Green Jobs & a Just Transition for Denver Workers

The Problem

The transition away from fossil fuels is no longer a question of “if.” It is happening on a fixed schedule. Colorado’s last scheduled coal generation, Comanche Unit 3 in Pueblo, is set to cease operations by January 1, 2031, with Units 1 and 2 already retired in 2022 and 2025 (Colorado Public Utilities Commission, 2025). The only open question is whether the workers and communities who powered Colorado for a century get carried through that transition, or get left behind by it.

Roughly 3,000 Coloradans meet the legal definition of a “coal transition worker,” including about 1,000 miners, nearly 800 utility workers, and more than 1,000 supply-chain workers, contractors, and rail and freight workers whose jobs depend on coal plants and mines that are closing this decade (Colorado Office of Just Transition, 2023). These are skilled, well-paid, often union jobs. The clean-energy economy that replaces them is growing fast: Colorado had nearly 64,000 clean energy jobs at the start of 2023, a sector expanding faster than the overall state economy (E2, 2023). But growth in the aggregate does not guarantee a job to the welder in Pueblo or the lineworker whose plant just closed.

This is the heart of the problem. A clean-energy boom that happens to working people instead of for them breeds exactly the backlash that stalls climate action. When fossil-fuel workers see only job loss on the horizon, they fight the transition, and they are right to, because nothing has been built to catch them.

Denver’s Specific Gap

Denver’s existing climate agenda (see Climate & Environmental Justice) is strong on emissions targets, renewable procurement, and building efficiency. It is thin on the workforce question: who does the work, under what wage standards, and who gets hired. Three gaps stand out:

• No coordinated training pipeline. Solar installation, building weatherization, heat-pump retrofits, EV-charger installation, and transit electrification all require trained workers. Denver has community colleges, union apprenticeships, and workforce boards, but no unified pathway that recruits displaced and underemployed workers and places them into clean-energy careers.
• No local-hire guarantee. Denver spends heavily on climate and infrastructure work through its Climate Protection Fund and federal dollars. Without local-hire requirements, those public dollars can flow to out-of-state contractors and itinerant crews, leaving Denver residents to watch their own tax money build someone else’s career.
• No floor on job quality. A “green job” installing panels for poverty wages with no benefits is not a just transition. Without prevailing-wage and labor standards attached to public spending, the clean-energy sector can become a low-wage sector.

Our Solution

Denver should treat the clean-energy transition as a workforce-development and labor-standards program, not just an emissions program. Four pillars:

1. A Denver Green Jobs Training & Retraining Fund

Establish a dedicated fund that pays for training and wraparound support for workers entering clean-energy trades, with explicit priority for:

• Displaced fossil-fuel workers (and their family members) from Colorado’s closing coal plants and mines, coordinated with the state Office of Just Transition.
• Workers in declining or hazardous trades seeking to move into solar, weatherization, HVAC/heat-pump, and grid work.
• Residents of frontline and historically excluded neighborhoods, including the Environmental Justice Zones identified in our climate platform (Globeville, Elyria-Swansea, Montbello, Sun Valley).

Crucially, “training” must include wraparound support: stipends so trainees can pay rent while they learn, child care, transportation, and tools. Colorado’s own Just Transition program recognized that retraining fails when workers cannot afford to attend it (Colorado Office of Just Transition, 2023).

2. Apprenticeships in Solar, Weatherization, and Transit

Build registered apprenticeship programs, in partnership with local unions, community colleges, and the building trades, in the specific occupations Denver’s climate plan creates demand for:

• Solar photovoltaic installation and operations and maintenance.
• Building weatherization, insulation, and electrification (heat pumps, induction, panel upgrades) for the retrofit work required by Denver’s building-performance ordinances.
• Transit and fleet electrification, including EV charging infrastructure and electric-bus maintenance.

Registered apprenticeships matter because they pair paid on-the-job work with classroom instruction and lead to recognized, portable credentials. They are how trades have built middle-class careers for a century, and federal data shows wind turbine service technicians and solar PV installers as the two fastest-growing occupations in the country through 2034 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). The demand is real; the pipeline is the missing piece.

