LABOR MARKET STUDY

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>

CLEANUP LABOR MARKET STUDY
The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and U.S. EPA 
have released a new report on the blue-collar cleanup workforce. "LABOR 
MARKET STUDY of Hazardous Waste Workers and Associated Emergency 
Responders" (September, 1996) was prepared by Ruth Ruttenberg and 
Associates. The main report is 76 pages long, followed by at least as 
many more pages of appendices and bibliography.
This report is based largely on a detailed review of certified payroll 
records at 17 hazardous waste cleanup sites, including the Sacramento 
Army Depot, several Energy Department facilities, and several civilian 
"Superfund" sites. These records, required to demonstrate compliance 
with the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law for federal construction work, 
document actual expenditures at these sites.
The chief findings of the report are:
* Approximately 3.5 million job years, in all fifty states, are 
associated with direct cleanup of the nation's hazardous waste sites. 
This represents 5.5 billion labor hours for on-site remedial action and 
associated operations and maintenance activities.
* The four major categories of workers at hazardous waste sites are 
construction, industrial, transportation, and emergency response.
* More than 60 percent of on-site remediation work (excluding 
operations & maintenance) is done by three crafts - equipment 
operators, laborers, and truck drivers. Eight crafts - operators, 
laborers, truck drivers, carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers 
and pipe fitters, and iron workers - account for 80 percent of the work.
* Average hourly earnings across 17 sites studied was $18.40.
* Typically 50-80 percent of payroll went to on-site workers who live 
within 25 miles of the site at which they work.
* In the period 1990-2000 alone, demand for remedial action workers is 
expected to grow by 60 percent. More and more hazardous waste workers 
are going to be needed, especially over the next fifteen years, to 
support scheduled cleanup activities.
* More employment episodes, perhaps three times as many, will occur for 
hazmat work as there are job years estimated, because of peak demands 
for workers through a remediation process.
 
Copies of the LABOR MARKET STUDY may be ordered from the NIEHS Worker 
Education and Training Program, Box 12233, Research Triangle Park, NC 
27709, or by sending E-mail to hughes3@niehs.nih.gov.