Clean Energy Works Portland is a groundbreaking new program that enables Portland residents to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and pay for the improvements over time through their utility bills.

But the most exciting and unique aspect of the program is the Community Workforce Agreement that was developed by representatives of labor unions, community groups, businesses, community colleges, and other stakeholders. It is a comprehensive plan to make sure that new jobs created by Clean Energy Works Portland are high quality, career-track jobs that offer family-supporting wages and benefits, and that they go to local residents from diverse backgrounds.

The program uses $2.5 million in Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds the city received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as seed money to start a revolving loan fund that will enable Portland homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes at no up-front cost. The energy improvements that will be available to homeowners during the pilot phase of the program, which will cover 500 homes, include insulation, air sealing, duct sealing, and improvements to space heating and water heating systems.

A state law, Oregon’s Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act of 2009 (HB 2626), made the Portland financing mechanism possible.Fifty-five direct jobs will be created by the pilot program, but many more are expected to be created after the pilot phase. In order to make sure those jobs will have good wages and benefits and be accessible to community members with previous barriers to employment, the city pulled together approximately 60 stakeholders to develop a Community Workforce Agreement that would complement Clean Energy Works.

Maurice Rahming, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon, participated in the Clean Energy Works Portland stakeholder meetings that culminated in the Community Workforce Agreement. “I think it’s a tribute to the mayor that he got minority contractors involved early on, rather than having them involved at the very tail end. It shows he’s looking to diversify the contracting pool,” Rahming said.

In addition to minority contractors, the stakeholder meetings included many groups that offer pre-apprenticeship training to prepare people in basic work skills so that they can then enter training programs that teach skills specific to an occupation. These groups included the Native American Youth and Family Center, which offers employment training courses to Native Americans; and Oregon Tradeswomen, which offers women training courses to prepare them to enter the building and construction trades. Pre-apprenticeship training programs like these will funnel participants into weatherization technician training courses linked to Clean Energy Works Portland.

Many labor unions also participated in the development of the Community Workforce Agreement, including the Laborers union, which is about to begin offering training courses in weatherization that will be available to graduates of the pre-apprenticeship programs described above. “A part of what we wanted to see [in the Community Workforce Agreement] was that people were going to get quality training, because then they’re going to come into the market with better skills, and that’s a chance for them to get their wages up,” said Al Davita, the training director of the Laborers Training Program in Oregon and southern Idaho.

After five weeks of meetings, the stakeholders came to consensus on a Community Workforce Agreement for the Clean Energy Works Portland pilot program that lays out requirements for worker training, wages and benefits, local hiring, contractor standards and more. Key goals and targets of the agreement, which was passed by the Portland City Council on September 30, include:

• Local hire: at least 80 percent of employees used in the pilot program will be hired from the local workforce.
• Family-supporting jobs: workers will earn no less than 180 percent of the state minimum wage.
• Diverse workforce: historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people, including people of color, women, and low-income city residents, will perform at least 30 percent of total trades and technical project hours.
• Diverse business participation: twenty percent of the dollars that flow through the project will go to businesses owned by historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people.
• Prevailing wage: contractors will pay wages that are at least 180 percent of Oregon state minimum wage or the prevailing wage for weatherization work, whichever is higher.
• Worker training: contractors will hire 100 percent of new weatherization employees from designated training programs until 50 percent of the contractor’s non-supervisory work hours are performed by these training program graduates.
• Labor peace: contractors will sign a labor peace agreement that includes a majority sign-up provision (meaning that contractors will respect the will of the workers if a majority of them signs up to form a labor union).

The Community Workforce Agreement also sets up a system of “best value contracting,” which means that contractors wishing to join the pool of qualified contractors for the Clean Energy Works Portland program will be scored on a range of attributes. They will earn points for having a successful track record of hiring and retaining historically disadvantaged people; having a plan for establishing sub-contracting relationships with businesses owned by people of color and women; and hiring graduates of pre-apprenticeship training programs, among other criteria.

Clean Energy Works Portland’s criteria for qualified training programs requires the programs to have at least three defined partnerships with state recognized pre-apprenticeship programs or signatory community organizations that service underrepresented populations, and to make sure a majority of trainees are women, people of color, low-income people or people from disadvantaged communities.

“In Oregon, a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Clean Energy Works Portland stands to provide a scalable national model by leveraging federal recovery dollars to put people back to work and achieve significant carbon reductions,” said Portland Mayor Sam Adams. “With our community workforce agreement, we have the ability to promote social equity in a measurable way, providing an opportunity for under-employed youth and adults to gain career training in the sustainable building industry, and ensure that Portland stays at the forefront of the green economy.”

For more information about Clean Energy Works Portland, go to www.cleanenergyworksportland.org.