Jerome Ringo, President, Apollo Alliance

“The new color of urban renewal is green,” stated keynote speaker Jerome Ringo at a conference hosted by the New York City District Council of Carpenters and the Urban Agenda on Monday, February 2nd. Mr. Ringo, president of the national Apollo Alliance, shared his thoughts on the new green-collar jobs plan and on how the pending economic stimulus will affect workers and job-seekers in New York City. BALCONY, the Business and Labor Coalition of New York, has long backed the Apollo Alliance and the green programs that have emerged from the national energy self-sufficiency debate. “Green collar jobs are the new highway to middle class stability, just as unionized blue and white collar jobs were right after World War II,” said BALCONY director Lou Gordon.

Mr. Ringo, who worked in the Gulf Coast petrochemical industry for twenty years, primarily as a shop steward pressing issues of environmental justice and workplace safety, is the first African-American head of a national environmental organization. He told of attending various events during the Obama Inauguration, where he heard Obama’s loud and clear message, “Labor, Welcome back to Washington, D.C.”

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