A legal Victory on Monday Sept. 22 but the struggle continues says Erica Hammond

As part of Blue Frontier’s Rising Tide Ocean Podcast, I recently interviewed the AFL-CIO’s Legislative Director for Rhode Island Erica Hammond. Erica is also a member of ‘Climate Jobs Rhode Island,’ a coalition of labor, environmental, and community groups working for an fair and equitable pro-worker blue economy. Which makes sense given Rhode Island is “The Ocean State.”

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One of the projects they support is Revolution Wind the almost 80 percent completed $5 billion dollar 704-megawatt offshore wind farm built by the Danish company Orsted slated to power 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut starting next year. That was until the Trump administration issued a stop-work order August 22nd. Then, on Monday September 22, after a month of protests and lawsuits, a federal judge in D.C. issued an injunction allowing the wind farm’s construction to resume.

Earlier this month, after the Trump administration canceled $679 million in federal funds to support the growing offshore wind industry it took the extraordinary next step of instructing half a dozen federal agencies to find ways to thwart the country’s growing offshore wind industry.

Trump has been against offshore wind since 2013 when Scotland approved a wind farm off of his Aberdeen golf resort. Plus, he promised big oil executives that if they’d contribute a billion dollars to his 2024 campaign, he’d do their bidding including ongoing attacks on their wind and solar competition. So what does your typical (or exceptional) labor advocate think?

David Helvarg (DH): So, Erica how did your professional career come about?

Erica Hammond (EH): After college I found my way to the local ‘Jobs with Justice’ here in Rhode Island, an organization that works very closely with community and labor organizations. And from there I met many different individuals in the labor movement and I became very interested in working with them.

So, I found my way to the Institute for Labor Studies and Research, that’s the training and education arm of the labor movement here in Rhode Island. And then we launched our ‘Climate Jobs Rhode Island’ coalition. And when that launched, I said ‘I wanna be working on that.’

So, I shifted over as their field director. And that coalition is really where I learned much more about the environmental movement. I had so much background on the labor movement and workers’ rights and social justice campaigns but for me, a lot of environmental campaigns were new.

DH: A lot of the history of politics in this country is ‘divide and conquer’, and there’s certainly been a historic division that’s been pushed by those in power between environmental activism and labor activism. So how did the climate jobs coalition come together in Rhode Island?

EH: That’s exactly why it came together. It came together back in 2021 when some labor leaders here in Rhode Island got together with some legislators and environmental advocates who had been doing this work for a long time. And it was just agreed that, you know, we could be getting so much more done if we’re working together rather than focusing on the things we disagree on. There’s so much that we do agree on. So, the coalition came together focusing on climate justice and jobs. Is it good for the climate? Is it good for increasing local jobs and are we making sure that the work we’re doing is decreasing economic injustice throughout the state?

DH: So that triple bottom line of environment, economy, and equity.

EH: Exactly.

DH: So, was Revolution, the offshore wind farm, a precipitator of this? What specifically in 2021 got this coalition rolling?

EH: Really our work with offshore wind started back in 2007, 2008. And it was largely pushed by labor leaders, specifically our Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council on the Block Island Wind Farm (the first commercial offshore wind farm in the U.S. that generated 30-megawatts). But then when you fast forward to the Climate Jobs Coalition, it really centered around the first campaign for the Act on Climate. The Act on Climate law was passed in 2021 and it sets (greenhouse gas) emission reduction mandates for the state to meet in 2030, 2040, and then ultimately net zero by 2050.

We had really three pillar campaigns that we worked on in our first two years. The first was the labor standards on all renewable energy projects. We wanted to make sure that those jobs are not a race to the bottom, so strong labor standards. And then make sure they pay prevailing wages. And we want to have partnership utilization (with the state, employers, unions and community groups training a clean energy workforce), which is how we bring more individuals into the trade from different communities.

DH: So, your coalition came together. When did Orsted and Revolution come on the scene?

EH: They had been on the scene when the coalition formed. And both labor, specifically the building trades, had a very good relationship with them, has been an avid supporter of that work. So, Revolution Wind was 80% complete, but they’d been working on this project for about 9 years.

DH: And of course, being a Danish company, they realized, unlike a lot of American companies, that organized labor is a benefit in doing construction, not something to oppose.

