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There are 49 local, city and county workforce investment boards operating under the California Workforce Investment Board. All are part of a national system for workforce development funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, and many are looking into green jobs training. If a company needs its workers retrained or a newly trained workforce, a local WIB will help set up a training program and will often pay for it as well. WIBs operate through one-stop training centers, community colleges, Regional Occupational Programs (ROPs), unions and other training venues, and soon they will receive a huge influx of federal stimulus funds.

While the exact amounts of money targeted specifically to green workforce training through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for California are not yet clear, the total amount coming to the state under the overall category of “Labor” is almost $8.5 billion. This category includes things like creating summer employment opportunities for youth, training for dislocated workers, Job Corps centers and many other categories of worker training and retraining. Much of the funding for these projects will flow through local WIBs.

According to Barry Sedlik, chair of the newly-formed Green Collar Jobs Council, which operates under the California Workforce Investment Board, “we don’t have exact numbers yet of exactly who will be getting what ARRA money. We do know that it’s going directly, by formula, through the Workforce Investment Act directly to all the local workforce investment boards. I suspect we’re talking about hundreds of millions going directly for green workforce training. I can say that staff is working feverishly right now to answer this question.” The Green Collar Jobs Council acts as a clearing house, with responsibility to identify prospective providers of training.

The Green Imperative

Green workforce development is at the top of the list of priorities for cities throughout the US. According to the Green Cities report from Living Cities, four in five big cities state that sustainability is among their top five priorities. Nearly all of them want to attract green collar jobs and industries. One in three have partnered with area colleges and created green-focused training programs, and one in six have programs that place trainees in green jobs.

The green jobs focus was apparent at the recent spring conference of the California Workforce Association, a professional association that represents the 49 Workforce Investment Boards, over 200 one-stop career centers and other workforce development partners in California. One-quarter of the workshops and sessions were devoted in part or totally to green workforce issues. For example, the description for the session, “Understanding the Future Needs of the U.S. Welding Industry,” reads in part: “It appears that a significant number of new jobs will be created related to infrastructure and energy independence. How do we help prepare the workforce in our communities to tie into these new opportunities”? Other titles include: “The LA Infrastructure and Sustainable Jobs Collaborative,” “Green Jobs Now: The Green Jobs Pathway through the California Conservation Corps Network,” “Green Businesses-Green Jobs,” and “Green Workforce Development.”

With plenty of funding soon to be available, the educational community will have resources to create programs to train and retrain people for green jobs, but the question is how they can best be utilized. Keeping the cash from burrowing into academic and other sinkholes is a top priority for everyone involved. In the CWA session, “Defining Workforce Needs for WIBs and Community Colleges,” Robert Visdos, president of Workforce Institute, Inc., and attorney John Chamberlin seemed to have a difficult time containing their excitement. They paced back and forth in front of the room delivering a barrage of information on green workforce issues. “Where will the workforce come from?” he asked the audience. “How do we coordinate it? We need strategies for workforce investment boards and community colleges to work with organized labor. And reporting on our progress begins on July 15. In all my cases I’ve never seen things move this fast.”

According to Visdos, community colleges will be training for things like electronic medical records, updating the electric grid. “The broadband provisions [stipulated in the budget for ARRA] are huge, expanding broadband into rural areas. Community colleges are forming non-profits with community organizations as hubs for broadband and they will be able to sell to providers.

“Three hundred billion dollars [an amount he estimates could be released through various channels for labor] is 700,000 pounds of dollar bills,” exclaimed Visdos. “How do you narrow your focus and plan for that?”

Spending Wisely

Much of the ARRA money is being pumped into local workforce investment boards. One such board is the South Bay Workforce Investment Board in Southern California. It is one of seven WIBs in Los Angeles County, and it serves a nine-city jurisdiction. WIB’s oversee one-stop career centers, or WorkSource centers, as they’re often referred to in Los Angeles County. They are usually co-located with California Employment Development Department offices, other operators of federally-funded job training programs, and offer a wide range of workforce services including business services and training for dislocated workers, low-income adults and disadvantaged youth.

Robert Mejia, SBWIB employment services manager, expects several million in ARRA funds for additional employment and training to come to the seven WIBs in Los Angeles County. The SBWIB contracts with and maintains a list of schools that are approved for referrals of job seekers whose training is paid for under the Workforce Investment Act. Over 160 public, private and nonprofit schools and training centers are under contract with SBWIB, collectively offering more than 1,000 separate training programs for WIA-eligible program participants.

Here’s the way a WIB works: If a company in its jurisdiction needs workers, the WIB and its One-Stop/WorkSource centers can assist with recruitment and screening, and is often able to pay for worker training costs both prior to and during the initial phases of employment. It can assist in the process of matching the company with an appropriate educational institution and developing training curricula according to the employers’ specifications. Most of the employer and job-seeker interface occurs at the One-Stop/WorkSource center. “We are often referred to as one of the best kept secrets in our communities,” says Mejia. “It is frequently the case that job-seekers and employers interact with our system and don't even know it.

“California Employment Development Department (EDD) workforce services staff are actually located in most one-stop centers around the county. They're kind of us and we're kind of them.” But, Mejia says, the secret is out. WIBs are becoming “very popular now and in demand. In our nine-city area alone, we've had 50,000 visits from job-seeking residents in the last nine to ten months.” This is not surprising, of course, with prevailing double-digit unemployment rates in Los Angeles County.

