We Must Utilize Educational Programming for Fossil Fuel Workers in the Just Transition
By Erik Shell
The political momentum for ambitious climate legislation is only growing. The devastating fires in Oregon and California demonstrate the power of unchecked climate change, and, following a new report from the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden released two bold proposals that would move us toward a future beyond fossil fuels.
As part of a response to climate change we must close fossil fuel extraction sites. The workers in this industry, however, are not to blame for their bosses disregarding clear warnings about climate change for decades. These blue-collar workers built our nation’s energy system with their bare hands, laboring in often dangerous conditions. They rightfully take pride in their essential role in this country despite that their industry is hemorrhaging jobs and faces an uncertain future. This blog highlights how education policy can help transition these workers.
The narrative around these workers has historically belittled their needs and been insufficient in its prescriptions. Despite repeated claims that there is a “skills gap” in the workforce, what we in fact face in these worker’s communities are gaps in investment, policy, and data. Other just-transition advocates are right to argue that workers who choose to retire deserve to have their pensions fully replaced, but the policies currently in place to help non-retiring workers transition their careers are underdeveloped. What’s more, training alone is a necessary but insufficient response, and any “just transition” must come with comprehensive benefits, stable careers, and a way to address community-specific economic needs.
Policymakers should approach a just transition while keeping in mind the various stakeholders. For starters, fossil fuel companies will not readily relinquish control over their long-held industry, and clean energy has a long way to go in ensuring a stable and well-unionized workforce. Furthermore, the government must step up with substantial public investment toward worker education. The approach I will lay out considers all those entities as active participants in the just transition of fossil fuel workers. It demands a series of public–private partnerships where 1) fossil fuel companies ensure their workers’ salaries and stable employment in the transition, 2) clean energy provides materials and safe future jobs for these workers, and 3) the government sends out adult-education experts to survey these workers’ needs and build a responsive curriculum around their future employment.
The limited data we have on adult education and Career and Technical Education (CTE) bear out the difficulty of retraining adult populations. In 2016, the National Center for Education Statistics fielded the Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES) as part of their National Household Education Survey Program. An analysis of the nearly 48,000 respondents published as part of my master’s thesis depicts the difficulties of adult education programming: the lower attainment rates for those who have completed less school, the wealth and racial gaps in attainment, and the dramatic drop in attainment as respondents’ age increased—a notable disparity for fossil fuel workers, whose average age is 42.
To respond to those difficulties, the limited literature behind adult CTE programs points to two strong doctrines: getting young workers credentialed before they're too far removed from secondary education,[1] or training older workers in their workplace with both their current and future/desired skill sets in mind.[2]
These latter kinds of in-house retrainings are typically called “work programs,” and research demonstrates their effectiveness. The ATES survey showed increased attainment for those who were working full time during their CTE program. The best versions of these work programs include an assessment of the current skills of the worker alongside the desired skills of the future employer.[3] Likewise, a curriculum involving “comprehensive case management” during the course of the training—i.e., workers are not just trained in the developed, individualized curriculum, but a dedicated education professional actively manages their educational program—is an effective way to ensure course completion.[4]
The fact that fossil fuel workers are already employed and able to get to their current job makes them perfectly situated for a work program–based education plan.
A comprehensive and just retraining plan would do the following:
Assess the needs of workers in their regional contexts and personal preferences rather than force them to submit to a national retraining routine
This must include different training regimens for supervisory employees (e.g., administrators) and nonsupervisory workers (e.g., miners)—even at the same fossil fuel extraction site.
Build these needs into a work-program curriculum with sensitivity toward the current work and education levels of the worker as well as the skills desired in the target job sector
Enact the resulting work program at the workers’ current workplace, with the workers’ current salary, and at no cost to the worker themselves, instead being paid for by the fossil fuel companies who employ them
This lowers the two highest barriers that might prevent them from completing this work program: 1) difficulties of transporting to and from the training site, and 2) cost of the program and potential loss in salary during retraining.
