sustainable, well-lit, well-ventilated and safe.

Aside from providing a huge health benefit to students and staff, constructing, renovating and maintaining sustainable school buildings are key components to an overall plan to create “green collar” jobs that will put Americans to work and give our economy a sorely needed boost.

As we start a new school year, the BlueGreen Alliance today released its “Policy on Green Schools and Environmental Education” to provide a blueprint for Congress as it works to make education a priority through reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This set of policy principles focuses on the short- and long-term benefits that can be achieved by greening our school facilities and educating our kids about their environment.

The labor and environmental groups that make up the BlueGreen Alliance believe that building truly green schools involves more than renovating and updating school facilities. We must stop narrowing the curriculum to simply those subjects tested by standardized tests, and instead renovate it to ensure that students are taught an appreciation for the environment, along with the knowledge and skills they will need as part of the 21st-century workforce.

The green approach is working in places like award-winning West Philadelphia High School’s Automotive Academy, where students apply their math and science lessons to build solar-powered cars from the ground up, and the Rosa Parks School in Portland, Ore., a LEED Gold-certified green school, where the improved air quality has resulted in better attendance and fewer sick days for staff and students.

The policies that will help achieve this broad vision of green schools include:

Green and Healthy School Facilities. Not only are green school buildings the best learning environments, they are a great long-term financial investment. On average, green school facilities save $100,000 a year in maintenance costs—enough to hire two new teachers, buy 200 more computers or purchase 5,000 textbooks.

• The administration and Congress should support the Green Ribbon Schools program proposed by the Department of Education to set a high benchmark for school greening.
• Congress should provide grants to state and local education agencies to renovate schools to enhance energy efficiency, remove toxic chemicals and improve indoor air quality.
• The administration and Congress should provide grants for modernization and construction of school facilities designated to receive Impact Aid funding—aid for school districts that include federal lands in their boundaries that aren’t part of the tax rolls—prioritizing projects that enhance efficiency, air quality and water conservation, and use sustainable building materials.
• The administration and Congress should provide financial support for school building construction or renovation to schools on or near American Indian reservations and Indian land trusts.

Environmental Education as Part of a Rich Curriculum. Fiscal crises in the states and an emphasis on standardized test scores have led many schools and districts to jettison subjects such as music, art and outdoor education. To be globally competitive, our children must be exposed to a broad and rich curriculum that:

• Incorporates a strong STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program with a good environmental focus.
• Educates kids about the consequences of climate change, how we can adapt, and what action we can take to mitigate it.
• Encourages participation in outdoor learning programs. A study by the California Department of Education shows that participation in outdoor experiential learning leads to significant improvements in science test scores and classroom behavior.
• Teaches the concept of sustainability in terms of our environmental, economic and occupational health goals grounded in the principles of social justice.

Mutual Responsibility for Ensuring Our Students’ Success. Accountability is a word often used today, but responsibility for what happens in our public schools must extend to parents, principals, administrators and communities—in addition, of course, to teachers and students. All of us have a role to play in ensuring that students and staff work and learn in a healthy environment; that staff are qualified and are provided a rich curriculum, adequate resources and time to teach; and that measuring the effectiveness of the delivery of education take into account all the factors that affect student achievement.

Further, the report suggests schools should provide more opportunities to explore the vocational and technical careers that will address the need for “green collar” workers in the 21st century.

Jobs21!, coordinated by the BlueGreen Alliance, is a national grass-roots campaign for good jobs in the 21st-century economy. By having our children attend green schools—preparing them with occupational skills and environmental education, in a safe and healthy school environment—we are preparing the next generation to be competitive in a cleaner, more efficient global economy.

Randi Weingarten is the president of the 1.5 million-member American Federation of Teachers, committed to improving schools, hospitals and public institutions for children, families and communities.

The following is a statement from BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster on the merger of the BlueGreen Alliance and the Apollo Alliance.

Earlier today, the BlueGreen Alliance and the Apollo Alliance announced that the two organizations will merge to build a stronger, more effective movement for creating clean energy jobs while also addressing the climate crisis and breaking our dependence on foreign oil.

The combined organization will continue to be known as the BlueGreen Alliance and co-Chaired by USW International President Leo W. Gerard and Sierra Club Chair Carl Pope.  I will continue as Executive Director.

The announcement was made at a special press conference call where we were joined by Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, who used the occasion to announce the introduction of the Strengthening Manufacturing and Rebuilding Transit (SMART) Act, which would invest in American-made transportation infrastructure.

