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Solar industry, unions heading for clash on jobs
Titus postpones visit to Boulder City plant
Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Dina Titus
Sun Archives
- Six Questions: Michael Allman, CEO of Sempra Generation (2-2-2009)
- Solar developers look for more federal money (1-30-2009)
- Silver State solar powering California utility customers (1-30-2009)
- Gibbons dedicates solar plant near Boulder City (1-22-2009)
- Another solar power plant in the works for Boulder City (1-19-2009)
- Solar power plant opens in Boulder City (1-5-2009)
Beyond the Sun
The appointment on Rep. Dina Titus’ calendar last Saturday didn’t appear controversial at first glance.
She was to tour the new 10-megawatt Boulder City Sempra Generation plant — the largest solar power plant in North America to use widely praised thin-film technology. The project also produced the kind of environmentally friendly jobs that elected officials covet and tout.
Yet Titus soon realized that she was wading into a political firestorm.
In Carson City, Nevada legislators had blasted Sempra for its hiring practices, part of an intensifying debate here and nationwide over who is to benefit from growing state and federal renewable energy incentives aimed at saving not only the environment but also the economy.
Titus was a last minute no-show at Sempra.
Word of the tension between labor and the solar industry in the halls of the Legislature had reached Titus, her spokesman confirmed. Although legislators seemed to be spreading some false information to make their case, it wasn’t a good time for Titus to appear to choose sides, he said.
As Congress passed the $787-billion economic stimulus package to create an estimated 1.6 million jobs in environmentally friendly industries, some national labor and environmental groups have tried to broaden the definition of “green jobs.”
A recent report from a coalition of labor unions and the Sierra Club stated that green jobs have been discussed largely in terms of the numbers to be employed. “The question of whether these new jobs will offer wages, benefits, and working conditions needed to sustain families and communities has received much less attention,” the groups stated.
The authors recommend state and federal renewable energy legislation include labor requirements.
Solar executives say the trouble with that approach is such laws could slow the growth of environmentally beneficial projects.
“You have projects that are moving forward and developing energy sources that are renewable and nonpolluting and that should be sufficient,” said Steve Chadima, a senior vice president at Suntech Energy Solutions and chairman of Solar Alliance, a trade association.
Solar companies provide many high-paying jobs, including union jobs, without legislation mandating it, he said. His company hired union electricians to install solar panels at the Venetian.
The tension between labor and solar could soon come to a head in the Legislature.
Two years ago labor provisions failed in the state Senate, which Republicans controlled at the time. With Democrats controlling the state’s upper house, labor is newly emboldened by its role in Democrats’ November victories.
“There seems to be a potential collision coming,” said Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, who has worked on renewable energy issues in Nevada for decades.
Part of the unease between organized labor and power companies involves what labor unions say was an early slight, and what many in the industry now acknowledge was a misstep.
In operation since June 2007, the
64-megawatt Nevada Solar One plant built by Spain-based Acciona was the first solar thermal plant built in 17 years and the largest of its kind in the world. The $260 million construction project hired labor from outside Nevada and in many cases outside the United States.
That became a rallying point for the state AFL-CIO, which had promoted legislation in 2001 that provided $15 million in state incentives for the plant. The union had imagined the incentives would be used to train and hire Nevadans for the high-paying specialized electrical work of hooking up photovoltaic solar panels to homes and businesses.
“We wanted to create something of value where you would build an industry and promote the whole idea of photovoltaics,” said Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO. “What happened was that solar thermal plant used up the entire allocation in one fell swoop.”
When the plant scheduled its opening ceremony, unions sent letters to elected officials telling them not to attend.
Brought in eight months ago after much of the drama had occurred, Acciona Solar Chief Executive Dan Kabel says his predecessor believed the company had no choice.
“All the others (contractors) were too high, and the project wouldn’t have happened,” Kabel said. “It wasn’t Acciona’s intention, but the contractor brought in nonlocal people from Central America.”
The union protests prompted Acciona to send the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council a memorandum of understanding calling on unions to stop the attacks.
The unions say they didn’t sign on to the memorandum, which they maintain said Acciona would hire union labor in the future.
Kabel says the memorandum was vague, stating only that the company would negotiate with the union on future construction projects. But, he said, hiring all union labor for an upcoming expansion wasn’t economically feasible.
Instead he committed to build with a small percentage of union labor and 100 percent Nevada workers.
“We tried really hard to find a way to set a new path for a relationship with the building trades council,” Kabel said. “To do what they requested would have resulted in no project and no jobs.”
The battle has shifted to Carson City.
The 2001 law that allowed renewable energy projects to get sales and property tax rebates expires in June. Its renewal is likely to come up again this session and be the focus of the tension, observers say.
Solar developers and the Nevada Commission on Economic Development say the incentives are vital to keep Nevada competitive with surrounding states.
But labor unions, and some Assembly Democrats, say the tax incentives provided too little benefit to Nevadans.
Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, has been a critic of some incentives. “If renewable companies want to get benefits, there has to be accountability, they have to hire Nevada people, and money has to be invested in Nevada,” she said.
Thompson said that while unions are not going to publicly push labor provisions in renewable energy bills, they hope to see health and wage requirements tied to tax incentives, along with a requirement that companies hire Nevada-based workers.
Solar companies say they will be forced to locate their projects elsewhere or not build at all if extra costs are heaped on a developing industry.
