INTERVIEW: NABTU PRESIDENT SAYS WORKFORCE WILL "HIT THE GROUND RUNNING" AS ORSTED PARTNERSHIP TAKES OFF
A recent landmark initiative between Orsted and the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) will create a national agreement designed to transition U.S. union construction workers into the offshore wind industry, in collaboration with the leadership of the 14 U.S. NABTU affiliates and the AFL-CIO.
The agreement represents a transformative moment for organized labor and the clean energy industry and sets a model for labor-management cooperation and workforce development in the nascent offshore wind industry.
The initiative is based on the successful model developed by the Rhode Island Building Trades for the Block Island Wind project.
“The main takeaway from Block Island was access to a tremendous amount of human capital, which had the skill sets to fabricate and modularize all the components of the wind turbines, which then were floated out, stood up, and erected,” Sean McGarvey, President of NABTU, told New Project Media. “The vast majority of the work was done in the port, so that had a really good effect on employment man hours and made for seamless operation. That model makes tremendous sense, was very successful, was done safely on time and on budget, and that's the model we’re going to use going forward.”
McGarvey said the new agreement sets the bar, potentially launching a new standard in the renewable energy sector.
“Our issue with the renewable industry has been that the people who actually build out their renewable projects have not always been at the top of their list,” he said. “In order for us to maintain our current and future membership’s place in the middle class as we transition requires them not to have to take a 25, 50 or 75 percent pay cut to do it. And we have faced those situations and continue to face those situations in the renewable industry, and that's not acceptable to us. This is supposed to be the next big thing in our history in this country, but it means nothing if it doesn't create middle class, family-sustaining jobs. And the record is worse than mixed right now. So, this agreement with Orsted sets the bar, and I think that anything less than this is unacceptable from NABTU’s perspective. You can build in the renewable industry, pay family sustaining wages and benefits, and make a profit.”
Orsted has the largest footprint of any offshore wind developer operating in U.S. waters, with 2.9 GW of power contracts up and down the Eastern Seaboard from Rhode Island to Maryland.
“Orsted, obviously, was successful on Block Island, which led to this agreement for their development on the Atlantic Seaboard, so that's a message to everybody else,” McGarvey said. “We really don't want to hear from others in the renewables industry about how our members make too much money, or that if they’re serious about getting into this line of work then they need to reduce their wages to gain entry. We’re happy with President-elect Biden’s position on that, and we believe that it's doable. So that's where I think the renewable industry needs to self-reflect a little. I know people don't want to hear it, but in the fossil fuel industry there’s never any argument about our people making too much money. The argument is always schedule and safety, and if we can meet those, we can do the work. But it's never about how much a construction worker makes, and it’s the complete opposite in the renewable sector in much of the country.”
President-elect Joe Biden has positioned the creation of millions of good-paying union jobs as a mainstay of his Build Back Better initiative, with many of these jobs stemming from his plan to build a nationwide clean energy economy and new, sustainable infrastructure.
“I think the election crystalized where we’re at as a country,” McGarvey said. “This is something that the renewable industry--and all industries--need to pay strict and close attention to. You could take a large majority of the country, half of whom were Biden supporters and half of whom were President Trump supporters, and the issues that drive them, in a lot of cases, are the same. It is the economic disparity, where they haven’t been able to advance their family economics, in some cases, for decades. And they’re tired of it. They don't want things given to them, but they want to be respected, and they want to be compensated accordingly. There is room for people to have middle class wages based on their skill, and for the developers and owners of renewable energy to make a handsome profit for their investors. We can do both. We’re in the middle of a reckoning now, and it needs to be dealt with.”
There are currently 15 active commercial leases for offshore wind development in the U.S. that, if fully built, could create an estimated 83,000 jobs and generate USD 25b in annual economic output within the next decade, according to a recent report released by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).
"We can build it"
As part of the new national framework, Orsted will work together with the building trades’ unions to identify the skills necessary to accelerate an offshore wind construction workforce. The groups will match those needs against the available workforce, timelines, scopes of work, and certification requirements to fulfill the wind developer’s pipeline of projects along the East Coast.
“I like to say--and it's true--that if man can imagine it, we can build it,” McGarvey said. “And we already have all of the skill sets in and amongst our membership to do anything that needs to be done in the offshore wind industry. There are deep-water construction activities that require additional training programs. If it wasn't in the ocean, the skill set would be the same. But there are certain skill sets and processes that our people will need to be trained on to prepare them to successfully and safely erect these windmills in deep water. We’ll work with Orsted and their contractors to install in our training programs those processes, those certifications that are required, and the ability to hit the ground running when it's time to start erecting those.”
NABTU, along with their contractor partners, operate 1,600 privately funded apprenticeship training centers across the U.S. via an investment exceeding USD 1b per year. The organization sponsors comprehensive apprenticeship readiness programs that provide a critical gateway for local residents, specifically for women, people of color, and transitioning veterans.
“We have that infrastructure,” McGarvey said. “There’s only one institution in the world that trains more people in hard skill sets than we do, and that's the U.S. military. After that, it’s us. And we’ve been doing it for over 100 years, and it's something that we’re really good at and we invest a lot of money into. When people get through our training programs, they have skill sets that are going to keep them in the middle class for a lifetime. We will use all that infrastructure in partnership with Orsted and their contractors to make sure that people are prepared safely and productively to get the work done and get the switch turned on so the power can be generated. There’s a lot of activity right now, and we’re supporting that activity. There's a timetable for this. Orsted has a track record of getting it done, and we will do our part to support that and get ready for a successful buildout."