Not-So-Great Green Jobs

摘要

Working as a construction supervisor one winter, Steven Morones would wake up at 4 a.m. and drive two hours to a Wisconsin cornfield. There, he and the rest of the nonunion crew spent their day assembling a sprawling network of steel I-beams for solar panels to be mounted on. Threading bolts while wearing thick gloves often proved impossible, and so when the temperature dropped as low as -13F, his bare hands would stiffen painfully. While his body battled the elements, Morones's mind was beset by a constant worry: that his $25 hourly wage just wasn't enough to pay his bills. "I was always stressed with the day-to-day," says the 30-year-old father of four. "I just couldn't focus on the future."