IBEW in White House, Global Earth Week Events

IBEW members participated in multiple events highlighting the link between jobs and climate change around Earth Day.

New York Local 3 member Chris Erikson Jr. participated in a White House Earth week young worker event. In the virtual meeting moderated by President Biden’s National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, Erikson discussed the key role of the labor movement in promoting professionalism and safety in renewable energy jobs as well as the opportunities for stable careers with good wages, benefits, health care and secure retirements.

IBEW President Lonnie Stephenson joined heads-of-state, world leaders and global innovators for a two-day climate summit that sought to link climate change to a prime opportunity to create millions of jobs around the world.

“Fighting climate change isn’t just about cutting carbon emissions but creating good jobs,” President Stephenson said at President Biden's Leaders Summit on April 23. “Creating good jobs means, above all, creating union jobs.”

“Keeping IBEW members at the center of the clean energy industry will require lawmakers and regulators to tie all federal clean-energy investments to strong labor protections, like prevailing wage laws, which promote higher incomes, safer worksites and increased productivity,” President Stephenson said.

Buy American provisions would ensure that the push for renewable energy results in more domestic manufacturing jobs. President Biden’s plan to build a massive network of electric vehicle charging stations can mean hundreds of thousands of new union manufacturing and construction jobs.

“Many existing energy jobs are good jobs for one reason, and that’s because they are union jobs,” President Stephenson said. “But the truth is, not enough solar, wind and other renewable power jobs are union. Changing that will go a long way in boosting confidence that the transition to clean power will leave no worker behind.”

President Stephenson said the United States must invest in all forms of carbon-free energy technologies, such as carbon capture, hydrogen and nuclear, as well as support expanding the grid and investing in new transmission lines.

President Biden reiterated, to a worldwide audience, the reason for his close relationship with the IBEW. “By the way, the first person I went to was Lonnie Stephenson of the IBEW … about how we can get this this done. It was Lonnie who stepped up.”