3. Local-Hire Requirements on Publicly Funded Climate Projects

Attach community workforce agreements with local-hire targets to climate and infrastructure projects funded by the City, by the Climate Protection Fund, or by federal dollars Denver controls. Concretely:

• A meaningful share of total project labor hours reserved for Denver residents, with higher targets for residents of Environmental Justice Zones and graduates of the training programs above.
• Targeted-hire provisions for displaced fossil-fuel workers, women, workers of color, and returning citizens, who are systematically underrepresented in the trades.
• Reporting and enforcement so the targets are real, not aspirational.

Local hire keeps public investment circulating in Denver’s economy and ensures the residents who pay for climate work get to do it.

4. Prevailing Wage & Labor Standards

Require that work on publicly funded climate projects meet prevailing-wage standards and respect workers’ right to organize. A just transition is not just about job quantity; it is about job quality. Standards should include:

• Prevailing or area-standard wages so green jobs are family-sustaining jobs.
• Health and retirement benefits on larger projects.
• Project labor agreements or community workforce agreements on major public projects, ensuring labor peace, training pipelines, and accountability.
• Safety training and protections appropriate to electrical, rooftop, and high-voltage work.

These standards already attach to much federally funded infrastructure work under Davis-Bacon prevailing-wage rules; Denver should align its own climate spending with them and go further where it can.

Evidence

Colorado Built the Model: The Office of Just Transition

Colorado is one of the few states to have legislated a just transition. House Bill 19-1314 (2019) created the Office of Just Transition within the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, making an explicit “moral commitment” to coal workers and communities (Colorado General Assembly, 2019). HB22-1394 (2022) then funded the commitment, transferring $15 million to support coal-transition workers and communities, with two-thirds directed to direct worker assistance covering retraining, apprenticeships, child care, and housing support (Colorado General Assembly, 2022; Colorado Office of Just Transition, 2023).

The lesson from Colorado’s experience is twofold. First, planning ahead works: the state identified affected workers and communities before plants closed, rather than scrambling afterward. Second, money matters, and the state’s appropriation, while a real start, is modest against the scale of the transition. Denver, as the state’s largest city and economic engine, can complement the state office by funding the training-to-placement pipeline and attaching hiring and wage standards to its own climate spending.

Green Jobs Are Growing, and Need Workers

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects wind turbine service technicians (roughly 50% growth) and solar photovoltaic installers as the two fastest-growing occupations in the nation over the 2024-2034 decade (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Colorado is already a national leader, ranking among the top states for combined wind and solar jobs, with clean-energy employment growing faster than the overall economy (E2, 2023). The constraint on the transition is increasingly trained labor, not demand, which is exactly the gap a training-and-apprenticeship program fills.

Just Transition Where It Was Neglected

The cautionary cases are as instructive as the models. In coal regions across Appalachia and the American West, plant and mine closures without transition planning produced concentrated unemployment, population loss, and eroded public services, fueling deep political resistance to climate policy. The contrast with deliberately planned transitions, including Germany’s coordinated support for coal-region workers during its energy transition (referenced in our Climate & Environmental Justice platform), shows that the difference is policy and investment, not fate.

Local Context

Colorado’s coal fleet is closing on a hard schedule. Comanche Unit 1 in Pueblo retired in 2022, Unit 2 in 2025 (with a possible short extension), and Unit 3, the largest single generating unit in the state, is set to close by January 1, 2031, decades ahead of its original retirement date (Colorado Public Utilities Commission, 2025). The affected workforce is concentrated in counties like Pueblo, Morgan, Routt, and Moffat, but the ripple effects, on supply chains, rail, and the regional economy, reach Denver.

Denver is where much of the replacement economy will be built and managed: clean-energy firms, engineering and design work, retrofit contractors, transit operations, and the workforce institutions (community colleges, union halls, workforce boards) that train people for all of it. That gives Denver both a responsibility and an opportunity. The City already spends tens of millions annually through its voter-approved Climate Protection Fund (see Climate & Environmental Justice). Every dollar of that spending is also a workforce decision: it either builds careers for Denver residents under strong labor standards, or it does not.

Denver’s frontline neighborhoods, the same Globeville, Elyria-Swansea, Montbello, and Sun Valley communities that have borne the worst pollution, are also the communities most often shut out of good construction and trades careers. A just transition that targets training and hiring to these neighborhoods turns climate spending into a tool for racial and economic justice, not just emissions reduction.

