Honor Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Take a Walk on the Wired Side

CAROL HENNING
Co-Chair, Editorial Board

Color me BlueGreen is the theme of the Angeles Chapter's Political Leadership Awards ceremony this year. The colors represent the Sierra Club's partnership with labor unions for green jobs-jobs which play a key role in reducing global warming, creating energy self-sufficiency and moving workers into stable, middle-class jobs. The Sierra Club is a key founder of the BlueGreen Alliance, a historic coalition with four unions and the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose focus is persuading our nation's leaders to work toward a clean, green energy future that is good for both the economy and the environment.

The Angeles Chapter Political Committee's awards will recognize politicians who have promoted green jobs. Besides Secretary Solis, honorees will include California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Assemblymembers Hector de la Torre and Mike Eng, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Costa Mesa City Councilmember Katrina Foley and Irvine City Councilmember Beth Krom.

The event will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. on October 25 at a wired wonderland, the Electrical Training Institute (ETI) at 6023 S. Garfield Ave. in the City of Commerce. This facility was built by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 11 and the Los Angeles County Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA).

The Apprenticeship Training Programs offered at the ETI provide top quality education, for apprentices and journey-level electricians, in the full scope of the electrical construction and telecommunications trades. Included are commercial, industrial and residential electrical construction, telecommunications, traffic signals, transportation and voice data video. Apprentices are employed on a full time basis and earn as they learn, studying advanced theory as they gain practical experience. Indeed, hands-on training is available in 67,500 square feet of classrooms and laboratories loaded with wires, switches, circuit boards, fiber optics, street lights, building frames and more. As I toured the electri-city with Outreach Director Jane Templin, herself an Inside Electrical Wireman, I felt both fascinated and bemused. The room of traffic signals was my favorite. You too can toddle by the transformers, stroll past the circuitry and caper among the cables. After the awards are presented, guided tours of ETI's new state-of-the-art facility will be conducted.

You can also learn about ETI's new photovoltaic system. NECA and IBEW have constructed one of the ten largest privately owned solar power generating systems in the United States. The roof-mounted solar panel array generates sufficient power to meet most of the energy needs of the entire training facility as well as itself serving as a hands-on training tool. LA NECA and IBEW Local 11 are committed to ensuring the quality and viability of alternative energy resources and also to using green building practices. The auditorium in which the awards presentation sill occur is LEED certified meaning, among other things, that the carpet fibers are nontoxic and the wood used is from renewable sources.

Both IBEW and NECA consistently set the highest standards of safety for every member on every project, and ETI makes teaching safety one of the primary components of its training programs. Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope points out that union workers are better trained to know about safety risks on the job and that they have greater protection if they report hazards and accidents in the workplace. That is an important reason why protecting workers' freedom of association is closely linked to efforts to protect the environment… And, that is why the Sierra Club is one of the initiators of the BlueGreen Alliance.

Please support the Sierra Club's labor-environmental partnership by joining with our political committee to honor Hilda Solis and other promoters of green jobs, to walk on the wired side and to enjoy a catered reception. The date is October 25. Individual tickets are $40, payable to the Angeles Chapter PAC. For more information, email political@angeles.sierraclub.org or call (818) 254-5427.