Efficiency First

With nearly one in four construction workers unemployed, “no industry has taken it more on the chin”

Writing this week for the news site TIME.com, Kevin O’Leary has painted a truly bleak picture of the plight of American construction workers. Here’s an excerpt from the opening paragraph:

The middle and working-classes have been hammered by the Great Recession and no industry has taken it more on the chin than construction. Nationally, unemployment fell to 9.7% in January, but in construction it jumped to 24.7% from 18.7% in October. In many regions, union officials report 30% of their members are unemployed or “riding the bench.” “In the previous 14 years, I had not been out of work for more than one week,” says Pat O’Connor, 57, a Connecticut carpenter. With no work since July, O’Connor says, “It is a bad dream turning into a nightmare. Is construction dead?”

From there, the article slogs grimly on for nearly a thousand words, citing more struggling construction workers and union leaders who see little hope for the future of their industry.

What’s missing from O’Leary’s piece is any constructive advice about what can be done to rescue this troubled industry. Efficiency First believes that energy retrofitting can be a big part of the solution. The proposed HOME STAR incentive program could go a long way toward putting our idled construction industry back to work –  in good local jobs that will also help us reduce household energy costs and achieve our national carbon reduction goals.

Read the full article on TIME.com:
www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1960639,00.html#ixzz0etGG2gU5

Read more about HOME STAR:
www.efficiencyfirst.org/home-star