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6
June 2023
By
Alison F. Takemura
Clean energy’s Made-in-America movement could bring jobs for coal
miners
Phil Smith of the United Mine Workers of America explains how clean
energy manufacturing can help offset job losses for an industry it’s
helping to replace.
(Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Canary Media thanks KORE Power for
its support of clean
energy manufacturing week.
The push to make clean energy products in the U.S. is projected to
create a staggering 900,000 new
manufacturing jobs over the next 10 years.
That’s a vast need former coal miners can help fulfill.
As cheaper and cleaner energy sources displace coal in the U.S., coal
miners are losing their livelihoods. The industry has shed more than
half of its workforce, or about 50,000 jobs,
since 2012,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the ramp-up of domestic clean energy manufacturing and the
critical-mineral supply chain for renewables could be a lifeline for
these displaced and dislocated miners. And, in turn, the clean energy
manufacturing sector could get a boost by sourcing talent from an
experienced pool of energy workers, of which miners are one prominent
example.
That’s all the more likely now that the Biden administration and
Congress have passed the Inflation
Reduction Act, according to Phil Smith, chief of staff of the United
Mine Workers of America, the largest union representing coal
miners in North America. The law, which is the biggest clean energy
investment in U.S. history, contains billions of dollars to support a just
transition for coal miners and designated energy communities. Key
provisions include:
Smith told us the approach is a stark contrast with that taken by
previous administrations — and it’s making a material difference.
Clean energy manufacturers and suppliers have been reaching out to the
union, signaling that they’re interested in coming to coal communities
and hiring dislocated miners, Smith told Canary Media.
Phil Smith, chief of staff of the United Mine Workers of America
(Courtesy of Phil Smith)
One company put their intention to center coal miners in writing even
before passage of the IRA.
In May 2022,
zero-cobalt lithium-ion battery maker Sparkz
signed a historic agreement with the UMWA stating
that the union would recruit and train dislocated coal miners for the
vast majority of 350 jobs
at the plant Sparkz is
building in Taylor County, West Virginia. The UMWA has
already recruited about 50 miners
who are eager to apply when hiring begins, which is expected later
this year, according to Smith.
Smith, who helped broker the deal with Sparkz, spoke to Canary Media
about how the UMWA is
helping coal miners transition to clean energy manufacturing, how
miners are a natural fit for the sector and the additional
opportunities Smith sees for dislocated miners in the clean energy
buildout.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What has the union done to help dislocated miners enter the clean
energy manufacturing workforce?
After the first wave of significant job losses in the coal industry in
the wake of amendments
to the Clean Air Act that passed in 1990,
we established the UMWA Career
Centers in 1996.
It was specifically designed to help train dislocated miners and their
families in a wide range of other occupations. And over the years, we
have trained close to 18,000,
dislocated miners and family members to do other work. So we have
a lot of experience of doing that — long before the clean energy
revolution came along.
It’s not new that coal miners have been losing their jobs for a while,
but what is new is that there are finally government incentives to
bring something into these distressed areas to replace those jobs.
What makes coal miners a good fit for clean energy manufacturing jobs
with companies like Sparkz?
With coal miners, you have people who are already used to doing shift
work, used to doing difficult labor and are already used to operating
very sophisticated machinery to get their jobs done. So transitioning
from working as a coal miner to working in a manufacturing facility is
really not that big of a transition for a lot of these folks.
For example, there’s a thing called a longwall in
many underground coal mines. It’s essentially a Caterpillar-like
machine that stretches over perhaps 1,500 yards
across the face of coal and has a very large shear that is cutting the
coal onto a fast-moving conveyor belt. Keeping that equipment
operating in top condition requires several people and know-how.
We don’t mine coal with picks and shovels anymore; we
mine it with very sophisticated machinery.
Coal workers know how to operate it and maintain it.
What makes the deal with battery-maker Sparkz particularly good for
coal miners?