EH: Yeah. And Orsted was the first developer of offshore wind to form an agreement with the national building trades unions as well, and to make sure that they’re using strong labor standards in all of the work that they do. And that was a perfect example of how we can do this together.

DH: I’ve been on a number of offshore oil rigs and the skills of roughnecks and roustabouts also translate pretty easily to linemen and you know, wind turbine technicians and so forth.

EH: There’s a lot of transferable skills. Absolutely.

DH: So what crafts are involved in building large scale offshore wind facilities and their onshore power links?

EH: So many. We have the laborers, the painters, the iron workers, the carpenters, and the millwrights. There’s also work for the elevator constructors who are part of the building trades as well. There’s the cement masons also have work there. There’s just so many.

DH: How many workers are engaged in this particular project?

EH: So far, Revolution Wind specifically has had over 2 million work hours. That’s for union workers alone. So, it translates to about 1000 local union jobs, not including plenty of other workers on the job who are not union.

DH: So, are rate payers going to save money by switching from fossils to offshore wind?

EH: This seems like it gets lost in a lot of the misinformation, how low the electricity rate came in for Revolution. When Revolution Wind was permitted it came in at just under 10 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity. And that’s for a 20-year power purchase agreement. So last year alone, our winter rates, which in Rhode Island runs from October to May were at just over 16 cents per kilowatt hour. And the year before that, the winter time rates were just over 17 cents per kilowatt hour. So, we’re saving a lot of money at 10 cents. And that’s for a 20-year agreement. With the volatility of the global fossil fuel market, we don’t know what our cost of fossil fuels are going to be in 20 years. But in 18 years with Revolution Wind, we know it will (still) be at 10 cents.

DH: The rates would be as consistent as offshore wind is consistent.

EH: Exactly (although to be fair even wind patterns are beginning to change – as they have off of South Africa – with fossil-fuel fired climate change – dh).

DH: Were there warnings before this work stop order?

EH: Yeah. I keep saying anyone that’s surprised by this wasn’t paying attention for long enough. Since before he was elected, Trump had been talking about his disdain for offshore wind. Of course we were all, you know, hopeful because of the cost of the electricity and because of the significant amount of work that has gone into this, the job opportunities, the investments in our local communities. We were all hopeful that this would continue moving forward. But then on Friday, August 22nd the federal government issued a stop work order.

So, we had several hundreds of trades workers who were working on Friday night and then woke up on Saturday, because when you’re offshore, you work seven days a week (seven on, seven off). They woke up on Saturday morning to phone calls saying you’re not working today. And more (workers) had their bags packed to go out on Thursday, the following week, ready to go for their turn.

DH: Seven days out there, seven days off onshore. A lot like the oil industry.

EH: And so now they have to wait for a phone call. ‘Which port are we going to? Where are we leaving out of? When are we leaving, when are we getting picked up?’ (by boat or helicopter). And they never got that call…We have people who’ve been shifted to other jobs because you can’t simply keep waiting, not knowing when you’re going to go out. So, people are still waiting (actually waited a month until the judge just ruled they can start working again).

DH: Before we get to how people are able to respond, let’s talk a little more about how the coalition came together.

EH: So, for climate jobs, something that we often talk about is moving at the pace of trust. It’s incredibly important. We all have our own priorities. For the labor movement our number one priority is our members. We have to make sure we keep our members working, not just today, not just tomorrow, but five years from now. And for our environmental partners, depending on the different organization that they work for, they have their own priorities as well. We all know that a cleaner, healthier future for all of us is incredibly important.

So, there is a way that we can get to that while maintaining each of our priorities. It was difficult because there was a lot of learning opportunities. Our environmental partners, many of them didn’t know what an apprenticeship was, didn’t know what a project-labor agreement was or a labor peace agreement or labor neutrality. Many of our environmental affiliates didn’t know what it meant to be a union member and have the labor movement supporting you.

And our environmental partners were able to teach many of our labor partners about this industry. Not just the industry of offshore wind, but many different environmental fights that they’re working on as well (like) the renewable energy standard, which sets a standard for Rhode Island of 100% electricity generated by renewable energy by 2033. There were a lot of question marks about what that even means. There was a lot of question marks about what net zero means, decarbonization, you know? So, there’s been a lot of opportunities for learning and there’s been a lot of trust built in that.