Ensure that the curriculum is developed by adult-education experts and trainings are led by clean-energy companies that are ready and willing not just to transport required materials and staff for the training but also to subsequently build and invest in that community by putting down clean-energy infrastructure
To ensure educational efficacy, there should be a robust and informed framework for analysis and transparency of the work programs before they even begin. Quantitative and qualitative researchers alike should measure the program’s effectiveness, provide full access to the data collected, and have a detailed research plan for five- and ten-year follow-ups to ensure these workers can maintain stable and fulfilling employment.
Family and community educational programs are also critical. Generations of coal miners can attest that the industry is a point of family identity. A just transition means maintaining this sense of community. Therefore, part of any retraining plan should include 1) a pathway for trade or apprenticeship programming for the children of fossil fuel workers hoping to join the clean-energy sector, and 2) adequate support for public-education investments and programs that lead to many other prosperous and rewarding careers to bolster these communities.
We must also invest in those who opt out or are unable to take jobs in the clean-energy sector. This step—which could take a variety of locally dependent forms—can and should still be built around the tenets of adult educational programming. This step also ensures that all workers can benefit from the Green New Deal. In addition, these investments work to smooth any gaps the dissolution of the fossil fuel industry leaves—or has already left—behind in these communities.
A focus on educational programming allows us to accomplish several things. First, it gives us a chance to center people and communities that the fossil fuel industry directly impacts. It allows us supporters of the Green New Deal to demonstrate that we are serious when we say this project won’t leave anyone behind. We also have research that shows that these adult-education methods work, and now we need only the political action to make such an investment.
To be clear, we face significant challenges. A progressive job-training policy cannot, for example, ensure that the clean-energy industry is well-unionized with irrevocable protections for workers and strong incentives to build and invest in communities that the climate crisis is hitting the hardest. Even then, not all fossil fuel communities will be ideal locations for clean energy; newly trained workers will need help relocating to more suitable clean-energy job sites. Work programming itself is not perfect. Ensuring that it works as we intend requires that we avoid the pitfalls of previous job-retraining programs, and that we give more attention to these historically underserved communities than ever before.
There is also earned skepticism about the ability of historically deceptive industries like Big Oil to participate in good faith. We must not continue to underestimate a private company’s capacity to enact social good. All of these efforts and reflections must be brought to the table when crafting these critical public–private partnerships; failure to do so will result in either the continuation of systemic injustice toward an economically oppressed people, or the continued destruction of our planet.
A just transition, done correctly, represents an opportunity to make an unprecedented public investment in workers. Rather than viewing our workforce as holding a skills deficit, policymakers should recognize the talents workers already have and empower educators to create training programs to help them not only replace existing careers but also, as much as possible, move up to new ones. Despite repeated media narratives and arguments to the contrary, workers are not an impediment to the aims of the Green New Deal—they are essential to it.
Erik Shell is a nonprofit professional and education policy consultant, expert, and agitator.
This post was written with assistance (in many forms) from: Meryl Weinstein, Alan Holt, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Jake Higdon, Marcela Mulholland, Ethan Winter, and Jessica Eckdish.
Footnotes
[1] Patnaik, A., and Prince, H. (2016). Retraining the Gulf Coast through Information Technology Pathways: Final Impact Evaluation Report. From the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources. ; Rosen, R., Visher, M., and Beal, K. (2018). Career and Technical Education: Current Policy, Prominent Programs, and Evidence. From MDRC.
[2] OECD (2013). Time for the U.S. to Reskill?: What the Survey of Adult Skills says, OECD Skills Study. OECD Publishing. ; Muñoz-Raskin, R., Zijderveld, M., and Bagolle, A. (2015). Modernization of Urban Public Transport: What can we learn from other industries about insertion into the labor market and job retraining? In Transportation Research Record, n. 2512, pp. 31-37. ; Knight, C. (2016). An Analysis of the Peninsula One-Stop Career Center in Virginia: Employment Placement and Retention for Dislocated Workers. In Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations, Old Dominion University.
[3] Muñoz-Raskin, R., Zijderveld, M., and Bagolle, A. (2015). Modernization of Urban Public Transport: What can we learn from other industries about insertion into the labor market and job retraining? In Transportation Research Record, n. 2512, pp. 31-37.
[4] Knight, C. (2016). An Analysis of the Peninsula One-Stop Career Center in Virginia: Employment Placement and Retention for Dislocated Workers. In Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations, Old Dominion University.