There’s a wide range of folks in northern West Virginia who
used to work in coal mines, but those mines are closed. So they have
been forced, unfortunately, to take jobs that don’t pay as well, or
multiple jobs to equal what they lost.
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And so here’s an opportunity for them to take a job that would
be pretty equal to what they were making when they were in the coal
mines, with the same sort of benefits.
The average coal miner under contract is making anywhere
between $31 and $36 an hour. They have very good health care with
minimal out-of-pocket costs. They have great time off from work; they
have a good level of 401(k) contributions; they have vacation and paid
sick leave.
Sparkz is interested in providing those same sorts of benefits.
Sparkz also signed an agreement with the UMWA to remain
neutral instead of what’s far more common: being antagonistic to union
representation. What does that mean for workers?
When workers do come to work at the Sparkz plant, if a majority
of them sign a union-authorization card saying they want
representation, then the company will recognize us as the
collective-bargaining agent. So once they get this facility opened,
we’ll be able to get that process started.
Have other clean energy companies besides Sparkz partnered
with the union?
Not as fully as Sparkz has. We’ve had other conversations with
some other new energy companies that are looking at coming into the
area.
One of the main reasons people are looking at that is that, in
the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress passed significant tax
incentives for companies that are in the renewable energy supply chain
to locate manufacturing facilities in coal-producing areas where jobs
have been lost. So that’s enticing to a lot of companies to think
through whether or not they want to do that.
I don’t know that any of them yet have final decisions about
whether or not they’re going to do this. But our belief is that, if
you’re gonna do it, and if you want to hire dislocated coal miners to
take advantage of all the tax incentives you can get by doing that,
we’ve got the list. So it’s always best to come to us first and ask us
how we can help because we’re more than willing to help.
Another way for dislocated miners to work in the clean
energy transition is by mining critical minerals containing lithium,
nickel and cobalt. What interest are you seeing in members regarding
that, and how is the union supporting them?
A lot of it depends on where those mines are with respect to
where the coal mines used to be, right? It’s not necessarily true that
there’s going to be a lithium mine within driving distance of where a
coal mine closed — someplace that will make it easy for somebody who
lost a job in a mine to get to without having to move.
But what is possible, and we’re looking forward to working with
people on this, is going back into shut-down coal mines, and
essentially re-mining the waste to get critical minerals and rare
earth elements out of that.
There appears to be a large market for that throughout most of
the places where coal mines used to be, where there are waste piles
and tailings ponds. And that would have a dual effect of both being
able to get those materials that we need and also cleaning up the
waste areas that are there now at the same time.
We are looking at putting dislocated workers back to work doing
that kind of work. There are not a whole lot of companies that have
begun that process yet, but there are several that are interested.
We’ve had conversations with a couple.
What more can the federal government do to support clean
energy manufacturing and mining jobs for dislocated coal workers?
There are a couple of areas. One is to speed up the process to
get some of these new mines open. You’ve probably heard about Senator
Manchin and others who want to speed up the time it takes to get
permits to make this work. That’s very important.
Right now, it takes between four to six years, sometimes
longer, from the time somebody says they want to go in and extract —
be it coal, a mineral or metal — before that production can actually
start.
Nobody’s interested in going in like they used to: tearing up
the environment, creating lasting effects that last for generations.
But at the same time, it seems to us that we can do this in such a way
that we can speed up the process so workers who are losing their
coal-mining jobs now aren’t going to have to wait for four or five or
six or seven years to potentially get a mining job.
That, to us, is probably the most critical thing that can
happen now.
And with that, to continue the funding that the Biden
administration and the Congress have put into place over the last
couple of years to transform coalfield areas of the country and to
provide the incentives to bring jobs — incentives that are in place
now and even to expand on them to the extent that we can.
Those are two things that I think are very much needed now —
and well into the future.
Headquartered in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho with clients on every
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functional solutions to meet the growing demand for green economic
expansion and a decarbonized future. As a fully integrated provider of
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