New England labor unions call for faster offshore wind buildout

A new report by a coalition of unions across Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts calls for the states to raise their ambitions for offshore wind.

The region has little space for solar farms or onshore wind turbines, but its productive winds and relatively shallow waters have made it an appealing target for offshore wind development.

Rhode Island was the site of the nation’s first commercial offshore wind farm, completed in 2016. The first offshore wind port in the country is currently under construction in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Two massive offshore wind projects — Revolution Wind and the embattled Vineyard Wind 1 installation — are underway off the coastlines of the New England states.

Unions in the area see potential for the emerging industry to provide well-paying jobs that would attract and benefit their workers — and also help offshore wind succeed in the long term.

“We looked at the way this industry was starting to develop and thought to ourselves: How can we work as a labor movement to make sure we’re making this an industry that is not only going to benefit the climate but benefit our members?” said Patrick Crowley, president of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which represents roughly 900,000 union members across the three states.

Crowley and the AFL-CIO partnered with the Climate Jobs National Resource Center and unions in Massachusetts and Connecticut to put together the new report, which outlines how the industry can expand with organized labor at the forefront.

To begin with, the union report suggests that the states aim higher for their offshore wind goals in order to boost the region’s economy and take full advantage of their unique access to wind.

The report calls on the states to triple the region’s offshore wind goals from 9 gigawatts to 30 gigawatts by 2040 and 60 GW by 2050 — eventually exporting energy to surrounding areas. 

“We’re well poised to get to the target numbers in the report,” Crowley said. In total, the region has the capacity to host 264 GW of offshore wind, the report notes. 

For the states to achieve their proposed goals, the report authors recommend they try to attract investment in ports — where offshore wind parts are assembled — as well as ramp up local manufacturing, help build out an interregional transmission system to accommodate more electricity in the coming years, and invest in the vessels needed to transport and install wind arrays.

Last year, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts announced plans to join together to procure 6 gigawatts of offshore wind, a move meant to help lower costs and make more projects viable as a result. But when the three states announced their first collaborative wind deal in September, they had acquired less than half their goal, and Connecticut declined to participate.

For all installations, the report calls for project labor agreements, or collective bargaining contracts between a building trade union and a contractor, and labor peace agreements, which make it easier for unions to organize. It also emphasizes using apprenticeships to train the next generation of workers.

Attractive pay and labor protections will help in recruiting committed workers who have previously found reliable jobs in other industries, such as oil and gas, said Jim Pimental, a fourth-generation bricklayer, the vice president of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen Local 3, and the president of the Southeastern Massachusetts Building Trades Council.

“We need to ensure that as this industry takes hold in the U.S., that workers are not left behind, that they can expect to receive the same great wages and benefits they have been receiving traditionally in the energy sector for decades,” he said.

With the incoming Trump administration, the future of offshore wind has become uncertain — even for regions like New England that are committed to the energy source. Since the federal government controls the waters off U.S. coastlines, it has the last word on whether offshore wind projects move forward.

If wind projects are put on pause, it could have a ripple effect. In Somerset, Massachusetts, where Pimental lives, plans are in the works to transform a former coal plant into a $350 million manufacturing facility to build undersea cables, which are needed to bring energy onshore from offshore wind turbines. The facility, partially funded by the federal Inflation Reduction Act, would create around 150 jobs once it’s built, Pimental said. But the land purchase hasn’t been finalized yet.

If it looks like offshore wind farms aren’t going to be built, Pimental worries that the factory developer may back out of this facility — and others like it.

“There’s a lot that hangs in the balance,” of a new administration, he said. ​“I think and I hope that the industry has gained enough momentum thus far to where you’re not going to be able to put the brakes on it just like that,” he said.

State leadership will play a key role in offshore wind, the report emphasizes. At a press conference last week, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat, marveled at the collection of private corporations, research institutions, unions, and environmental advocates all backing offshore wind development.

“I know that 10 years ago, five years ago, nobody was in the same room as one another. What an amazing thing,” Healey said.

Crowley is hopeful that the new federal administration will come around ​“when we talk to them about the thousands of jobs that are being created and about domestically produced energy for the region and the country,” he said. ​“In my experience with almost 30 years of service to the labor movement, I’ve never seen an opportunity like this before.”