[CPEO-BIF] Job training on the Gulf Coast

[lsiegel@cpeo.org]

Last night (Thursday, September 15, 2005), in his nationally televised
promise to rebuild the Gulf Coast, President Bush offered $5,000
education and job training vouchers for displaced residents. I haven't
yet seen the details of this proposal, but if it's just the voucher,
it's a nice gesture, but it's not enough.

It appears, at this point, that there will be a large number of jobs
cleaning up debris and both chemical and biological contamination in New
Orleans and smaller communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
There will also be a great deal of work in both demolition and
construction, in conditions where workers will require environmental training.

Fortunately, the federal government has a good deal of positive
experience in this area. I am most familiar with programs sponsored by
the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the
Environmental Protection Agency, some of which were operating in the
Gulf Coast region. Many of the programs supported by these agencies,
including one with which I was affiliated in San Francisco, go well
beyond workplace training. They provide the support services that are
often necessary to bring inexperienced, low-income young people into the
construction/environmental workforce.

But these programs have one significant shortcoming. Many of them cannot
promise jobs to their trained graduates. For the past two years, the
Environmental/Justice Community Caucus at the national Brownfields
Conference - convened by CPEO - has heard testimony from job trainers
from many parts of the country. Environmental job training programs end
up spinning their wheels unless there are legal requirements for
contractors with government or other major builders to hire locally, or
to hire program graduates.

To be effective, any job training program for Gulf Coast residents must
go beyond vouchers. It must link the trainees to programs with proven
capabilities, not just anyone who wants to take their money. And those
programs should be directly linked to agencies, contractors, and unions
that can ensure that the trainees are employed, not just for two weeks
or three months, but long enough to rebuild their lives, not just
someone else's home or office.

Lenny
-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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