Environmental Justice Community & Labor Victory at Ava Community Energy

The Local Clean Energy Alliance (LCEA) as part of the Workforce & Environmental Justice Alliance – an alliance of labor unions, workforce development, environmental justice and community choice advocates – was successful in passing a unity position with Ava Community Energy (formerly East Bay Community Energy). The resolution highlights important priorities related to workforce and local workforce development, innovation, location, environmental stewardship and benefits accruing to equity priority communities.

The resolution addresses the need for more localized clean energy jobs creation which has been a contention with Ava Community Energy with more recent contracts being outside of the state of California and the need to be transparent with numbers and quality of union jobs created.

The Workforce & Environmental Justice Alliance was created to hold accountable California Community Power – a statewide network of Community Choice energy agency CEOs.  When this network refused to commit to workforce standards, we began passing resolutions one Community Choice program at a time.

You can read the full approved resolution here:
Ava Community Energy Workforce & Environmental Justice Project Selection Criteria

Press Release by Construction Trades Workforce Initiative

The Workforce and Environmental Justice Alliance is made up of Let’s Green California, Labor Sustainability Network,  the Construction Trades Workforce Initiative (CTWI), Sierra Club, SLO Climate Coalition, Local Clean Energy Alliance, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County + many others.