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Good Jobs Green Jobs Conf. 2013: Public Trans. Jobs are Finally Being Recognized as Being Green

Posted April 2013

For years now the Center has been identifying jobs in public transportation as green jobs which not only help the environment but also provide the livable wage and strong benefits associated with strong union presence.  In previous years, the Good Jobs Green Jobs conference held by the Blue-Green Alliance - an organization that brings together unions from all over the country with environmental advocates like the Sierra Club - also touched on how public transportation helped to green our country.  At this year’s conference the sentiment was undeniable.

Public transportation was no longer referred to only for the short term construction jobs new infrastructure supply or as a way of connecting people to more job options through a green mode of transport.  This year the importance of the long term, good, green jobs of operators and maintainers was also considered when discussing expansions of rail and bus lines and their associated service.  In fact transit was such a hot topic that there was a day long pre-conference meeting hosted by Americans for Transit which brought together public transportation advocates from all over the country including organizations like Sierra Club, ATU, TWU and Jobs with Justice.  The focus of this meeting was how to bring together transit riders to advocate for better transit service including how to fight against privatization - stabilizing operator and maintainer jobs in-house.