Beyond Zero speaks with Dave Kerin Project Officer from Eureka's Future about solar hot water

Dave talks about the Eureka's Future solar hot water manufacturing co-operative. He discusses the difficulties that unestablished transition projects have in meeting current government funding criteria and explains his longer term plans to have similar renewables manufacturing factories rolled out in all Australian coal regions.

BZE speaks to Dave Kerin

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Transcript

Vivian Langford: Are you there Dave?

Dave Kerin: Yes I am

Vivian Langford: Thank you for talking to us on the Beyond Zero show. Could you tell us a little bit about you Eureka future co-operative, how you've launched a co-op and it not a company, could you tell us why you did a co-op?

Dave Kerin: Sure we've chosen a cooperative structure for a number of reasons not the lest of which is that private capital is telling us to invest in manufacturing and make a profit is not possible for them, government won't do it either, they are not going to re-employ and they certainly aren't going to reemploy in manufacturing. We know from experience that if you are going to build jobs in places like the La Trobe Valley or the Hunter or Collie or any of the coal regions, they've got to be those middle ranking, middle ranking earning jobs and especially around manufacture you can build on the existing skill base, so manufacturing renewables is obviously the way to go, that is going to be the growth corridor in the world economy, let alone Australia.

So we are looking at through Eurekas Future workers co-operative manufacturing, solar hot water units. It's the current, ever last solar hot water configuration, though there are two small private sector partners, They will assist us, not only with the product but training the work force and the fit out and finish of the factory. So our problem is raising the money to get Eurekas Futures worker co-operative off the ground. And to that extent we're putting together the hundred thousand Australian campaigns

Vivian Langford: Yes

Dave Kerin:And we'll raise the capital for the factory equipment in that method.

Vivian Langford: So you wanted just ordinary people to put in twenty dollars each and become a member of this co-op. but wouldn't the state government give you some help with the enterprise?

Dave Kerin: Well we've tried now, both sides of parliament, both state and federal, and it's a strange conundrum that as it turns out, and I think we are going to see quite a bit of this perhaps until arguments and debates around tax and prices that are included, but it's a strange conundrum that you have a just transition project which cannot meet funding criteria and we have had this happen now on a number of occasions, we have had the bureaucracies simply say, well you don't exist yet so we can't fund you.

You would have thought that that was the whole idea of a just transition from one industry to another.

Vivian Langford: Exactly, so what is the criteria, it has to be an established business does it?

Dave Kerin: Well and or community sector organisation or you know? Something that is actually their tangible, they can see, feel, touch. Now we have done feasibility studies across five years, and business plan and we are ready to go, and had the business plan peer reviewed, we've been ready for some years.

And when we did that business plan, it was the constructions, forestry, mining, and energy union, mining and energy division that actually, that actually made, that actually did the bulk of pulling the business plan together. They set me the task of getting that business plan done and pulling together the right people to make it happen and so there is no small thing to have, Put you mind back to the late seventies, imagine you know.

If that sort of process had have happened in timber, it would be an entirely different Australia now, so that was no small thing however, that being said, the project was still knocked back and basically its because the criteria that surround, submissions they don't sit well within a just transition thinking.

Vivian Langford: So when you have got your one hundred thousand Australians or perhaps not as many as that joined up maybe then the state government will say, well you exist now and this is, the wheels are moving then they will come in? Are you hoping for that?

Dave Kerin: Well then what will satisfy, is that tenancy within funding arrangements these days, especially on any scale where you generally have to take something to the table and they will match it. Now we won't only go tot he state we will go to the federal government once we've got the ability to buy our factory equipment.

Vivian Langford: Yeah. Look I don't know how many speaker we have had on this radio program telling me, look the tides going to turn, when the crises appears very clear to every body then really every one will be scrabbling to get the ideas like you have already and its good that you already have them already formed, and you have already got the things started people will be scrabbling around to find projects like this, that will bail out, you know, like the situation in the La Trobe, when they close YaLorne, close Hazlewood, they will have a lot of excess worker there who will really need something, some future for themselves.

Dave Kerin: Well indeed, they still have the bitter taste of the privatisation in their mouths all those communities. Some parts of the La Trobe Valley haven't recovered. So to repeat that performance is just unthinkable

Vivian Langford: It is.

Dave Kerin: So we have got to, this is the appropriate time now in the next twelve months to make sure we're in a position to get into that factory. We already have a factory picked out in Morwell and we're going to, you know, build of that to a purpose built factory.

Vivian Langford:Sounds very exciting David, sound like that must be one of the projects that gets people enthusiastic.

Dave Kerin: Well indeed and when you look at the trajectory of it which is were we want to take that factory and stamp the same template out in all the coal regions of Australia and then the bigger picture is to look at manufacturing of the renewable energy, the energy producing good. So you know you large solar thermal especially, but wind, large, medium, and small wind.