In 2006, the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club formed the BlueGreen Alliance in an effort to dispel the idea that environmental protection and job creation were opposing values. From the start, we have maintained that the world economy can no longer operate on a false choice between good jobs and a clean environment. The climate crisis underscored this new reality; the choice is now both or neither.

Yet, nearly three years into a profound economic crisis, we are still facing an unemployment problem of historic proportions. And after working hard together to pass a comprehensive climate change bill last year, we are seeing daily the effects of inaction on climate change with escalating environmental and economic impacts across the country and around the world.

At the same time, the U.S. is falling behind in the race for a clean energy economy while China and Europe make unprecedented investments in the transition to renewable energy. The U.S. cannot afford to sit on the sidelines as the rest of the world takes advantage of the most significant job creating opportunity in a generation.

That is why I believe that the decision to combine the BlueGreen Alliance and the Apollo Alliance is one of many important steps that all of us need to take to forge a stronger movement to demand the transition to a clean energy economy. With 24 million Americans currently unemployed or underemployed and Congress paralyzed from taking action on climate change, our country’s economic and environmental challenges are inextricably linked and demand a common solution.

Launched in 2006 by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club, the BlueGreen Alliance today includes the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, United Auto Workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Our partner organizations unite more than 14 million members.

Earlier this year, the BlueGreen Alliance launched Jobs21! — a nine-state, grassroots campaign calling for a national jobs plan to create seven million jobs putting America to work building the clean energy industries of the 21^st century here in the United States. And the Apollo Alliance recently launched the Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) project, which offers a national jobs plan within the transportation sector. It calls for federal investment that will create 3.7 million direct and indirect jobs — including 600,000 in manufacturing — over six years and will save Americans up to $5,000 per family each year in commuting costs. Together these initiatives form the basis of a movement to combine the solutions to unemployment and climate change.

But building a movement that can lead to a new direction in Washington, D.C. will not come easily, nor can it rely on sticking to old orthodoxies. We simply must be willing to build new partnerships and take risks on new organizational structures. The BGA-Apollo merger is done in that spirit.

Together, we will make the 21^st century American clean economy a reality.

Joining Forces…

Today marks the beginning of a very exciting new endeavor. With 24 million Americans still out of work or unable to find full-time work, the BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance announced a merger to strengthen and unify the movement to build a 21^st century clean energy economy to fuel U.S. job creation. The newly unified organization will call on Washington to focus anew on creating good jobs, securing America’s energy future and preserving the environment for future generations. We now represent the strongest, most unified voice for a clean energy, good jobs, made in America economy.

Beginning July 1, the two organizations will combine to become the BlueGreen Alliance which will be home to the Apollo Alliance project. Together, the BlueGreen Alliance and the Apollo Alliance project will engage with labor, environmental, business and community leaders across the country to advance a bold vision of how we can transform our energy future and, at the same time, create good jobs and rebuild our economy.

The announcement was made on a press conference call with Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers, Co-Chair of the BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance board member, Phil Angelides, Chairman of the Apollo Alliance, Carl Pope, Chairman of the Sierra Club, Co-Chair of the BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance board member, and David Foster, Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance.

They were joined on the call by Senator Brown (D-OH) who announced new legislation — the Strengthening Manufacturing and Rebuilding Transit (SMART) Act — that would invest in American-made transportation infrastructure. The legislation is aimed at enhancing domestic transportation supply chains while maximizing job creation in manufacturing. Supporting the SMART Act was the first step the newly unified organization took together to create good, green jobs in the 21^st Century economy.

“Nearly three years after the bottom fell out of our economy, we are still facing a jobs crisis of historic proportions,” said Leo W. Gerard. “We can’t afford to sit on the sidelines while the U.S. misses the boat on the industries of the 21^st century — the biggest job-creating opportunity in a generation. That is why the BlueGreen Alliance and the Apollo Alliance are joining together today — to build a stronger movement to create good jobs that protect the environment for the next generation.”

“Today, with this collaboration and our support for Senator Brown’s SMART Act, we are sending a powerful message that our highest priority must be to build an economy of good jobs and broadly shared prosperity in place of the financial speculation and recklessness that brought our economy to its knees,” said Phil Angelides. “Together, we are committed to building a new green economy for America's future that will meet the convergent threats of climate change, dependence on foreign oil, and unacceptable joblessness.”

“We are thrilled that two great organizations will become one effort to build a stronger, renewed movement to create the good jobs of the 21^st century economy — the jobs that will help us to move to a clean, renewable energy economy, reduce pollution and break our country’s dependence on foreign oil,” said Carl Pope. “Protecting the planet and building a stronger, more prosperous economy for everyone are inextricably linked, and today, this movement becomes that much stronger.”

