Madison Aument
For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument. This is Economics IE. Today I’m talking with Hillary Jenks who is with the Inland Empire Labor Institute to talk about Plug In IE and their work trying to bring green jobs to the area. Can you kind of explain what plug in IE is?
Hillary Jenks
Plug In IE is essentially kind of the arm of what we do that focuses on innovation pilot projects, especially related to climate resilience and addressing climate change, although not solely to that. And it really started when we received a High Road Training Partnership Grant from the state back in 2021 to support work in sustainable logistics. And our partners in that were the warehouse worker Resource Center and Teamsters local 1932 and so we worked with them for about two years on kind of developing training and other aspects of projects, for example, working on like truck electrification with the idea of improving the quality of jobs in logistics, it's such a dominant employer in our region. But also looking at how to move logistics into a cleaner, greener space, right? Because it's also one of our biggest polluters in the industry. So that was really the focus that got us started, and we've expanded from there. We've received additional funding from jobs for the future, for a program called the regional quality green jobs challenge, and for that, we're working with other local unions. We have the ironworkers, the plumbers and pipefitters, all of it looking at trying to expand access to training in these, you know, quality union jobs that are incredibly necessary to updating our infrastructure to something that's not going to emit a lot of carbon.
Madison Aument
Is there a definition for green jobs?
Hillary Jenks
That is the $64,000 question. There's a definition that we were sort of given by jobs for the future to use for this project. So we kind of have been rolling with that. But there's a lot of entities in our region who are thinking through these issues, and all of the definitions can vary a little bit. Ours, our approach is really rooted in what's known as, like, just transition. So the idea there is, like, a healthy economy and a healthy environment ought to be able to coexist, right and and basically that this need we have to move into a carbon neutral future. It should not and does not need to cost workers or community residents, like their health, their jobs, etc, right? So our approach really is that a quality green job is a job in which, whether it is pre pre-existing job, but maybe you've changed the focus, or the skill set has expanded, or it might be a completely new job, right? Like solar installer did not exist, not that long ago, but that job is getting us where we need to be on updating, you know, our infrastructure, our trucks, our everything, so it's not emitting a lot of carbon and a lot of air pollutants and things like that. But it doesn't mean you lose your insurance, or you have to work crazy schedules, or you don't get paid a decent wage, right? Like, these two things can actually be linked and go forward together.
Madison Aument
So yeah, like, specifically, how are you trying to achieve this? I mean, my guess is that some of these companies might not be totally on board that are employing, like, logistics workers. So, you know, are there challenges there with that?
Hillary Jenks
Oh, yeah, of course, of course. And it can vary a lot, like, we have some folks who are really on board and definitely around things like expanding the trained workforce or up-skilling existing workers. I think there's a pretty broad amount of support for that kind of work. Some of the other pieces, like the piece we were working on through our high road Training Partnership that was on truck electrification. Was much more of a slope, kind of a slog… because many reasons. I mean, you're working with kind of state directives about when this has to happen, and also the technology changes every five seconds. So, you know, there was like, when we first started with it, oh, everybody's gonna have to go to battery trucks. And then it was like, Well, wait a minute, what about hydrogen? And then, you know, and so it's also, there's an understandable holding back a lot of times, you know, like, I'm not investing in a whole bunch of new trucks if the technology isn't the right technology, right? So all of that is also in the mix, and has to be, you know, part of the conversation. And you know, you just have to try to present yourself as we're here to be partners, for example. So one of our things was we use some of our grant funding to offer feasibility, basically studies where another organization that's very, very skilled in this could come in and do that work, do the study, and say, here's what you need to do, here's the type of incentives you can apply for that'll make it feasible economically to do it. And then, and then we used our grant money to pay for that to happen,
Madison Aument
That was Hillary Jenks with the Inland Empire Labor Institute. Join us again next Monday for Economics IE. You can find this segment and others on our website, at kvcrnews.org/econie. Support for this segment comes from the Nowak Family for KVCR News, I'm Madison Aument.