Employment in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria is heavily dependent on brown coal for electricity generation.
Burning brown coal creates significantly higher carbon dioxide emissions than burning other forms of coal. For these reasons, proposals to reduce carbon emissions have created deep anxiety in the community about jobs and the long-term economic viability of the area.
In this article, Socialist Alliance member Dave Kerin, an organiser with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU — mining and energy division), discusses the Eureka's Future project, a proposed worker-run social enterprise making solar hot water units, and how such social enterprises could provide economic and environmental security for areas like the Latrobe Valley.
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Should workers and their unions, in the face of job losses take the step of putting the new jobs in place ourselves? If we could successfully create jobs, then in which industries and towards the production of what products should we focus on?
The CFMEU mining and dnergy division leadership in Victoria has answered "yes" to the first question. It was felt that when an industry like energy generation is faced with such a total restructure, including closure of significant sections, our responsibility is inter-generational.
The union decided that our responsibilities do not stop at the mine gate, but rather involve the viability of our children's future. Already, small pockets of members are losing their jobs around the edges of the industry.
Upon investigation, the answer to the second question became quickly obvious: the industry must be manufacturing and the goods must be renewable energy-related, as that will be the growth area in the new Australian economy, whether we produce here or not.
Next questions: could we establish a social enterprise manufacturing solar hot water units for sale across the union movement and communities where we live? Could we move from there towards the large-scale manufacture of renewable energy-producing goods themselves?
The Victorian government provided significant support in answering those questions. They funded the feasibility study, conducted across the members of five unions, from which we drew our market data.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment and the Department of Primary Industry, along with Environment Victoria, helped us fund the business plan. An unlikely alliance?
That's the thing about this project. It has taken a set of problems and looked for the opportunities at the heart of the crisis that everyone can get behind. Whatever else is said or done around the issues of climate and economic crisis, everyone is supporting us towards establishing manufacturing jobs that produce the renewable technologies.
Communities are supporting the project through the Gippsland Climate Change Network because the solutions involve green-collar jobs.
Local businesses support it because steady manufacturing jobs will result in customers. State and local governments are supportive because it provides the just transition into new jobs that everyone wants but finds difficult to achieve.
"Greenies" support the project because ultimately it will result in drawing down carbon.
A viable business plan, based upon a social enterprise, not-for-profit model, is now complete. It was done with assistance from Everlast and Douglas Solar, two small companies who currently produce tanks and component parts.
Their support has been crucial. Their data has meant that our business plan is not based upon speculative facts but real information from daily business experience of many years.
Further, they will provide assistance with the training of our first workforce and the fit-out and finish of the first factory, Eureka's Future.
The private sector is not going to place manufacturing back at the heart of the Australian economy because they cannot get the return on their investment. But our social enterprises can manufacture, install and maintain the solar-powered water heaters.
In an economy that is 80% service sector — combined with carbon constraints on our resource base — we must find the way back to wealth-creating manufacturing jobs. It is critical not just for CFMEU members and their children, but for the nation.
This project offers one clear pathway towards that end.
We find out about federal funding in March, and if we are successful in getting that, we will move to set up the first social enterprise, Eureka's Future, by May-June 2010.
Leases, recruitment, training, purchase of equipment and factory fit-out should be completed in time to start production by January 2011.
This is a step beyond the status quo, where we only have the option of protest at what others may or may not be doing, into a future where we give shape to what must be done if jobs and the environment are to prosper.
The factory will produce all-stainless steel solar hot water units that are hotter and cheaper than solar hot water units currently on the market. The units will enable households to cut energy bills by 26%.
The project will provide permanent jobs in the coal areas of Gippsland, developing across Australia. As a social project, a percentage of profit will go towards community needs and all remaining profit will be ploughed back into further developing the enterprise.
[To find out more about this project, phone Dave on 03 5134 3311 or 0412 484 094.]