Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be created in renewable energy manufacturing. Will these employment opportunities be “high-road,” decent-paying union jobs, or will employers take the “low road”—tapping into the desperation of unemployed workers who have already seen too much pain? The IBEW is not giving up on bringing organized labor’s opportunities to workers in the sector, despite a recent setback.

In early 2008, some workers at California-based Clipper Windpower’s two-year-old turbine assembly plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, reached out to the IBEW seeking representation. Cedar Rapids Local 204 Asistant Business Manager Matthew Fischer says job safety, training, respect on the job and the lack of a seniority system topped the list of worker concerns.

Experienced lathe operators and mechanics with 20 years in the industry— many in union shops—were placed on second and third shift, while young workers were assigned to daylight hours. Legitimate safety concerns were ignored by supervisors, some of whom had no previous experience in manufacturing.

Despite divisions in the work force, 70 percent of the bargaining unit signed authorization cards.

Brian Heins, lead organizer, learned quickly that IBEW had to proceed carefully in the campaign. Workers reported that the plant was in trouble due to substandard gears and other parts of the turbines that were manufactured elsewhere.

IBEW offered to help workers secure their jobs by organizing to gain them more input in company decisions. And Local 204, which includes a bargaining unit at Alliant Energy, offered to support Clipper in seeking orders and expertise from the utility.

Clipper Windpower rejected the IBEW’s offer. They hired a union-busting lawyer to hold captive audience meetings to discourage union support. Then, after workers’ homes faced widespread flooding from the Cedar River last June, the company provided them generators and power washers free of charge. The carrot and stick tactics broke the organizing campaign, but the company  continued to have trouble turning out windmills that could operate without constant maintenance problems.

A few weeks ago, Clipper Windpower put dozens of workers on the street—including almost all members of the volunteer organizing committee.

“If we could have worked with them and helped fix their problems, there might have been a better outcome,” says Fischer. “We know they have some smart workers, but instead of investing in them, they spent their money on a union-buster.” They are just one of the companies producing blades and parts that don’t want labor unions in this industry, says Fischer, who is continuing to pursue organizing leads at other “green” companies.

Unfortunately, the Cedar Rapids scenario is not an isolated one. In an article in The American Prospect, Philip Mattera says  many green energy manufacturers are receiving healthy subsidies from states and municipalities even while they lobby against reciprocal requirements that they maintain decent working conditions and wages.