These key terms can help you start the conversations you want to have about good green jobs, and find meaningful common ground with others who share that goal. Write to us and let us know if we’ve missed an important one.
13th Amendment
This Amendment made holding people as slaves illegal, while simultaneously ratifying prison labor in the U.S. It reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Automation
Automation, robots, artificial intelligence are taking over 47% of workers’ traditional tasks. 50% is the share of activities workers are currently paid to do that can be automated using existing technologies. Opinions about automation are mixed: people are more worried than optimistic about automation, and most believe that individuals and public schools are responsible for keeping workers employed/employable in the machine age. Statistics compiled in this report by Pew, but more are in the Lit Review.
Basic Needs
This term refers to the bottom two Pyramid layers of Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs.
Buy America
Buy America is a standard used by the Federal Transit Administration, specifying that all manufactured goods used in a project are produced in the United States.
Buy Clean
Buy Clean is a movement of non-profit organizations, private companies, and public officials working to end the consumption of high-carbon products – and close the carbon loophole. This is a term that could become a purchasing standard, criterion or certification requirement in the procurement chain, like Buy America.
Carceral State
This term captures how the U.S. governmental institutions rely on and profit by criminalizing personhood and poverty, and suggests why economic downturns don’t threaten budgets for police, prisons, immigration control and the military. In 2018 on an academic panel “What is the Carceral State?” Ruby Tapia offered the following definition: “The carceral state encompasses the formal institutions and operations and economies of the criminal justice system proper, but it also encompasses logics, ideologies, practices, and structures, that invest in tangible and sometimes intangible ways in punitive orientations to difference, to poverty, to struggles to social justice and to the crossers of constructed borders of all kinds.”
Community Benefits Agreement
A Community Benefits Agreement or “CBA” is a contract signed by community groups and a real estate developer that requires the developer to provide specific amenities and/or mitigations to the local community or neighborhood. Often a part of an Equitable Development Implementation Plan Example - Atlanta Beltline, 2005 $2 bill/20 yrs includes 15% net proceeds to affordable housing, setting up housing trust, and including prevailing wages for workers, first source hiring, and apprenticeship program.
DeGrowth
Is a term used for both a political, economic, and social movement as well as a proposal to reverse the paradigm of economic growth. “Funding for maintenance” is a separate, but useful approach that also challenges economic growth, but which may be more palatable to a wider audience.
Direct, Indirect and Induced Jobs
Direct jobs are positions created directly by the new commercial enterprise (NCE), either through construction (if the construction lasts two or more years) or through operation of the business. These jobs can be counted easily because they are actual positions filled by actual people. Indirect jobs are those created as a result of the NCE’s spending on goods and services, and induced jobs are created by the spending of the NCE’s employees within the region. Indirect and induced jobs are calculated using economic models.
Domestic Work
Domestic work is a labor category tht is challenged by lack of protections and recognition, Nationally and Internationally. Most domestic work is performed by women. This work remains unprotected by NLRA. The exclusion of Farm work and Domestic Care work in several New Deal-era protective laws is attributed to institutional racism. Legal scholars and historians have found that legislators made this concession to southern Democrats, who wanted to preserve Jim Crow structures to retain low wage domestic and farm work for White exploitation of Black workers. The same phrase “agricultural and domestic workers” appears in parallel New Deal-era laws that benifitted most workers, such as Social Security. The impacts of these exclusions remain racist and harmful to this day, as forced labor still occurs in these areas, and work is disproportionately perfomed by Latinos.
Economic Abundance Theory
This concept is based by a book by Wolfgang Hoeschele: The Economics of Abundance: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity, and Sustainability.
Employee/Worker Ownership
Employee ownership has attracted growing attention for its potential to improve economic outcomes for companies, workers, and the economy in general, and help reduce inequality. Over 100 studies across many countries indicate that employee ownership is generally linked to better productivity, pay, job stability, and firm survival—though the effects are dispersed and causation is difficult to firmly establish.
Employment Third Preference (E3): Skilled Workers, Professionals, and Unskilled Workers (Other Workers)
U.S Immigration law defines immigration categories based on concepts of “extraordinariness” (E1), “exceptionalism” (E2) and Skilled / Professional and Unskilled workers (E3). These E3 definitions hinge on number of years of training and post-bacchalaureate degrees, which in turn place burden on the prospective immigrant to demonstrate qualification equivalency. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and Department of Labor can challenge qualification equivalency during the I-140 petition process (PERM process for Permanent US residency), without necessarily having legal precedent or guidance from case law to inform challenges. Skilled workers are persons whose jobs require a minimum of 2 years training or work experience that are not temporary or seasonal. Professionals are members of the professions whose jobs require at least a baccalaureate degree from a U.S. university or college or its foreign equivalent degree. Unskilled workers (Other workers) are persons capable of filling positions that require less than two years training or experience that are not temporary or seasonal. Landscape architects should pay particular attention to the concept of seasonal work, which is often dependent on land and climate, and the way it is structured as a category that makes workers vulnerable, and robs them of work protections.
Endowed Maintenance
Endowing maintenance as part of a capital campaign is common practice in higher educational institutions.
Equitable Development Plan
Goals and implementation strategies to achieve an equitable economy. These can include a Community Benefits Agreement. e.g. 11st St Bridge Park.
Equitable Economy
Equitable economic development unlocks the full potential of the local economy by dismantling barriers and expanding opportunities for low- income people and communities of color. Through accountable public action and investment, it grows quality jobs and increases entrepreneurship, ownership, and wealth.
Essential Work (2020)
In 2020 the CDC, Federal guidelines and most states borrowed a definition of essential workers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA):“Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response.” This list maps the CISA guidance to standardized industry codes and titles for ease of use. Economic Policy Insight has reported on how many of these workers were inadequately protected and unable to meet their basic needs while providing services that kept society intact during a prolonged crisis. The Center for American Progress reported on the key role immigrants played in providing essential services during the pandemic.
Farm Work
Farm work is a labor category that is challenged by lack of protections and recognition, Nationally and Internationally. Nationally, this category of work remains unprotected by NLRA. The exclusion of Farm work and Domestic Care work in several New Deal-era protective laws is attributed to institutional racism. Legal scholars and historians have found that legislators made this concession to southern Democrats, who wanted to preserve Jim Crow structures to retain low wage domestic and farm work for White exploitation of Black workers. The same phrase “agricultural and domestic workers” appears in parallel New Deal-era laws that benifitted most, such as Social Security.The impacts of these exclusions remain racist and harmful to this day, as forced labor still occurs in these areas, and work is disproportionately perfomed by Latinos. The American Jobs Plan directly addresses the need for Domestic Care work to be protected, but isn’t explicit about farm work.
Fight for 15
The Fight for $15 is an American political movement advocating for the minimum wage to be raised to $15. However, in 2014 it expanded internationally when strikes took place in 230 cities as workers demanded a $15 minimum wage and the right to unionize without fear of retaliation.
First Source Hiring / Referral / Agreements
Agreements in which hiring priority is given to a specified group or defined population who qualifies under a variety of criteria aimed at equitable hiring, e.g. candidates who live within 5 zip codes of the job site and are currently living below poverty threshold. Often stipulated by municipal contracts as mandated by policies 2 Examples 1) 11st St Bridge Park partnering with Skyland Workforce Center 2) LA County example for capital projects >$500k, requires 10% Targeted Workers.
Green Bonds
From Investopedia: “A green bond is a type of fixed-income instrument that is specifically earmarked to raise money for climate and environmental projects. These bonds are typically asset-linked and backed by the issuing entity’s balance sheet, so they usually carry the same credit rating as their issuers’ other debt obligations. .. Green bonds are also referred to as climate bonds... Green bonds typically come with tax incentives to enhance their attractiveness to investors. The World Bank issued the first official green bond in 2009. Around $157 billion worth of green bonds were issued in 2019.”
H-2A Visas
The H-2A agricultural work program allows U.S. employers or agents to bring on foreign workers to fulfil temporary agricultural tasks. In April 2020 the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante released its findings from in-depth interviews of 100 H-2A workers and reported the following: “Interviewees reported discrimination, sexual harassment, wage theft, and health and safety violations by their employers — and a chilling lack of recourse. The report also documents how the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the existing systemic inequities in the program, stranding workers in Mexico and endangering them on the job.” Long criticized, the H-2A program is rife with abuse. The Department of Labor dictates wage minimums for H-2A workers through rates called “Adverse Effect Wage Rates”. These vary by state, and the lowest is $11.81/hr - rates below $12/hr are restricted to the Delta and Southeast regions. California’s AEWR is $16.05/hr.
H-2B Visas
The H-2B nonimmigrant program permits employers to temporarily hire nonimmigrants to perform nonagricultural labor or services in the United States.The employment must be of a temporary nature for a limited period of time such as a one-time occurrence, seasonal need, peakload need or intermittent need. Minimum worker pay under these visa arrangements is Nationally regulated, but varies by state, and is always higher than minimum wage. On average, this work pays 60% more than minimum wage. Nationally, the landscaping industry is the largest user of H-2B visas. BrightView Landscaping is the single larges user of this visa program in the U.S.
Housing Wage
This term refers to the hourly wage needed to afford market rate housing. The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s has created this metric to illustrate how suppressed wages contribute to a housing access crisis.
Jim Crow
Jim Crow is a term that refers to a racist network of State and local laws enacted throughout the U.S. South in the later 19th century and early 20th century. The concept is itself named for a racist theater character popularized in the 19th century. Since the early 20th century, several discriminatory systems have extended racist social impacts beyond Southern localities and into National structures. For example, Michelle Alexander identifies mass incarceration of Black people as an updated form of Jim Crow in her book, The New Jim Crow.
“Just-in-Time” Scheduling
This phrase describes a chaotic scheduling style that has become popular within corporate workplaces, and against which American workers are not currently protected. The 2014 death of Maria Fernadez is attributed to an accident associated with this inhumane style of work scheduling.
Job Polarization
This term describes how job earnings have stratified over time, enlarging well paid and underpaid groups.
Labor Union
An organized association of workers, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.
Living Wage Clause
A contract clause stipulating that the chosen service providers guarantee a Living Wage to their workers, for the duration of the contract.
National Labor Relations Act
Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) in 1935 to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy. However, crucial work sectors remain unprotected. “Excluded from coverage under the NLRA are public-sector employees, agricultural and domestic workers, independent contractors, workers employed by a parent or spouse”.
Nature Based Solutions (NBS)
NBS is an evaluation and decision-making framework to solve environmental and social problems in a holistic way. The European Commission (EC), which is the executive branch of the European Union, provides the following definition: “Solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions.” The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines NBS as actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits,[19] with climate change, food security, disaster risks, water security, social and economic development as well as human health being the common societal challenges.
Paid Participation
Paid participation for human subjects is commonplace in academic, medical and market research. Paid participarticipation may also be the simplest way to bring fair compensation into the early stages of a project.
Placekeeping
Planners Roberto Bedoya and Jeremy Liu are contemporary leaders in theories of placekeeping as a more effective approach to community development. In the Green New Deal Superstudio kickoff webinar, Kristina Hill said: “Placemaking has been a common term in design but it’s offensive to communities right now: the idea that we would come in and make them something. They want to keep their place because they’re being dis-placed by the way that urban land values have changed”
Post Fordism
Is the dominant system of economic production, consumption, and associated socio-economic phenomena in most industrialized countries since the late 20th century. It is contrasted with Fordism, the system formulated in Henry Ford’s automotive factories, in which workers work on a production line, performing specialized tasks repetitively, and organized through Taylorist scientific management... Changes in the nature of the workforce include the growth of labor processes and workflows relying on information and communication technologies and digital labor.
Poverty
A measure of the population without access to resources to meet basic needs. The U.S. Federal Poverty metric is 50 years old, its inputs obsolete, and is innacurate in a way that likely obscures the magnitude of poverty in the U.S.
(Davis-Bacon) Prevailaing Wage
In government contracting, a prevailing wage is defined as the hourly wage, usual benefits and overtime, paid to the majority of workers, laborers, and mechanics within a particular area. It is usually the union wage.
Prison Labor
Prison labor is legal in the U.S. under the 13th amendment of the Consitution. However, prison labor violates protections against forced labor under International Human Rights Law. In 2015, the estimated value of prison-made goods was more than $2 billion.
Protected Labor
Most labor, public safety laws and many environmental laws mandate whistleblower protections for employees who complain about violations of the law by their employers. Remedies can include job reinstatement and payment of back wages. OSHA enforces the whistleblower protections in most laws.
Public Sector Employees
Despite explicit exclusion in the NLRA, public sector employees have made organizing progress that began in the 1950s in New York. Gains have been made on a state-by state basis and collective bargaining is now permitted in three fourths of U.S. states. By the 1960s and 1970s public-sector unions expanded rapidly to cover teachers, clerks, firemen, police, prison guards and others. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10988, upgrading the status of unions of federal workers.
Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative Agriculture is a term used by the THRIVE coalition in language associated with its proposed bill (H.Res.1102). Regenerative Agriculture aims to balance the need for food commodity production with needs for land management and worker needs. It is also one of the mechanisms to enhance the reach of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS).
Remediation
This term can be used to describe both ecological/environmental repairs, and interrelational repairs. Labor advocates use the term in reference to fixing human rights or worker’s rights problems detected by assessment programs, labor watchdog, government entity, or other inspectors. It is frequently used in reference to removing child labor from international supply chains, such as those that produce chocolate.
Sherman Antitrust Act
In 1890 this legislation made many labor union activities illegal. It’s anti-union impacts were ammended by subsequent legislation to allow some activities.
Skilled Labor, Unskilled Labor, Semiskilled Labor
These terms are frequently used alongside information about what pay levels are standard for various kinds of work. Frequently they seem to justify unacceptably low pay or unprotected working conditions. Supplemental training is often referenced in association with skilled labor, and lack of formal training is often associated with unskilled labor. However, there are no reliable definitions for these terms, and while they sound static, these very definitions have shifted in response to societal and technological changes in the last century and are presently in the process of shifting. For example, despite requiring formal training the field of Law might be one of the first to be thoroughly transformed by automation and artificial intelligence. Conversely, Japan has recently reconfigured its immigration policy to recruit farmers and domestic care workers as skilled laborers. These terms should be avoided in constructive discussions about work, and should be challenged when they arise, due to their tendency to devalue work and arbitrarily dehumanize or valorize different workers.
SMEs / Small Businesses
Small businesses create most new jobs in the U.S.
Targeted Hiring / Requirements
Job recruitment is focused on a specified group or defined population, e.g. from a pool of individuals trained to maintain green stormwater infrastructure.
Often stipulated by municipal contracts as mandated by policies. Example 1) LA County example for capital projects >$500k, requires 30% Local Workers residing near a job site.
True Unemployment
A measure of unemployed, working-aged people that attempts to correct for significant flaws in the BLS metric.
Unemployment
A measure of unemployed, working-aged people, provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS uses obsolete inputs for its metric, which make it inaccurately skewed toward lowere rates of unemployment.
US Domestic Human Rights Violations
Are tracked by Human Rights Watch and other international organizations, including the UN.
Vagrancy Laws
For centuries in European countries and the U.S., vagrancy laws made it illegal to BE certain kinds of people, without clear & consistent incrimination of ACTIONS. For decades after the Civil War, vagrancy laws were a core strategy of the “Black Codes”. The Black Codes were poorly-defined laws that enabled Southern States to incarcerate large numbers of Black people for normal behavior. This allowed Southern states to pack prisons with freed Black people, and profit from their unpaid labor by leasing convict work gangs. As a result, Southern states were able to to restore some of the monetary benefits of slavery. A court case from the 1970’s made it illegal to punish vagrancy as a crime. However, since the 70’s vagrancy laws have been reclassified as misdemeanors, defined as Disorterly Conduct. For example, loitering, failure to disperse upon offical order, obstructing public passages, prowling at nightime & public indecency are all criminally actionable.
Wage Floor
Wage floor is the level below which wages are not allowed to fall from a legal standpoint. In other words, it is the minimum wage established either by law or by an agreed-upon wage bracket.
Work requirements are part of many social safety net programs, even in the absence of any evidence that minimum-wage work can lift a person or family our of poverty.
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