"Wind-energy jobs involve hazardous, high-altitude work, dealing with heavy machinery hundreds of feet up in the air.
... skilled workers who hook up with established wind and solar contractors can make a solid middle-class living, particularly in a handful of states with strong labor practices like California, Minnesota and New York.
Elsewhere, the influx of smaller operators and a lack of labor standards are spurring complaints about wage theft, starting pay as low as $10 an hour, scant training and safety lapses causing injuries and death, according to interviews with workers, union organizers, developers and state regulators.
“Every little construction company wants to get into wind, but they don’t know what they are doing and sometimes they don’t have the money,” says Saucedo, who has built wind farms for big and small firms for eight years.
“I hear lots of complaints about small companies that don't pay, or pay late, and treat workers like dogs.”
... If Biden can deliver a win for construction workers, he may get something in return – less resistance from trade and utilities unions to his anticipated push to slash carbon emissions.
Good union jobs in hundreds of uneconomical coal power plants and mines would be first in line to go.
But a prevailing wage for clean energy, which could be part of the upcoming infrastructure package, is certain to face strong opposition in a divided Senate.
... Wind and solar workers earn less than enough to support a small family in many states.
Green energy workers make more money than Walmart clerks but less than union members doing similar tasks.
A report commissioned by Environmental Entrepreneurs and other business groups found that in 2019 wind technicians made a median hourly wage of about $25 and solar installers somewhat less along with some health care and retirement benefits.
... The industry posted another year of record growth in 2020, thanks to a combination of federal tax credits, state requirements for supplying clean energy and rapidly declining costs.
It has installed 4,900 wind and solar farms in the U.S., at times working closely with unions, particularly when developers need a large skilled workforce for difficult projects.
... labor issues threatened the industry’s ability to grow at the breakneck pace needed to meet Biden’s ambitious goal of cleaning the power grid of carbon emissions by 2035.
The industry suffers from a shortage of managers, engineers, technicians and installers, with 83% of solar firms reporting difficulty in hiring the qualified employees they need, according to a 2019 jobs census from the Solar Foundation.
... To keep costs in check, developers often rely on a peripatetic workforce of manual laborers, electricians, ironworkers and heavy-machine operators.
They travel almost year-round from state to state and job to job, sleeping in cheap hotels and campgrounds.
Many of them report to temporary staffing agencies and brokers, which — across various industries — often tend to depress wages and blur the lines of accountability when labor disputes over pay and unsafe conditions erupt, according to research by the National Employment Law Project.
... At least eight workers have died in the dangerous occupation of wind farm construction since 2008, according interviews with employees, filings with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and media reports.
Workers are suspended from towers hundreds of feet in the air as huge cranes swing massive steel parts into place in sometimes windy and mountainous conditions.
... Wind-energy workers often face dangerous--and sometimes fatal--conditions, operating heavy machinery hundreds of feet in the air.
... Most large firms like Mortenson and White Construction are known as safe operators that follow rules.
But some companies disregard time-consuming safety procedures in order to meet milestones, such as quickly erecting 10 towers, to get paid.
“In order to get these paychecks, they tell us to do really risky things,” says Grant Schermitzler, who has worked on many wind crews over the years.
“In 42-mile-an-hour winds, above the legal limit, they have us lift tower parts with a crane.
They don’t understand how dangerous it is.
It happens all the time.”
Unions often intervene to address safety concerns with employers.
But they have only a very small presence in wind and solar construction because of the difficulties in organizing workers employed by temp agencies -- workers who don’t stay in one place long enough for a union campaign, says Steve Schwartz, LiUNA’s director of organizing.
... When developers ... reject them, unions make their case to regulators -- with mixed results.
... Faced with a hodgepodge of state practices, LiUNA and other big unions are now lobbying for a federal prevailing wage law to set a floor on pay across the country.
... After losing a bid for a prevailing wage mandate in December, unions are banking on support from the labor-friendly Biden administration and Democratic heavyweights in Congress.
... Sen. Joe Manchin, a key swing vote, defended a prevailing wage law in his home state of West Virginia before it was repealed."