We also have some community organizations that have been working with us. We’ve always had a very close relationship with Fuerza Laboral that specifically worked on exploitation of migrant workers throughout the state. They are a part of our coalition. We work with Groundwork Rhode Island, which is a community organization working with so many different communities on environmental projects and even workforce development. There’s a lot of overlap between some of our labor partners and some of our environmental partners that we didn’t even know already existed.

DH: So, what’s the thinking strategically now with this stop-work order? (This interview was conducted before the court injunction allowing work to continue was issued) How is the coalition going to move forward?

EH: Since the night it happened, we’ve been working with our congressional delegation, the governor’s office, our labor affiliates and Attorney General Peter Neronha, who had a press conference and issued a new lawsuit with the Connecticut Attorney General about this specific project’s stop work order (as did Orsted whose suit is the one the DC Judge responded to).

DH: I assume your two senators and two Congress members are also fairly outraged about what’s happening here (Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed and Representatives David Cicilline and Seth Magaziner).

EH: They are very outraged and I would put our congressional delegation up against anyone’s congressional delegation across the country. We have the best!

DH: What’s Orsted’s position? Are they saying anything about how long they’re willing to stay in the game now that they’re under attack?

EH: Just as they’ve been throughout this whole project process, they’ve been a great partner. We are now doing everything that we can as a labor movement to mobilize our membership and really, share the nitty gritty details about what’s happening here so we can show this collective outrage around this decision. Orsted have already issued their own lawsuit so, we’re still working in lockstep with them. They have not issued any sign of backing down.

They’ve put so much investment across three ports, one in Connecticut, two in Rhode Island. And also, in workforce development. Investments that they’ve put into Rhode Island whether it’s the Global Wind Organization training at CCRI (Community College of Rhode Island) so that Rhode Island can be a hub for training is really something to be proud of. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Building Futures. They’re an amazing organization here in Rhode Island that has been working on apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship they were able to (carry out) with investments from Orsted and the state and the labor movement.

They were able to train 220 tradespeople on global wind certification, training on basic safety helicopter underwater training (for how to escape when your transport helicopter overturns in the ocean as they always do when they hit the water), all these things to be able to send people offshore. Orsted’s commitment to Rhode Island and commitment to our workforce has never wavered.

DH: This is all about an attack on a needed and economically beneficial transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean energy, no?

EH: Yeah, even our energy grid (utility), ‘ISO New England’ issued a statement about their disappointment in this decision because they were relying on this energy to come onto the New England grid next year. They’ve been planning on it.

I’ll be honest, this stop work order is just another punch. We’ve been rolling with the punches since January. We knew that they were going to come when the election went the way that it did in November. So, we said we’re not getting out of election mode, talking to members as much as possible about what’s at stake come the midterms because we have nothing to lose at this point.

What’s happening at the federal level has a direct impact on their work. And not just in the construction industry, in every industry. We see what’s happening with healthcare and our healthcare workers. So, we are continuing to do what we do best, which is get boots on the ground and mobilize our members to turn out.

And with our climate jobs team they’ve been working to figure out what’s next. We want to make sure that we don’t lose the momentum …because there’s so much misinformation that’s generated and fueled by social media and just trying to break through that noise, it’s really difficult. You see well-intentioned people who are maybe in opposition to offshore wind because of some misinformation that has been shared with them about its impact on marine life (whales) and our oceans. And we need to figure out how to cut through that noise because the science continues to point otherwise.

DH: As labor’s legislative director for Rhode Island what’s your next battle?

EH: Our next legislative battle is seeing how the impacts of this one big ugly bill (Trump’s giant spending package) is going to hit Rhode Island. We’re gonna have a lot of work to do when it comes budget time next year. There’s a lot of uncertainty around how hard Rhode Island will be hit. Not just with things like Medicaid and Medicare, but also our workforce.

There’s been a significant number of attacks on workers at the federal level. But we have very strong state labor relations with our ‘Baby Wagner Act’ (Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act). We were able to really shore that up last year during the legislative session, but there’s a new ruling that’s coming out of the federal government that may impact that. 

So, I think we are going to have to make sure we do everything we can to continue to protect workers here in the state and across the country, really. 

We will work on what we can control here in the state. And I think we’ll be fighting, pushing against a lot of the crap, really, that’s coming out of the federal government.

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