WASHINGTON - (Business Wire) LIUNA – one of the nation’s largest unions of construction workers – backed significantly increased investment in residential weatherization during a U.S. Senate hearing today on the Clean Energy Jobs and America Power Act. “Weatherizing homes, which account for 22 percent of America’s energy consumption, can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create hundreds of thousands of family-supporting jobs,” Dave Johnson, LIUNA’s Eastern Region Organizing Director, said in testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The Clean Energy Jobs and America Power Act would expand programs to weatherize the estimated 100 million energy inefficient homes in America. Johnson described how LIUNA’s breakthrough national weatherization training program is already connecting workers to careers after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allotted $5 billion to expand low-income home weatherization.
Weatherization on a nationwide scale will require the creation of a new American industry, with tens of thousands of new workers and a 40-fold increase in the capacity of existing weatherization businesses. LIUNA has created a breakthrough training program to meet the demand.
Johnson testified on the success of LIUNA’s efforts, including LIUNA Local 55’s weatherization training program in Newark, New Jersey. “Nearly 80 low-income community residents in New Jersey have been trained as LIUNA installers and hundreds more have come to informational meetings seeking to participate in the program. We’ll be able to deliver. Our training center recently won a bid to train 600 workers for the NJ Department of Labor over 18 months,” he said.
Johnson also cited New York City weatherization contractor CEC, which recently signed a contract with LIUNA Local 10, to demonstrate how the new industry benefits those too often left behind in today’s economy. “For five years, CEC’s women’s locker-room went unused because they had no women construction workers. Now, by partnering with LIUNA and the community, CEC’s employees include women, many of them single mothers who are finding a family-supporting career and doors opening to new opportunity.”
Weatherization can reduce a home’s energy use by as much as 40 percent and cut energy bills by $21 billion annually – an estimated average annual savings of $350 per homeowner. By retrofitting energy inefficient homes, America can lower residential greenhouse gas emission by 60 million metric tons annually by 2020. Every million homes weatherized supports 78,000 jobs. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates a $2.73 return in benefits for each $1 invested in weatherization.”
LIUNA relies on experienced instructors who provide trainees with a broad set of skills and credentials such as Technicians/Installers, Weatherization Supervisors and Energy Auditors.
“If done right, weatherization will create tens of thousands of family-supporting jobs, reduce homeowners’ energy bills, help free our nation from foreign oil and protect the environment – it’s a win-win no matter how you look at it,” said LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan of the residential weatherization effort. “We commend Chairwoman Boxer and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for their leadership and we look forward to the day when millions of Americans confidentially call the LIUNA woman or LIUNA man to weatherize their homes and save their families money.”
The members of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – are on the forefront of the construction industry, a powerhouse of workers who are proud to build America.
For more information on LIUNA’s weatherization training program visit www.LiunaBuildsAmerica.org/Weatherize. Dave Johnson’s full testimony is available here.
LIUNA
Jacob Hay
202-942-2285, 202-445-4788
jhay@liuna.org
