New York’s rapid expansion in solar energy capacity depends on overworked transient labor, according to a recent study.
Cornell University’s Climate Jobs Institute surveyed 264 workers on solar projects in New York state between December 2022 and September 2023. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they received no benefits from their employer — and just one worker was a member of a union.
“No worker should have to work a transient grueling job with no access to benefits and low wages — this isn’t what a just transition looks like,” said Avalon Hoek Spaans, principal investigator of the report and assistant director of research at the Cornell Climate Jobs Institute.
“Solar installations must be rapidly scaled under stronger labor standards that protect and uplift working people,” Hoek Spaans said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News.
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