Vivian Langford: Well just before we get onto that, could we just slow you down bit there, because we will talk about that in a moment, but just as far as getting the people to join up with the co-op, what is in it for people who are unionists, what benefits do they get. Is it part of there salary package, you know, they get a..

Dave Kerin: Ok, just so there's no confusion the earth worker co-operative is the one we're opening up to the one hundred thousand Australians, we're going to launch that in the valley in a couple of weeks time. And then, what were hoping to buy the factory equipment for is Eurekas Future Workers co-operative.

So that the sustainable co-op. Now when it comes to the sale of the solar hot water units, to answer your question, this is one of the innovative parts of this whole project is that we are looking to use the enterprise bargaining agreement that negotiated between unions and employers, the wages component of that is the means of collective purchase and sales.

Vivian Langford: So they get a cheaper price.

Dave Kerin: They get a cheaper price but it also means that for the worker, it's better than money in your back wallet, because the household bill comes down twenty six percent, the energy bill, and twenty six percent remains twenty six percent, where as you wage can in real terms go up and down. So that's direct benefit, all workers seem to benefit in jobs and better environment, so it sort of puts a vision back into the movement that beyond just merely wages and conditions but looks at the development of the social sector of the economy.

So that is how the sale would occur, and it's different in that sense from the buy Australia campaign, which is always limited to an individual making a choice at the counter, this is out of your two hundred workers in a factory, maybe one hundred and fifty of them choosing the solar hot water units. So it will capitalise up our co-operatives nicely, it's a way around the free trade agreement, where you can't preference local [products].

And because it is part of the wages package it's an allowable matter within the. So, it's very exciting to that extent, it's worker's, using our social ways, in ways that are more in tune with the green band then anything else.

Vivian Langford: Well i think that that is wonderful. So your target market is unionists, but is t broader than that?

Dave Kerin: Absolutely. The hundred thousand Australians is open to all Australians, regardless of how they vote, or were they live, so we'll be launching a national campaign, both in the [Latrobe] Valley and end up here in Melbourne, a bigger launch in here.

So twenty dollars a head, it gives Australians a chance to play a role in this exciting new trajectory.

Vivian Langford: I would love to give you more publicity when you do your launch, give us a call and we'll mention it again. So tonight our guest is Dave Kerin, this is the Beyond Zero Emissions show, and we're from Beyond Zero Emissions, the climate solutions think tank on radio 3CR and we are talking about a new co-op in the Latrobe Valley which will produce solar hot water heater.

Now I had to ask you Dave, because I don't think that that many people have taken up solar hot water just yet, I read a statistic that just three percent of Victorian so far, who are getting it, but you were wanting to push this up to thirty percent which would be fantastic for the reductions in emissions.

Because I think that people spend about fifty percent of their electricity bill on their hotwater, so, if you are going to get thirty percent instead of three percent of Victorians, at least, and then the rest of Australia doing that, how do you think you will persuade them, with the persuasive points?

Dave Kerin: Well I guess there are a number of equally persuasive points, and especially around the coal regions, were we are looking to transition over a period of a couple of generations now. First and foremost is the saving, so better then a cash payment is a saving in the workers weekly spend.

There's the fact that the jobs, so for instance if we were able to, by the mid 2020's to late 2020's take the percentage to thirty percent of Victorians, that would be in excess of fifty thousand installations in a year. I mean we could not keep up with that work, so what a lovely problem to have.

Vivian Langford: Hehe. Thats right.

Dave Kerin: And especially around manufacturing, because all the arranged, because we are now eighty percent service sector economy that is a dangerous situation to have when your so utterly dependent on resource extraction. So this is another reason why Australian workers are re-unionised and thinking about all this.

Vivian Langford: Yeah

Dave Kerin: Will support it. We're also taking five percent of the surplus or profit from any functioning co-operative, will go through a social justice. So we are looking at youth homelessness and the aged care waiting list on the hospital, dental and optical. So in other words we are looking at the notion of a social wage in our co-operatives, where the co-ops by the housing for the workers, they take care of child care and education and that sort of thing.

Vivian Langford: I think it's a fantastic initiative that is really enriching your community and as it's been through such depressing times. We haven't talked to talked to Cyril Wragg but we are going to talk to her a bit later about the destruction that really happened in your region, over the privatisation, but I think that this will be a real lift because its going to be source of real encouragement on many levels to people.

Dave Kerin: Well indeed its also because its a people power based movement it gives people something to do and often when people are talking about a common urgency it can verge on despair, I mean what does a person do

Vivian Langford: Exactly

Dave Kerin: So this because it is based in the organised way of the movement, that around twenty to twenty five percent depending on where you are looking, of workers and their families, that is a really solid base from which to work from and it gives people who maybe are not in unions and maybe working full time at home or what ever a chance to link in, and do things collaboratively, both where we work and where we live.

Vivian Langford: Yeah so you were telling me a bit before, but tell me now, really in detail what are the green technologies could you manufacture.

