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Solar Could Become a Model for Sectoral Bargaining

A new deal between the electricians, laborers, and operating engineers
aims to set national standards for solar work.

Three major trade unions have negotiated a deal to divvy up work on
utility-scale solar plants, and are now shopping it around to developers
and contractors. The three-trade agreement
,
quietly announced earlier this month, has the potential to raise job
standards in the solar industry, which has become something of a
cautionary tale
among labor
representatives for how the energy transition can lead to more
exploitative jobs.

The agreement could even be an opportunity to prove that sectoral
bargaining-where unions organize an entire industry rather than at
specific workplaces-can work in some fields, if unions set up a
national labor-management framework and convince enough major
contractors to participate.

For now, the deal signed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers (IBEW), the Laborers International Union of North America
(LiUNA), and the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE)
remains just a jurisdictional agreement, determining which parts of the
job will be handled by electricians, operating engineers, and laborers.
It could help reduce friction between unions on which workers will
handle tasks such as racking, mounting panels, and welding of solar
array structures.

The test of whether such an agreement can gain national traction will
come over the next several months, as the unions meet with developers
and contractors-known as engineering, procurement, and construction
(EPC) companies-and ask them to sign on.

Most of the construction industry is highly fragmented and local. The
solar industry is an outlier, since the top 20 or so developers and EPCs
control much of the national market. If participating unions attract
signatories, the new agreement could bring the biggest employers and
labor groups to the same bargaining table.

The text of the three-trade agreement has not yet been released or
reviewed by the

**Prospect**. But as the unions pitch the deal to EPCs, a source
familiar with negotiations said, they plan to emphasize that a skilled
union workforce can fight for local projects, including by showing up at
community board meetings and overriding local opposition to
utility-scale solar farms.

Unions also advertise that an organized and experienced workforce can
help ensure compliance with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), at a time
when private developers and their financiers want to ensure that they do
not flout a thicket of rules in the new law.

The agreement, IBEW President Kenneth Cooper said in a statement, "will
streamline the process of bringing large-scale solar projects onto the
grid while ensuring they are done on time and under budget by
experienced, skilled trades workers."

[link removed]

While the jurisdictional deal is a major step, the electricians,
laborers, and operating engineers do not represent all of organized
construction labor. Several crafts that work in solar installation,
including the Carpenters Union, which is not part of North America's
Building Trades Unions (NABTU), are conspicuously absent from the
agreement. (Multiple representatives of the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters did not respond to requests for comment.)

Limiting the agreement to just three unions has practical benefits.
Having fewer unions splitting the work can make it easier to coordinate
and streamline. And since jurisdictional negotiations are always
fraught, it may have been easier to overcome local union politics, and
come up with shared standards for national contractors, with just three
unions at the table. But unions not included in the agreement could also
end up undercutting it.

"It's a good thing that three of the trades have come together, but
there are a lot more than three trades," said Andrew Elrod, a labor
historian who has written about the growth of non-union construction
since the 1970s. "The ability for employers to opt out [of the
three-trade agreement] is made easier by the availability of trades
outside the agreement. To be successful, the workers may need to bring
in other trades."

Elrod compared the structure of the building trades to that of workers
in Hollywood, where the power of crafts is diminished by the fact that
employees bargain separately. Beyond the big guilds representing writers
and screen actors, smaller trades are grouped into IATSE, a labor
federation including set designers, costume designers, and art
directors.

"Their power is diminished because they bargain separately. Any
movements towards coordinated bargaining or, below that, coordinated
contract campaigns-any move towards coordination-is good for
workers," Elrod said.

The three-trade agreement does not include California, where a
five-trade agreement already covers solar work. In addition to the
electricians, laborers, and operating engineers, that agreement also
includes carpenters and ironworkers. The business manager of
California's IBEW 1245 put out a statement

last week praising the new national agreement, calling it "good for the
house of labor and the continued growth of utility-scale solar power in
the nation," and clarifying that it does not apply to projects in
California.

The BlueGreen Alliance, a labor-climate coalition, told the

**Prospect**that it supports the deal.

"The three-trade agreement establishes a nationwide framework that will
clearly define the roles of each union in the development of
utility-scale solar power. The deal will eliminate any room for a race
to the bottom, ensure better collaboration between organized labor and
solar developers, and allow each craft to bring their respective skills
to the worksite," Executive Director Jason Walsh said

****in a statement.

****

~ LEE HARRIS, STAFF WRITER

Follow Lee Harris on Twitter

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