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A new AFL-CIO Center for Green Jobs was opened on February 5, 2009 that will focus on assisting unions, their employers and other partners to create the environmentally sustainable economy of the future by stimulating the development of good green jobs and helping train the workforce those jobs require. United Steelworkers (USW) International President Leo W. Gerard joined AFL-CIO president John Sweeny along with other labor and environmental leaders at a morning news conference to announce the Center’s opening.

"This is a historic week,” said Gerard. “We have come together for the Blue Green Alliance conference and to announce the Center for Green Jobs. We have once and for all smashed the myth that you can't have both good jobs and a clean environment."

The Center represents a major commitment on the part of the AFL-CIO to help working Americans prepare for the next generation of jobs. It will start with a million dollar commitment from the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, the AFL-CIO’s workforce and economic development arm. More than two dozen union presidents and state and local leaders have committed to serve on the Center’s Leadership Council.  In addition, the Center for Green Jobs has formed a partnership with the National Labor College to develop a “green” certificate program for students of the College. 

“The launching of this Center couldn't be more timely, " said Gerard. “With the industrial economy and the financial economy is in a total and complete free fall, we are presented with a tremendous opportunity.”

The Center will work with affiliates of the AFL-CIO to help them pave the way to good union jobs in a variety of the country’s unionized and greening industries and integrate public and private resources to implement those programs. Already, the Center has partnered with the Building and Construction Trades Dept. in its efforts to engage construction unions at all levels in recruiting and training the “green workers” of tomorrow, working to align the hundreds of training programs of the building trades with green industry while creating new pathways to the middle class for workers in underserved communities, non-traditional workers, and communities of color.