Green Jobs

Oregon lawmakers wrapped up the 2011 Legislative session June 30. If there was anything memorable in it for working people, it was that lawmakers finally cut corporate tax breaks down to size … except when they were giving out new ones. It was also the year that the Oregon Legislature gave state agencies a new aspirational goal: Lay off managers, not just front-line state employees. In a state with 9.6 percent unemployment, the closest lawmakers got to passing a jobs bill was a pilot project that will employ some workers on energy efficiency retrofits of public schools, or maybe the new law removing procedural roadblocks to pipelines and other “linear” construction projects.

Two labor-environmental coalitions have merged as of July 1. The Apollo Alliance, launched in 2003 as a coalition of environmental, labor, business and community leaders, is now a project of the BlueGreen Alliance.

The first of its kind in the Pacific Northwest, a solar-powered charging station for electrical vehicles opened June 8 at the Portland Development Commission parking lot. It's the creation of Christenson Electric and EV4 Oregon.

Green jobs are hot now? Construction unions have been training members to work green for decades.