Community colleges also play a vital role in providing worker training in cooperation with WIBs and their One-Stop/WorkSource centers. “ I love to send people to community colleges for training whenever possible,” says Mejia. “I always know that they will get a quality education and that in some cases the instruction provided will yield academic credit that is recognized by employers and hopefully can lead to a transfer program for a four-year degree. Plus, in some cases the instruction is paid for out of a community college’s state apportionment, which makes it more affordable to the system, which enables us to serve a greater number of workers. There are definite strands of compatibility, and with all working together we can get a lot accomplished.”

Forming a Green Coalition

In February of 2008, Jan Vogel, Executive Director of SBWIB and Mejia were inspired to expand the scope of their WIB’s direction to embrace green jobs training. The source of their inspiration was Hilda Solis, who was a California Assemblywoman (now US Secretary of Labor) and author of the Green Jobs Act of 2007 (H.R. 2847).

“This looked like a new area of workforce development that we needed to learn more about,” Mejia recalls. “The vision embodied in the Green Jobs Act authored by Hilda Solis was very compelling. I wanted to work in this area and learn more about it. If this is something that can address climate change, global warming, I'm fully onboard. I think I've always had a latent concern and a propensity to want to do something about it, but not quite knowing how.”

Thus was born California’s Green Workforce Coalition. Under the direction of Vogel, Mejia set up meetings with WIB, EDD and community college partners and the responses were gratifying. The meetings were well attended, and at subsequent ones just about every community college in the county was participating. “We all wanted to be a part, to learn more, to find out what this thing called green jobs is all about,” says Mejia. The Coalition now has 86 members from the public, non-profit and educational sectors and an “industry intelligence group.” There are also 38 other organizations that have attended their regular meetings since early 2008. They include a wide variety of workforce and education stakeholders in the region.

“The notion was that membership should be open to anybody in the state of California who has an interest in developing a green economy and a green workforce,” he continues. “We feel we need to help the California economy transform from a more fossil fuel-based economy to a more green, or sustainable, economy to battle climate change. One out of every ten U.S. residents lives and works in California; so if California can transform its economy, the state can provide leadership to the rest of the country, and the U.S., in turn, will be better able to provide leadership to the rest of the world in making that transformation. The greater L.A. area being a catalyst in that regard. We felt that we could make a real significant impact. I think we already have to some degree.”

The $60 Million Question: What is a Green Job?

A Green Workforce: Two or more engaged in the useful and environmentally sustainable transformation of space, energy, materials, effort, information, ideas, or knowledge, resulting in value.
– Green Workforce Definition by Robert Mejia

The Coalition’s mandate has been to define what green jobs are. What makes a job green and sustainable? Where are the job opportunities? Who's actually providing the training? Who are the employers that are hiring, or could hire, green workers? The task is an onerous one. In an article for federal workforce investment practitioners and policymakers, “What’s Old is New: Green Jobs & What America’s Federal Workforce Investment System Can Do Now to Develop a Green Workforce,” Mejia embarks on an in-depth exploration of green jobs, including attempts to define what they are. The article offers recommendations for what federal, state, and local workforce investment agencies can do to begin formulating systems for green workforce development in the U.S.

It also suggests creation of a Green Employer Certification system. This idea stems from the South Bay WIB’s One-Stop Quality Certification System, which prescribes increasing levels of quality attainment based on a 700 point rating scale. Mejia says in the article: “The rating scale has three tiers--Tier I, Tier II and Tier III. In this tiered system applicants for certification are recognized and rewarded for their initiative in developing and implementing quality systems and practices while receiving support from the WIB in their progress toward higher levels of quality achievement.”

The South Bay WIB is currently populating a Directory of Occupational Education for Sustainability. For placement on the directory, new and existing SBWIB contractors provide qualitative information about programs they are proposing for green job training. They must describe how the program will result in sustainability outcomes. A panel of experts reviews applications from schools, and if satisfactory their programs are placed on the directory. “If they want their program Emerald Rated,” Mejia explains, “they will have to also give quantitative information that can be verified.” This information will indicate in percentage terms the sustainability outcomes that can be achieved.

For example, if the school wants a rating for xeriscaping (environmentally sustainable landscaping that uses native vegetation), the school would need to indicate how much water can be avoided on a weekly, per project, monthly or yearly basis. The minimum threshold is 15 percent. In this example, if they train someone, the techniques they teach would need to result in reduced water use of at least 15 percent.

As it relates to ARRA funding, if the school or educational provider is already a WIB contractor listed on I-TRAIN, (SBWIB’s regional list of approved training and education contractors), and it is also listed on SBWIB’s new Directory of Occupational Education for Sustainability, it will be an indication to other WIBS that it is an approved source of training for green jobs and thus in line for ARRA funding.

The key benefit of workforce investment boards, says Green Collar Jobs Council’s Barry Sedlik, is that in conjunction with businesses, they can identify their specific needs and then match those needs with a provider that can do the training. “It’s a unique circumstance right now, where WIBs can really help fine tune the green training needs with the providers.
“They are the ones charged with understanding, at the local level, what’s going on with the employer base. They’re trying to find how to do this match. It’s a great thing. They are all geared to how they can use their available resources to help their local economies. That’s a great role in this evolving area.”