Organized labor pushes for energy and air quality upgrades at schools
Photo | Courtesy of Chris Lisinski, State House News Service
The Massachusetts State House
Estimating that the federal government's turn away from clean energy projects has eliminated at least 20,000 jobs here, organized labor groups on Thursday renewed their push to create more work by requiring energy assessments in public schools and universities across Massachusetts.
Massachusetts AFL-CIO, the Climate Jobs Massachusetts Action coalition and a handful of individual locals were among those who voiced support for a bill (H 3476 / S 2275) that would require energy and air quality audits for public schools, universities and colleges.
The assessments would estimate the costs of energy improvements as well as greenhouse gas reductions that would result if improvements were made, and it would establish a new Healthy and Sustainable Schools Office within the Department of Energy Resources that could implement the recommended changes.
"Let's identify the oldest boilers, the worst air ducts and crumbling insulation, and let's fix them with highly-trained workers and responsible contractors that are going to do a clean job and keep costs down. Let's find the schools that have the greatest potential for solar panels and thermal energy networks, and install high-quality systems that will save districts money over time and get their buildings closer to net zero," Ryan Murphy, executive director of Climate Jobs Massachusetts Action, said. "These upgrades would save money. More efficient heating systems, combined with generation and heat transfer solutions like solar and geothermal, mean lower bills for schools and less demand on our grid."
The bill would also require contractors bidding on the work to agree to comply with the prevailing wage law, any project labor agreements and to ensure their workforce includes a minimum number of workers who went through a registered apprenticeship program. Those provisions are the basis of opposition from Associated Builders and Contractors of Massachusetts, a group of 480 open shop contractors and related businesses.
"We certainly support the concept of healthy schools and the work that will be involved to create them, but we do oppose this bill because of some of the requirements that create unreasonable bidding requirements that will limit competition and workforce participation," association President Greg Beeman told the committee. He added, "This is untenable, and will result in open shops not being able to bid on this work, reducing the overall number of bidders."
Murphy told the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy that clean energy projects "unfortunately, have been hit hard by recent federal government decisions" and estimated that the federal government "has killed at least 20,000 planned clean energy jobs here in Massachusetts so far." He and Chrissy Lynch, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, pitched the energy audit bill as a way to replace those job opportunities.
"We do not have a worker shortage in our energy unions. We have a high-quality job site shortage," Lynch said. "This bill would put energy workers back to work and allow training centers to take in more apprentices."
The Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee advanced a redraft of the legislation last session as part of a larger bill that focused on transportation infrastructure. The committee advanced that bill to the House Ways and Means Committee in early April 2024, and it advanced no further, according to a committee summary of the latest version.
Co-chair Sen. Michael Barrett asked Murphy and Lynch about the bill's proposed funding mechanism. The bill simply directs the state to "appropriate funds to a revolving fund to finance activities authorized under this act" and to "apply for, receive, and accept funding from local and federal sources."
"The one area of resistance we always get in this general domain is if we're imposing unfunded mandates," Barrett said.
Murphy said the Healthy and Sustainable Schools Office created under the bill would "search for or collect the available funding, whether through federal grants or state funding that might be available" and mentioned revenues from the state's surtax on higher-income households as one potential source.
"We are very aware of the extreme change in the amount of federal funding that is available now," Murphy said. "And one thing I just want to say on that is that we should not let the lack of federal funding stop us from implementing these, at the very least, these energy assessments. And then see where we can actually implement the changes, or where we can get funding from."
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