"Carpenters, who will be needed to make buildings more energy efficient, for example, earn an average of $20 per hour in Minnesota. Electricians, needed for expanding mass transit systems, earn an average of $27, while machinists who make wind-power components earn an average of almost $19 an hour."
Minnesota looks to add more green jobs
Patrick Springer, The Forum
Published Wednesday, June 04, 2008
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The transition to an economy weaning itself from carbon offers the promise of adding well-paying green jobs in Minnesota in fields as diverse as electrical engineering and sheet-metal work, environmental and labor advocates said Tuesday.
In Minnesota, 252,000 jobs already exist in sectors that would be part of an expanding green economy including wind, cellulosic biofuels, mass transit and building retrofitting as energy substitutes for fossil fuels are adopted, Minnesota members of the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of environmental and labor groups told reporters.
This is the answer to providing good-paying jobs and combating global warming, said Stacy Boots, a green jobs organizer for the Sierra Club in Minnesota.
Diane OBrien, communications director for the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said green jobs represented by her organization include fields as diverse as electrical workers, construction workers and sheet-metal workers.
The potential for growing those sectors is clear I think, she said in a telephone news conference. In Minnesota, she said, there are three unemployed people for every job opening. These are good jobs that can develop as we transition our economy.
Carpenters, who will be needed to make buildings more energy efficient, for example, earn an average of $20 per hour in Minnesota. Electricians, needed for expanding mass transit systems, earn an average of $27, while machinists who make wind-power components earn an average of almost $19 an hour.
Those figures, based on government data, were compiled in a report by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst for the Blue Green Alliance.
Ron Johnson, trade development director for the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, said dock workers often are busy loading exported wind-turbine blades made by LM Glasfiber in Grand Forks, N.D., and wind-turbine towers made by DMI Industries in West Fargo.
Thats significant, he said, because the containers now used to move most goods require little labor at docks and warehouses.
I can tell you it is good to see a lot of people working on the docks, Johnson said, estimating 20 to 25 dock workers load and unload a ship. This is a good trend.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Patrick Springer at (701) 241-5522
