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Manchester Grand Hyatt, Harbor E
Hosted By:
Labor and Employment Relations Association
Green New Deal: Labor Market Policies for Sustainability and Equity
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (PDT)
- Chair: Sanford M. Jacoby, University of California-Los Angeles
Labor Market Frictions and Adaptation to Climate Change
Abstract
Park (with co-author Behrer) explores heat-related labor impacts to understand the role of adaptation in responding to climate change. Combining spatially disaggregated payroll data with daily weather data, we find that hot temperatures exert a causal negative impact on county-level payroll -- reducing payroll by several percentage points in a 2-degree hotter year -- with larger impacts in highly exposed industries such as construction and manufacturing. Using BLS and OSHA occupational health data, we also find that extreme heat increases the risk of worker injury and fatality substantially. Exploiting geographic variation in average heat exposure, we assess differences in implied adaptation investments across regions with varying incentives for long-run adaptation, and find that historically hotter climates appear to be better adapted to heat.Legislatively Mandated Analysis on How to Support Workers and Improve Job Quality and Job Access - Including Workers and Good Jobs in Climate Policy - Lessons from California
Abstract
Zabin presents research from a legislatively mandate analysis on how to support workers and improve job quality and job access in the implementation of California's comprehensive set of climate policies. These include recommendations on labor standards, just transition approaches, and workforce development strategies in the decarbonization of energy, transportation, manufacturing, water, waste, and agriculture and natural lands.Just and Equitable Transition to a Clean Energy Future: Transformative Potential Exists, But So Do Challenges
Abstract
This presentation explores the evolving definition of "just transition" from an exclusive focus on justice for workers in dirty, dangerous and extractive industries, to a shared demand for justice for these workers as well as communities who are dependent on these dirty and extractive industries for their local economy and tax base, and communities who bear disproportionate environmental and health burdens because of extractive industries. This expansion of the vision for a just transition introduces possibilities for tension and conflict, and the presentation will provide some thoughts on how to move past these tensions to a productive conversation that rejects the false dichotomy of protecting the environment versus protecting jobs, and builds a pro-worker, pro-community vision of a future of healthy communities with good jobs. This vision also needs to consider that the very communities who face the worst environmental impacts often lack access to legacy (often unionized) extractive industry jobs with high pay. Moving beyond these overarching frameworks, the presentation will then outline specific policy tools (illustrated with case studies) to create good, family-supporting jobs in a clean energy transition while also ensuring that all communities, particularly communities most impacted, have access to the jobs created.Discussant(s)
Micah Mitrosky
,
IBEW 569
Gordon McCord
,
University of California-San Diego
JEL Classifications
- J0 - General