Career pathways-based green collar jobs training programs for low-income citizens present American cities with an opportunity to pursue a “triple bottom line” of environmental sustainability, social and economic benefit. Retrofitting construction programs are particularly supported as “pathways out of poverty” that restore the opportunity for low-skilled, high unemployment communities to better access family-wage earning jobs that cannot be outsourced like manufacturing jobs. The Oakland Green Jobs Corps green construction pre-apprenticeship training program was modeled on the Pinderhughes Model of Green Collar Jobs Training and Placement, a career pathways model that was developed by an Oakland-area green workforce development expert.
This case study has employed semi-structured interviews and content analysis to take inventory of the types of workforce intermediaries that are partners in the Oakland Green Jobs Corps and their respective contributions in the partnership’s application of the Pinderhughes model. This study also presents a detailed analysis of the pattern of institutional development of the Oakland Green Jobs Corps in three phases.
The study concludes that the entities used to facilitate the Pinderhughes model in Oakland are common to most urban regions. However, the study finds that the Pinderhughes model was not as innovative as it was purported to be, and is for the most part like traditional low-income pathways training models.
The study finds that local green jobs training and placement programs are vulnerable to national economic employment trends and the influence of local politics. This study provides three lessons for maintaining a well facilitated construction-based green collar jobs training and placement program and partnership regardless of economic or political climate. They include 1) incorporating environmental awareness education, also known as “green consciousness,” into training as a valuable tool in attracting green business participants, 2) mitigating potential loss of on-the-job training opportunities due to economic downturn through the strategic inclusion of large firms, and 3) the necessity of articulating plans for changes in leadership in order to maintain satisfactory levels of internal transparency as partnerships transition from planning or advocacy phase into formal establishment.