Frequently Asked Questions

“Aren’t there already plenty of green jobs? Why does the city need to do anything?” Jobs existing in the aggregate does not mean they reach the people who need them. Colorado had nearly 64,000 clean-energy jobs in 2023 (E2, 2023), yet a laid-off coal worker in Pueblo or an unemployed resident of Montbello has no automatic path into one. The federal data shows the occupations are booming (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025); what is missing is a recruit-train-place-hire pipeline that intentionally moves displaced and excluded workers into them. That pipeline does not build itself.

“Won’t local-hire and prevailing-wage rules make climate projects more expensive?” Labor standards modestly raise direct labor costs, but they also raise productivity, reduce turnover and rework, improve safety, and keep public dollars circulating in the local economy through wages and taxes. More importantly, projects built by underpaid, untrained, transient crews carry their own costs in defects, accidents, and a low-wage local economy. Denver is choosing not whether to spend on climate work, but whether that spending builds a skilled, well-paid local workforce or undercuts one.

“What about coal workers who don’t live in Denver?” Denver cannot single-handedly solve a statewide transition, and the state Office of Just Transition exists for exactly that reason. But many displaced workers and their families relocate to the metro area for opportunity, and Denver’s training programs and clean-energy employers are a natural landing place. Denver’s role is to coordinate with the state office, open its training pipeline to coal-transition workers, and prioritize them in hiring on city projects.

“Is this just a giveaway to unions?” Registered apprenticeships and prevailing-wage standards are how the building trades have produced safe, skilled, middle-class careers for over a century, for union and non-union workers alike. The goal is not to benefit any single organization; it is to ensure that public money spent on the energy transition produces good jobs with real training and fair pay, rather than a race to the bottom.

“How is this different from the city’s existing climate plan?” The existing plan (see Climate & Environmental Justice) sets emissions targets and funds clean-energy procurement and building efficiency. This policy is the workforce and labor-standards layer underneath it: it answers who does the work, who gets trained, who gets hired, and at what wage. The two are complementary, and emissions goals are far more durable politically when the workers affected by the transition are partners in it rather than casualties of it.

How We Pay For It

A just transition is fundable largely by redirecting and conditioning money Denver and its partners already spend, rather than inventing a large new program:

• Condition existing climate spending. Denver’s voter-approved Climate Protection Fund already finances climate and clean-energy work. Attaching local-hire and prevailing-wage standards to that spending costs little and changes who benefits. A modest set-aside (for example, a single-digit percentage) can seed the training-and-apprenticeship fund.
• Leverage federal Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act dollars. Both laws carry substantial clean-energy, weatherization, transit, and EV-infrastructure funding, much of it with built-in prevailing-wage and apprenticeship bonus provisions. Denver should align its programs to capture these funds and meet the labor conditions that maximize them.
• Coordinate with the state Office of Just Transition. Rather than duplicating the state’s worker-assistance funding (HB19-1314; HB22-1394), Denver can braid its training pipeline and city-project hiring with state assistance dollars, extending their reach for workers who land in the metro area.
• Employer and utility partnerships. Clean-energy employers and the utility benefit directly from a trained local workforce. Cost-sharing for apprenticeships and on-the-job training, including through franchise-agreement negotiations with the electric utility (see Climate & Environmental Justice), can offset public costs.

Because the core mechanisms, local-hire requirements and labor standards, are conditions on spending Denver already does, the net new cost is concentrated in the training fund and program administration. The return is a Denver workforce that builds the clean-energy economy, paid wages that recirculate in the city, with displaced and excluded workers carried through the transition rather than left behind.

References

• Colorado General Assembly. (2019). House Bill 19-1314: Just transition from coal-based electrical energy economy. https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb19-1314
• Colorado General Assembly. (2022). House Bill 22-1394: Fund just transition community and worker supports. https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb22-1394
• Colorado Office of Just Transition. (2023). Coal transition worker update [Program report]. Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. https://cdle.colorado.gov/offices/the-office-of-just-transition
• Colorado Public Utilities Commission. (2025). Fact sheet: Comanche power plant unit 2 retirement extension. https://puc.colorado.gov
• E2. (2023). Clean jobs Colorado 2023. https://e2.org/reports/clean-jobs-colorado-2023/
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Employment of wind turbine service technicians expected to increase 49.9 percent by 2034 [The Economics Daily]. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2025/
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Fastest growing occupations [Occupational Outlook Handbook]. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm