Work Fair

This is my pro­posal that I am try­ing to get off the ground, to some rather amaz­ing and appalling dis­crim­i­na­tory resis­tance at EVERY level of gov­ern­ment.  Which is appalling, con­sid­er­ing both the state of the econ­omy and the crappy job so far our national lead­ers have done to res­ur­rect it.

The two dri­vers at the heart of the pro­posal are also at the heart of the so-called “Green New Deal” if it is to effec­tively restruc­ture the Amer­i­can econ­omy and fun­da­men­tally strengthen our national secu­rity in the new sense of the term (i.e. the inte­gra­tion of national defense, energy and envi­ron­men­tal concerns).

I’m cur­rently look­ing for folks who want to join me in this effort, and col­lect­ing resumes, so get in touch.

Work Fair is at heart very simple.

The goal is to cre­ate a public/private part­ner­ship, piloted in New York, but it could be piloted in any of the Har­bor Cities (i.e. Newark)  but with a goal of being rolled out nationally. 

It is the inte­gra­tion of the green­ing of hous­ing and trans­porta­tion in the new econ­omy that speeds up the tran­si­tion into the new clean­tech econ­omy and incor­po­rates dis­as­ter relief plan­ning into both every­day life and busi­ness struc­ture.  A trig­ger effect, essentially.

Even if it’s incre­men­tal. Or even if it means pro­mot­ing other com­pa­nies who’s prod­ucts we sup­port, and build­ing a Work Fair net­work that might pro­vide green jobs but in a dif­fer­ent way, but we can cer­tainly encour­age our res­i­dents to par­tic­i­pate in such pro­grams as a way of both improv­ing skills and help­ing them on the way to eco­nomic self suf­fi­ciency. That is what “com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing” is all about. And a cor­po­rate mis­sion cen­tral to Work Fair.

One way to think about Work Fair from the 50,000 foot level, or the Hol­ly­wood Pitch, if you pre­fer, is the brand­ing and trig­ger­ing of the par­a­digm shift that our econ­omy must make to recover and sur­vive to a car­bon free, envi­ron­men­tally friendly, Clean Tech based one, along with pro­vid­ing tools for EVERYONE to make it eas­ier for the aver­age per­son to under­stand why it is so essen­tial that we lit­er­ally re-invent our indus­trial base, refo­cus finan­cial pri­or­i­ties and make the essen­tial changes we must under­take to make Amer­ica com­pet­i­tive again.  And give you the knowl­edge and tools on how to do it on a bud­get. Which is really the government’s job. But they are either cash­ing in for them­selves, deluded, or asleep at the switch.

Another way to think about this is an avenue to help them do it. While most peo­ple in this coun­try, not to men­tion folks from other coun­tries, think New York is the cat’s meow, and some­thing like this is the per­fect place to do a pilot in a global fish­bowl where the whole world watches.

You don’t think a project like this will even increase the tourism busi­ness? Mr. Bloomberg.…that means YOU.

the fact is that thanks to hor­rific man­age­ment, even less invest­ment in infra­struc­ture and a highly undi­ver­si­fied econ­omy, in the face of say a Kat­rina gone North, the Big Apple, unless steps are taken to pre­vent it, will look some­thing like this.….

And we’re not the only place in the coun­try that needs these kinds of things.

Thus was born Work Fair.

The goals of the project are:

• To use New York or another urban cen­ter in need of urban renewal as a pilot to align the green­ing of the hous­ing and trans­porta­tion indus­tries, a model which can be imple­mented statewide and rolled out nation­ally to help shape our alter­na­tive national energy pol­icy and rebuild our man­u­fac­tur­ing base.
• Cre­ate good pay­ing, non-financial based green jobs not only in the city but the state, and really spread the wealth around.
• To cre­ate a model for sus­tain­able eco­nomic and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment and rede­vel­op­ment of low income hous­ing and areas, both rural and inner city com­mu­ni­ties, that could be repli­cated else­where (both pub­lic housing/land and the pri­vate sector).
• To strengthen the pro­tec­tion of pub­lic land, pro­mote effi­cient use and good hus­bandry, and at the same time, expand the abil­ity of Amer­i­cans to both use our shared nat­ural her­itage and cap­i­tal­ize from that access (includ­ing monetarily).
• To help shape national energy policy.
• Cre­ate addi­tional rev­enue streams for the car­bon auc­tions for cap and trade credit income for the state(s), and even for tax­pay­ers, and democ­ra­tize the process.
• Cre­ate a retail mar­ket for “green mort­gages.”  These finan­cial vehi­cles, already avail­able through Fan­nie, Fred­die, the FHA and the VA for both home energy effi­ciency refi’s and new green home pur­chases can help detoxify/ameliorate the mortgage/banking cri­sis.  Just green­ing a home increases its value by 15% (accord­ing to HUD) even with­out out the income received by pas­sive energy fed back into a grid from a solar roof or other clean­tech energy pos­i­tive retrofit. Not only will this help peo­ple save money, keep their homes, but also help detox­ify the “bad bank” Wall Street assets that tax­pay­ers are foot­ing the bill for right now.  The bailout bill con­tains mul­ti­ple tax breaks for home­own­ers to do this as does NYSERDA here in New York.  It will also help set guide­lines on TARP.
• To set strict guide­lines for how pri­vate energy com­pa­nies can extract energy from pub­lic resources.
• To cre­ate an eco­nomic model for solar and alter­na­tive energy pric­ing con­sis­tent with merg­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and energy pol­icy, reg­u­la­tion, infra­struc­ture and tech­nol­ogy in a com­pet­i­tive global market.
• To cre­ate vital ele­ments of the National Green Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment sys­tem. The Staten Island Ferry will become the first ever recharge­able float­ing bat­tery, and a vital part of Har­bor emer­gency response.
• Pro­mote and sup­port a local, organic food sup­ply and dis­tri­b­u­tion system
• “Green” the Green busi­ness.  Unfor­tu­nately it appears that online con­tract­ing with the gov­ern­ment for green busi­ness needs a good debug­ging.  To say the least.  There are far too few gov­ern­ment sites with links that con­sis­tently work, with con­tact infor­ma­tion to gov­ern­ment offi­cials that are actu­ally accu­rate.  On the ven­dor pro­cure­ment side of things, it is a mess, and I am sorry to say that I’m not sure that this was acci­den­tal.  Delib­er­ately bro­ken or fake links for those not in the “know” are the norm for some sites, includ­ing for some fed­eral and state agen­cies’ pro­cure­ment and FOIA pages.
• Set real stan­dards to end “green­wash­ing” in the con­struc­tion and hous­ing busi­ness.  Not to men­tion gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment dol­lars for “clean­tech” going to envi­ron­men­tally destruc­tive projects.  Or ven­dors with envi­ron­men­tally destruc­tive track records.
• Pro­mote a healthy, com­pet­i­tive, alter­na­tive energy mar­ket nationally
• Pro­mote a healthy, com­pet­i­tive “green build­ing” industry
• Pro­vide guid­ance for the green­ing of build­ing code reform
• Pro­mote the green­ing and eco­nomic devel­op­ment of Staten Island and other Har­bor Islands
• Sup­port women, minor­ity and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties busi­ness own­ers in green and par­tic­u­larly higher pay­ing clean­tech indus­tries.  This means strong set aside, train­ing and loan pro­grams.  It also means higher set asides than 4% of total con­tract value (as was the case in the first Plan­NYC RFP to install solar cells on the roof tops of city build­ings in April 2008).
• Cre­ate com­pe­ti­tion in the green/clean tech space, par­tic­u­larly in the IT arena, util­i­ties and big busi­ness of all kinds who are get­ting the bulk of the bailout.  Google should not get all the government’s busi­ness in either IT or alt energy busi­ness.  Nor should GE.  That’s called trickle down eco­nom­ics.  Added to TARP, Sum­mers’ eco­nomic poli­cies have just cre­ated the largest trans­fer of tax­payer wealth to the rich­est one per­cent in Amer­ica.  Sup­pos­edly the oppo­site finan­cial solu­tion that Obama ran on but is cre­at­ing with his poli­cies.  Start­ing with TARP and the makeup of his advi­sory boards.  And his already dis­turb­ing trend to object to his abil­ity to cre­ate monop­o­lies in secret as his increas­ing bat­tles with both the IG of TARP and the anti monop­oly head at the Jus­tice Depart­ment clearly demon­strate.  Not to men­tion a dis­turb­ing lack of Pres­i­den­tial or agency transparency.
• Cre­ate the pos­si­bil­ity that New York, per­haps in coali­tion with New Jer­sey could take the lead over Cal­i­for­nia in set­ting the national stan­dards for Clean Tech inno­va­tion nation­wide (and attract­ing asso­ci­ated pri­vate capital).
• Con­tinue to pro­mote New York/New Jer­sey as a cen­ter for inter­na­tional trade, thus also strength­en­ing for­eign invest­ment and Amer­i­can stand­ing over­seas (as well as open­ing for­eign mar­kets to refur­bished Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tured clean­tech prod­ucts, par­tic­u­larly in Latin America). Many of the tech part­ners I have been talk­ing to are inter­na­tional.  Work Fair envi­sions using for­eign made com­po­nents as well as entire sys­tems and tech­nolo­gies together with Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ers in its plans.
• Fund green emer­gency plan­ning and train­ing in envi­ron­men­tally vul­ner­a­ble areas.  There is no green sup­ply chain or emer­gency escape route in New York (even eight years after 9/11).  There must be some seri­ous dis­cus­sion of fed­er­ally backed emer­gency fund­ing of solar or other alter­na­tive green power backup and water instal­la­tions on every rooftop south of 14^th Street in Man­hat­tan, cer­tain parts of Brook­lyn, Queens, New Jer­sey and all the islands in the Har­bor.  If New York becomes New Orleans, the sit­u­a­tion, as is, will be cat­a­strophic, not only for the city’s res­i­dents, but for the nation’s econ­omy.  If the cur­rent Wall Street cri­sis is daunt­ing, imag­ine Wall Street cum Atlantis.  The first RFP issued by Plan­NYC had no FEMA regs or require­ments included within it.



• Cre­ate a com­pre­hen­sive approach inte­grated through sev­eral core fed­eral agen­cies (that will hope­fully fil­ter down through the state and city lev­els), on how envi­ron­men­tal impact stud­ies are con­ducted and applied, both in urban and rural areas.  Plan­NYC, for exam­ple, left out a whole area of the city (the Lower East Side) in its EIS data when cre­at­ing the Mayor’s city green­ing plan and long term pol­lu­tion reduc­tion goals.  The result is the com­plete destruc­tion of the Lower East Side, and such bril­liant pub­lic pol­icy rec­om­men­da­tions (writ­ten into the draft Zon­ing Report in the sum­mer of 2008) of clos­ing down bicy­cle repair shops (essen­tial green busi­nesses) along a key bicy­cle com­muter path between Brook­lyn and down­town Man­hat­tan because they were ‘unsightly.’
• Lower the costs of the wel­fare state on sev­eral lev­els, from the main­te­nance of pub­lic hous­ing to wel­fare infra­struc­ture which is hope­lessly cor­rupt, bureau­cratic, and dis­con­nected from real reform and mov­ing peo­ple out of poverty into job train­ing, fur­ther for­mal edu­ca­tion, and well pay­ing jobs and home own­er­ship.  It is so bad now, with no call for real reform, that fed­eral bailout money in New York City is going to sup­port the city’s wel­fare pro­gram, that is so appallingly abu­sive, it is cur­rently being sued by at least three class actions that I know they will win (because I have enough evi­dence alone to sup­port them).
• Democ­ra­tize cap and trade so small busi­nesses and even indi­vid­u­als can par­tic­i­pate in the auc­tions.  Wall Street doesn’t get two go rounds in the piggy trough on the taxpayer’s dime, and with more to sell, there’s less room to spec­u­late and more pres­sure to push pol­luters to comply.
• Help peo­ple save their houses by both increas­ing home value (a greened home increases in value by 15% accord­ing to HUD, even with­out an energy pos­i­tive home.  With one, it means you’ve got pas­sive income to help pay your mortgage. And no energy bills at all.
• Cre­ate real “smart” grids such as the green­ing of the Staten Island Ferry, which will also serve as both eco­nomic devel­op­ment routes and dis­as­ter relief/BCP back­ups for the region
• Inte­grate the 20% of the pop­u­la­tion with dis­abil­i­ties into the work­force and in good pay­ing jobs through the use of adap­tive tech­nol­ogy which is abun­dant in the clean­tech sec­tor (this pop­u­la­tion is cur­rently 90% unem­ployed mostly due to dis­crim­i­na­tion) and states all over the coun­try are dras­ti­cally cut­ting state expenses on enti­tle­ments.  Which is a disaster. 

  And actu­ally costs the state more in the long run.  Our focus is also on women and the tra­di­tion­ally excluded classes, such as minori­ties, from real clean­tech dol­lars, which are now all going to men and the already rich.  If we are going to spread the wealth around, despite Mr. Summer’s views on women’s apti­tude in sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy, I sug­gest the gov­ern­ment either muz­zle him, or fire him. 

  Par­tic­u­larly given the President’s appar­ent views on dis­crim­i­na­tion, as he expressed so vehe­mently about his friend the black pro­fes­sor at Har­vard. Or is that out­rage only lim­ited to dis­crim­i­na­tion shown to African Amer­i­can tenured pro­fes­sors from the Obama’s for­mer law school?  I don’t see the Pres­i­dent chastis­ing his buddy Duval Patrick, who was equally “out­raged” by the Har­vard inci­dent, but who asked if all bailout fund­ing in Mass­a­chu­setts be exempt from fed­eral dis­abil­ity statute com­pli­ance.  Both the Rehab Act and the ADA.  That’s far more dis­gust­ing and prej­u­di­cial.  Not to men­tion ille­gal, as the Jus­tice Depart­ment thank­fully pointed out. 

  Obama didn’t say a thing. 

  Nei­ther has he chas­tised Fenty in DC for cut­ting back on pro­grams for the poor and the sick, includ­ing such things as nee­dle exchange pro­grams, in the mid­dle of a crys­tal meth epi­demic, an AIDS pan­demic that affects mostly, even in this coun­try, het­ero­sex­ual minori­ties, and a Hepati­tis C prob­lem that’s about to become a national health issue.  Not to men­tion Con­gress even con­sid­er­ing remov­ing neu­ro­log­i­cal care from Med­ic­aid and Medicare, which amounts to geno­cide for any­one with a neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tion.  Which cov­ers dis­eases from even dia­betes, although we don’t treat it that way yet, to epilepsy, mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis, autism, dys­to­nia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s,  tumors, and of course TBI, the so called “sig­na­ture wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”  Which Con­gress and the Pres­i­dent bear direct respon­si­bil­ity for dou­bling the num­ber of cases of Amer­i­cans who have such con­di­tions.  With no pro­gram, except mine, accord­ing to the TBI Cen­ters for Excel­lence, the ONLY pro­gram in the coun­try to deal exclu­sively with the issue, located out of DOD, told me personally.

• Cre­at­ing extra “add ons” such as schol­ar­ships, train­ing pro­grams, entre­pre­neur­ial star­tups on site, net meter­ing stan­dard­iza­tion, crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture (such as green sup­ply chain man­age­ment, local food sup­ply, water recy­cling, alt fuel infra­struc­ture) etc.
• Help­ing peo­ple cre­ate pas­sive income from pri­vate property
• Jump­start the econ­omy.  The White House isn’t doing it.  Two years of a job­less recov­ery isn’t “suc­cess.”  Nei­ther is close to a mil­lion home fore­clo­sures.  And ten mil­lion pre­dicted for next year.  And that is as of now.  With a snow­ball effect expected to gather steam from con­tin­ued job losses and com­mer­cial defaults.  And bailout funds are already going to some of the worst and most cor­rupt pro­grams and ven­dors in the coun­try.  Not to men­tion the real cost of bail­ing out the banks, which the White House and the Fed are quickly try­ing to cover up, by putting the work of the inde­pen­dent IG, which puts the num­ber to bail out the banks at around $23 TRILLION, if cur­rent poli­cies con­tinue to be fol­lowed.  Thanks to cur­rent poli­cies, the wealth in this coun­try is being even more con­cen­trated, not spread around, and merely extends the mis­takes of the past. 

  Work Fair does exactly the opposite.

• Make gov­ern­ment more account­able.  That includes the Pres­i­dent and Congress.
• Jump­start the par­a­digm shift to a new eco­nom­i­cally and envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able economy.
• Democ­ra­tize and keep an open web, while secur­ing a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tem and energy sup­ply that does not need to be put under the con­trol of the national secu­rity com­plex, large cor­po­ra­tions and monop­o­lies, util­ity com­pa­nies, GE, Telco com­pa­nies, and Google.  While our plan cer­tainly incor­po­rates them, it doesn’t shut them out, like the cur­rently poli­cies and deals cur­rently being cut in DC back rooms, cut out the rest of America.

We’re open to ideas, and com­ing soon, we’ll even have a recruit­ing and job board, for both Work Fair and Green jobs. But what we’ll also start doing is hold­ing con­fer­ence calls with folks nation­ally, who want to par­tic­i­pate in this project to get it off the ground. Using tech­nol­ogy and com­pa­nies like the one adver­tised below. We are build­ing a com­mu­nity, and not one with shut­tered gates. We are open, inclu­sive, and we don’t give a flip­ping rat’s ass if you went to Har­vard or Podunk U. If you’re smart, cre­ative and com­mit­ted to our mis­sion and goals, and will­ing to work hard to achieve them, WE WANT YOU. As my late uncle, the Father of Man­age­ment once said, a company’s most valu­able assets are its people.

We think so too.

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