Wondering how Santa Clara County is setting the trend? On October 21st, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors upheld the county’s high standards for workers by moving to incorporate these standards into a new kind of residential construction program, known as Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE).
PACE programs bring energy efficiency to residents by providing low-cost, secure financing options for energy upgrades that improve your home’s comfort and efficiency and save you money on your monthly energy bill.These PACE energy upgrades also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, aiding California’s global-warming-fighting goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.
By taking advantage of a state law (AB811) passed to increase access to energy efficiency and solar energy, owners can get home energy upgrades, cut their energy bills and repay the cost through their property tax bills over time. This gives individuals from all income levels a chance to benefit from home energy upgrades. Sounds great, right?
It is great – BUT ONLY if the work is done properly by workers who are paid and treated fairly. The problem is that in the residential construction sector, and especially in home remodeling, projects done by trained workers to meet the state building code tend to be the exception rather than the norm. The sector is rampant with violations of labor laws, safety hazards and unpermitted, poor quality work.
Issues include workers not receiving adequate training to properly install equipment, lack of safety protocols on worksite leading to injuries, hiring of out of state workers for lower pay who are forced to live in motels and cars because they can’t afford housing, and in turn high levels of wage theft as many workers aren’t paid decent living wages.
Working Partnerships USA, American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley and the Building Trades have worked for the past five years with the county Office of Sustainability to develop a model to bring these PACE programs to Santa Clara County in a way that delivers savings and security for homeowners, real energy and environmental benefits for the community, and decent jobs for local workers.
These issues were of obvious concern to the County Board of Supervisors, and on the October 21st meeting, the Board voted to direct staff to negotiate with the PACE programs to include high contractor standards to address issues of workplace safety, adequate training, and wage theft in their agreement with the county. If staff is successful in their negotiations, Santa ClaraCounty will be the first in the state to enforce a PACE program that includes standards to protect its workforce, and hopefully set the trend for other counties to do the same.
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