“If Nevada does something to produce a built-in higher price for large-scale solar, it will be disadvantaged with regards to other locations,” Kabel said. “We are developing in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California, and we’re going to go where there’s the most certainty and the best climate.”
Thompson acknowledged that labor tried to go too far in the 2007 bill. He’s treading more carefully this time.
“Killing everybody isn’t what we want to do,” Thompson. “But at the end of the day if a project promises the moon and you end up with nothing, that’s a problem.”
An early skirmish came Feb. 19, during a hearing on tax abatements. Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-Las Vegas, testified that Sempra’s El Dorado Energy project in Clark County got a $1.8 million sales tax abatement while hiring only one Nevadan. All the other workers came from out of state, she said.
Company officials later said that unlike the initial Acciona project, 65 percent of the workers on the Sempra job came from Nevada.
But the damage was done. Industry officials were irate, seeing it as an unfair attack.
The back and forth prompted Titus to canceled her Sempra visit.
Sempra had provoked the ire of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for hiring nonunion electricians, who the union insists were not properly certified to install photovoltaic panels. (Sempra spokesman Art Larson said he wasn’t aware of and couldn’t respond to those accusations).
Building Trades, IBEW and AFL-CIO representatives said although they have told politicians not to visit Acciona’s plant, they do not have the same request regarding Sempra.
Yet the political implications are understood.
“I think that’s an example of a smart politician doing her homework,” Thompson said of Titus’ cancellation. “That’s why some politicians aren’t here now. They didn’t do their homework.”
Titus spokesman Andrew Stoddard said the congresswoman plans to visit Sempra after tensions have cooled.
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How dare someone hire anyone that isn't a union member. Union jobs mean power in number for all union workers and dues paid for using that added muscle. Union dues provide war chests to spend on important union needs, like donating to the elected leaders that pass jobs requiring all jobs go to union workers.
Remember, without eliminating the free market and mandating who his hired, mandating who can build and who cannot we will never be able to make union workers competitive.
We must pass more laws restricting the creation of jobs and taxes or this whole system might realize that union labor costs too much to compete. I just hope the companies don't invest overseas where no one benefits. How unAmerican of this Spanish Company investing it's billions in America to not realize we need help to be competitive.
Can't we pass a law and require these foreign people to invest here? Now that sounds like a plan harry Ried could work on
Unions have every right to fight for jobs in Nevada. This plant was built with import labor. The entire aim of the stimulas is to put residents to work. Not import labor. More money? Probably. But less in the long haul as the residents wlll be living here, spending money and paying taxes, not running home to Central America. Why is that hard to understand?
Does "import labor" translate to "illegal migrants"?
And did the company knowingly hire these people while being aware that they were knowingly breaking the law?
It's a sad day when Americans support the idea that it's ok to break the law by exploiting illegal immigrants so that business can make a larger profit.
Don't forget the Union Craftymans motto:
"Don't kill the job, kid".
As our economy tanks further, the whining from the Union bosses will only increase. With the Strip in a free fall, they won't be "killing" many jobs down the road. Good...
Digging up the desert and scraping away all the life for photovoltaic panels that could easily have neen placed on all the roof tops of Boulder City is hardly "environmentally friendly".
www.basinandrangewatch.org.
We are not talking about that many jobs.
Currently, the largest solar plant in the world has one full-time employee.
So it is a myth that solar and wind projects are net job generators.
They are just replacing the jobs that would come from other energy projects.
In fact, they might have a lower net amount of jobs then a coal, natural gas or especially nuclear plants.
Unions are not for jobs.
They would rather have a smaller workforce that has unions jobs than a larger workforce that has a mixture of union and non-union jobs.
Unions are the only entity on the planet that I know that seek to destory companies and seek to destory jobs. The current battle over the new city hall is a good example and what they did to the Tropicana in New Jersey is another good example.
"Unions are the only entity on the planet that I know that seek to destory companies and seek to destory jobs."
What about the GOP? 20 years of history shows they are quite good at destroying jobs, wages, companies, and economies.
Wow 20 years....
So you are including those years where the Republicans control the Congress and balanced the budget and passed tax cuts and the economy was in a boom period.
Thanks for the praising the Republican party.
jfnance32(Muth) hates unions, hates anyone making a living wage, thats why he wants us all to work at Burger King, while he collects lobbyist money from the RNC....no wonder why you lost in "08
Not everyone in the country is for labor unions. Sure, they have been good for the working class stiff in some industries, but the trend of the past 50 years has gone against unionization, and the industries with high tech workers aren't prone to being "unionized". I'm afraid the globalization of the world's economy, including ours, has made unions a scarcity in the workplace, here and abroad. Both Democrats and Republicans have allowed this to happen.
pmmart, that's EXACTLY what this is all about and it's EXACTLY why BOTH parties turn a blind eye/deaf ear when it comes to enforcing the immigrations laws on the books. The minute an American tries to stand up for their own rights they are labeled 'racist'. All I ask is that AMERICANS get jobs in their own country before ANY other - and to hell with the companies who espouse hiring illegals just because the company is GREEDY and wants a larger profit margin. This truly is a very simple concept - other Countries seem to get it when it comes to NOT wanting to allow in people who they perceive will be a financial drain on their own citizens so I don't see why it seems to be so hard for America to comprehend.