Going Green: PLA Benefits Touted for Solar Project
As part of its environmental review and licensing process, the California Energy Commission recently sought guidance from the Building Trades Council about solar construction jobs created by the application of a company named BrightSource Energy. The response of John Spaulding — executive secretary of the Building & Construction Trades Council for Kern, Inyo and Mono Counties — reveals the vital benefits that such development can provide local communities if project contractors utilize Project Labor Agreements.
In a letter to the CEC, Spaulding notes that under a PLA, all the construction workers on the project would be from the state of California. Furthermore, Project Labor Agreements automatically ensure that Californians from the local area get priority in hiring, which boosts the local economy and benefits the surrounding community. Spaulding’s letter states, “If the project contractor enters into a project labor agreement with the affiliates of this Building Trades Council, we expect that nearly all of the construction work force would come from California, with a large proportion of those from Kern, Inyo and Mono counties and most of the rest from neighboring California counties.”
The project in question is the Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System; its construction is proposed on approximately 3,277 acres of privately owned land in Inyo County, California, along the California-Nevada border approximately 18 miles south of the town of Pahrump, Nevada.
Spaulding goes on to point out that if the solar project does not use a PLA, then typically workers are imported from lower wages states, which means the project’s employees will not only be without health insurance but also they will be far from home, thereby putting large demands on local housing, public services, police and local hospitals. Further consequences of a non-PLA arrangement are earnings will not go back toward the local community and California, as imported workers are likely to spend their money in other states.
The Energy Commission’s original letter to the Building Trades Council can be seen here.
Spaulding’s full letter to the CEC can be viewed here.
(This article was cross-posted at CA Municipal Labor Project)
