LIUNA Members Build Energy Systems from Natural Gas Extraction to Solar Panels
LIUNA members assist in the construction and maintenance of power plants and substations, digging trenches for lines and backfilling, road repair after line installation, and supporting infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines. Members also have skills in new technologies and are trained installers of solar panels, wind turbines, and green roofs, as well as building retrofit specialists and energy auditors.
Reshaping America’s Energy Future with Jobs for the 21st Century
The U.S. will continue to be dependent on a variety of energy resources, including coal, oil, natural gas, wind, solar and nuclear power.
LIUNA supports an “all-of-the-above” energy policy.
- Becoming less reliant on oil from hostile nations by developing North America’s energy resources will improve our economy, create jobs, and strengthen national security.
- Oil and natural gas – which supply 62 percent of our energy today – will provide much of the energy we need in the decades to come and are important components of the “all-of-the-above” approach.
- A balanced and comprehensive energy policy must include the expansion of our nation’s pipeline infrastructure.
The solution to climate change is comprehensive climate change legislation.
- LIUNA has been on the forefront of supporting climate change legislation with carbon reduction targets as high as any other union. However, attempts to derail energy production project-by-project, as some in the environmental movement advocate, won’t impact climate change and will only stall creation of desperately needed jobs.
- LIUNA opposes extreme environmental measures that undermine U.S. economic growth, harm working families and place ourselves at a disadvantage to other nations.
Investing in energy development is long overdue and has the potential of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
- The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awarded U.S. energy infrastructure a D+ in 2013 and found a $107 billion investment gap in our electricity infrastructure. Closing the gap would save American businesses $126 billion, prevent the loss of 529,000 jobs and avert $656 billion in personal income losses by 2020.
- Modernizing and upgrading America’s electric transmission system alone could create an additional 150,000 to 200,000 jobs every year over the next two decades and make energy delivery more efficient and reliable.
- With responsible development of America’s own vast domestic resources, the natural gas and oil industry could create 1 million new jobs over the next seven years.
Renewable Energy
LIUNA has been working in the renewable energy field for a decade, building renewable energy systems across the United States and Canada. Members in California are now helping build solar, wind, and geothermal power plants – doing a variety of traditional Construction Craft Laborer tasks including pouring concrete, digging footers, laying underground utilities, setting up racking systems for photovoltaic modules as well as less traditional tasks like manufacturing the mirrors for concentrating solar power systems and assembling photovoltaic systems.
Read here about Illinois Clean Energy
Hundreds of new members will be joining the ranks in the coming months in order to meet labor needs and complete these important projects. Some new members will be working as union members for the first time and will be able to nearly triple their pay, secure healthcare benefits and gain access to LIUNA’s free job training programs. As the alternative energy field grows, LIUNA members are stepping up to new challenges and securing their careers in construction.