New York State Labor Commissioner Comes To Solar One to Announce $12.7 Million For Training Disadvantaged New Yorkers

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Community Environmental Center’s strong green jobs programs led the New York State Department of Labor to choose CEC affiliate Solar One as the site of its July 16, 2009 press conference about proposed solutions to the job-loss challenges facing the state and New York City.

Standing on Solar One’s outdoor stage, M. Patricia Smith, New York State’s labor commissioner, announced $12.7 million to fund job training and education programs to improve the economic future of disadvantaged workers throughout the state. Called the Career Pathways Initiative, the program will provide training in the vital fields of green technology and construction, and health care.

“Traditionally,” said Commissioner Smith, “New York’s low-income workers are among the first casualties of economic downturns, and this recession is no different. Worker training programs in in-demand occupations, combined with strong supportive services, can lift individuals and their families out of poverty and put them on a path to economic independence. That is the goal of the Career Pathways program.”

On-hand at Solar One were the president of CEC, Richard M. Cherry; Solar One’s executive director, Chris Collins; the leaders of STRIVE ; and trainees and graduates of various green jobs programs, all of whom endured the summer’s first heat-wave to talk about combating joblessness by training and enlisting in a green workforce.

“As we shift from a carbon-based economy to a green-based economy,” said Collins, “there will be more and more green jobs, and we will need people to fill them.”

Solar One’s green-collar jobs program provides both hands-on and classroom training through structured internships at CEC, Solar One, and CEC affiliate Build It Green!NYC. Interns learn marketable skills in the areas of Building Performance; Photovoltaic Installation; Green Entrepreneurship; Horticulture, Landscaping and Park Maintenance; and Deconstruction and Materials Recycling.

After the press conference, twenty-year-old Kellon Williams, who came to the U.S. from Trinidad when he was three, talked with members of the press about how a hands-on green jobs curriculum can produce a skilled, employable worker.

“The whole process has been a big step for me,” said Williams, who came from Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School to train with CEC’s weatherization professionals in October 2008.

Williams first learned how to perform an energy audit – “it’s amazing to see how cracks can damage a house” – and then he moved on to the techniques of installing wet spray and dry cellulose insulation. Recently the young technician also learned to measure for and apply weather stripping.

As of July 13, CEC hired Williams full-time, at a salary of $25,000 a year.

The jobless figures from the state and the city are not heartening. In June 2009, New York State’s unemployment rate increased to 8.7 percent, its highest level since October 1992. New York City’s rate increased to 9.5 percent in June, its highest rate since July 1997.

The number of unemployed New York State residents is 864,200, the highest number since records began to be kept in 1976.

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