Mayor Bill de Blasio and LaBarbera stressed the notion that cutting emissions was an opportunity to create economic growth and a skilled labor force. | Getty De Blasio, building trades kick off green jobs training program

Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared Saturday with Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, to announce a memorandum of understanding between the city and the union to begin training as many as 3,000 workers to perform retrofits on city buildings.

The MOU, signed Friday, calls for at least 200 city residents to begin training this summer for an industry the city hopes to jumpstart in making city buildings more energy efficient. The city has previously committed $2.6 billion to retrofit its own building stock. City leaders and many in the real estate industry are making energy efficiency a priority, as buildings contribute more than 70 percent of the city's greenhouse gas emissions.


While the city has launched similar training programs, specifically in the post-Hurricane Sandy, Build it Back program, the 200 trainees are the inaugural class of the NYC Green Jobs Corps the mayor announced in his State of the City speech this year.

"One thing we know for sure, and it's a sad reality, climate change, this challenge is going to be with us for decades ahead. Addressing it is going to be an everyday thing. It's going to be a part of everyone's life," the mayor said during an Earth Day event at a Local 3 IBEW training facility in Long Island City. "That also means the people who gain these skills are always going to be in demand."

Building retrofits incorporate a wide array of construction trades, including electrical work, plumbing and carpentry. They can range from installing lights to remaking the entire facade of a building.

De Blasio and LaBarbera, who have been at odds over a mandate that affordable housing construction pay prevailing wages, stressed the notion that cutting emissions was an opportunity to create economic growth and a skilled labor force.

"These are not just jobs, these are careers in the construction industry," LaBarbera said. "These careers will create middle-class lives for all of these workers."

Organized labor has not always been a friend of the environment but increasingly unions are making climate change a part of their policy agendas. LaBarbera said he personally has concerns about the future of a warming planet.

"I've been blessed within the last 8 months to have two grandchildren and now I think about what will their lives be like 80 years from now," he said. "It's in the leadership that is shown here today and the collaboration that we recognize there is a real issue in terms of climate change."