Our work ahead…

The invigorated organization will keep a keen focus on job creation. Earlier this year, the BlueGreen Alliance launched Jobs21! — a nine-state grassroots campaign calling for a national jobs plan to put America back to work building the industries of the 21^st century here in the United States. The initiative calls for investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency, transportation infrastructure and fuel-efficient vehicles, a smarter electrical grid, broadband Internet, recycling and green chemistry — industries that will create new jobs and markets in manufacturing, construction, education and many other sectors.

This initiative will be strengthened through coordination with the Apollo Alliance’s strong network of state and local affiliates — now dubbed BlueGreen Apollo Alliances — and by Apollo’s recently-launched Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) project that calls for federal investment in clean transportation that will create 3.7 million direct and indirect jobs over six years and will save Americans up to $5,000 per family each year in commuting costs.

Add your voice to the movement…

Please take a moment to add your voice to growing number of people who are calling for a national jobs plan to build a 21^st century economy today at www.bluegreenalliance.org/jobs21.

The BlueGreen Alliance is a national partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations working to expand the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. Launched in 2006 by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club, the BlueGreen Alliance now unites 10 U.S. labor unions and four of America’s most influential environmental organizations — and their 14 million members and supporters — in pursuit of good jobs, a clean environment and a 21^st century economy.

The Apollo Alliance is a national coalition of environmental, labor, business and community leaders committed to building a clean energy, good jobs economy. Launched in 2003, Apollo’s diverse coalition has offered a bold vision to catalyze a clean energy economy to spur job growth by harkening back to President Kennedy’s visionary call to restore America’s technological leadership by landing the first man on the moon within the decade of the 1960’s.

This post originally appeared in the AFL-CIO blog. Richard Iannuzzi is the Vice President of the American Federation of Teachers and a member of the Blue Green Alliance delegation in Copenhagen.

AFT Vice President Dick Iannuzzi writes about the importance of a just transition to a green economy. Iannuzzi is attending climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The importance of a “just transition” to a clean energy economy has been evident in labor’s approach to every aspect of participation in the climate change talks. In an attempt to influence the kind of global climate agreement that would meaningfully address global warming, we have emphasized making aggressive investments in energy intensive industries to modernize and develop capacity for new technologies. A just transition speaks to training and retaining workers, education and assistance for workers negatively impacted by climate policies. It also requires support for the research and development needed to address climate change in ways that can enhance the economy.

A meeting of the U.S. labor delegation with Energy Secretary Steven Chu returned over and over to these points. Representatives from Utility Workers (UWUA), AFT, United Steelworkers (USW), Communications Workers of America (CWA), SEIU, Laborers and other unions all demonstrated their support for the Obama administration’s overall energy/climate plan. Yet they stressed the value their industries are capable of adding to the agenda and the importance of a just transition.

Chu was pressed on resources for higher education—especially community colleges—to provide the support to educate and train (or retrain) employees for new and green technologies. He was reminded that these jobs in education are also part of the green jobs picture.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack addressed delegates on the impact of climate change in rural communities, especially on farmers, dairy farmers in particular. Noting that farmers create half as much carbon dioxide as they did in the 1970s, Vilsack outlined new industries that will further reduce carbon emissions going forward. He stressed the direct link between climate change and agriculture, and providing food for a growing population’s food supply nationally and internationally.

Again, the discussion needs to weigh the impact on local communities, industries that currently meet farmers’ needs and the workers in those industries. AFT members emphasized that empowering these rural agricultural businesses creates strong local communities to support local public schools. Again, much education and training will be required, if a just transition is to be achieved.

These talks are about climate change and how to achieve meaningful agreements. For U.S. labor, it means going back home to achieve the necessary legislation. That legislation—if created properly—can be good for the planet, good for its inhabitants and good for workers provided that there’s a just transition.

This post originally appeared on the AFL-CIO blog.

This morning, Blue Green Alliance Executive Director David Foster, along with leaders from the environmental and labor partners of this unique labor-environmental partnership, held a media briefing during the COP 15 meetings in Copenhagen to discuss how U.S. climate legislation will boost our economy and create millions of good, green jobs across the United States.

Speakers included Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, Utility Workers Union of America President Mike Langford, Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke, American Federation of Teachers Vice President Richard Iannuzzi, and Amalgamated Transit Union Executive Vice President Ron Heintzman.