Dave Kerin: Well you look at ten years ago in the Latrobe Valley, the workers their worked on ten of the larger Lagerwey generators and when the Danes came out here and inspected they said it was worlds best, better than Spain, the worker there had come up with a new hardening process.

Vivian Langford: Could you say again what that was, cause i'm not sure what that is?

Dave Kerin: Ok. So the Lagerwey wind generator was, for its time ten years ago was the world best and, so the workers here were tasked with working on the generator component of it all and the nose cone, they did that they did ten of them and when the Danes came out and inspected they were really overly impressed.

So we have all the technology in the Latrobe Valley, to do that type of work down there. We know we can make biomass machines down there. Australian workers in Latrobe can make the small, medium, and large wind, the solar collectors. Now of course all of that will take capital. So A we had to start somewhere, so we are starting, because it has a good growth corridor in it, solar hotwater, start getting those jobs in place, and of the back of the leverage into production of the other goods.

Now that will involve bringing superannuation in behind. That is a debate over the months and years ahead, will be forced just by a band of Eureka's Future Worker Co-operative existing it will be forced to open up the debate about how worker superannuation is used. Now when you consider at the moment, close to seventy five percent of the capital in the investment market in Australia is superannuation and almost totally dependent on the nine percent workers contribution that is a massive investment capacity.

Now we're are not saying that all of it has to go into the social sector, but given that it is social capital, at least a significant percentage of it has to go in to building, these sorts of jobs that are community owned and controlled and based on manufacture of renewables. So that's the other debate that we're hoping every one with a heart and especially a green mind out there starts getting involved in that debate and saying " well what is happening to my super , where is it going what's it used for?" and we will certainly be engendering that debate across the union movement, and through them and there representatives on the boards of the super funds, upping the super funds themselves.

I mean I would argue that more important than any enterprise bargaining agreement, at the moment, is superannuation and how it is used because there lies the future of our jobs.

Vivian Langford: I was thinking that you have done so much thinking, that when I first heard about this, I didn't know it was so deep, but you have really thought about every aspects of regenerating your region and I just really wish you could get some government support, and I think you will once its visible above ground and people are catching on as you say.

But you have got a really catchy slogan, you said that when people say yes to the planet who can say no, and I think down your way you have the added incentive of keeping jobs in an area where coal fired power and mining have been the main employers, but what does saying yes to the planet mean to the people that you talk to?

Dave Kerin: Well initially its jobs, because without being smart arsed about it, we've got to work our way out of climate emergency, literally, we have to work our way out of it, and that means we have got to, if you look at the economy as the way in which we meet our needs we have to start meeting those needs differently.

Now it happens and even Gillard was talking about this in the last couple of weeks, it happens that that is a massive jobs growth corridor for us and the difficulty and what we have to keep in mind is that we already, as I said before, eighty percent service sector jobs. Now when there is a tax price on carbon, there will be a flood of overseas green goods into this country. So we will see an expansion of the service sector along the lines, of you know, like the green service sector which of itself isn't a bad thing, but it means that economically and therefore environmentally we're building on sand. So we have got to make sure that as much as possible, we're not just installing and maintaining overseas goods,

That we are actually getting full cycle manufacture, installation and maintenance. Now we won't get it all but lets go for as big a share of that as we can, because that way our communities survive and thrive and in that way we can move to greener and greener forms of the way in which we meet our needs.

So these things are intimately connected and it has been the elephant in the room and indeed has lead to the debates around many of the straw men in this whole question of climate. You know its because we probably sometimes haven't dealt squarely enough with the jobs issue, that is, we have sort of been sort of to quick to say you know "oh look there are thousands of jobs in this" and just left it at that, well were are they and who will set them up? Because it won't be the private sector they won't set these jobs up.

Vivian Langford: Well that is why I wanted to do this program because I have heard people, especially city people like myself, just at rallies and that say 'oh look we will make this just transition to green jobs and it will all just be easy" but I know its not going to be easy and it's people like yourself who have gone through this bitter experience well, you know you have really had to think it through.

Dave Kerin: Well I should say I am a city boy, I'm not by experience a country lad. I've been in and out of the valley now for a couple of years. Now I'm primarily up in Melbourne. But I've worked with the mining union down there, and I've seen the devastation, which is beyond the state going to privatisation and that is why the miners have said well we have to do something about this and put a hell of a lot of time and money into getting that business plan done. So they really look at the moment and that mining union scene down there are really to be congratulated for what they have done.

Vivian Langford: Right we are going to talk to Luke just after you, so if you keep listening to radio 3CR you can hear him. But if listeners would like to contact you about joining the co-op or supporting the project where can they contact you?

Dave Kerin: Well we are getting a blog set up, I would still like to mention it because it is still under construction, but they can get all the details there. It's earthworkerco-operative. And literally over the next couple of days there will be more stuff loaded onto it, so if people keep an eye on that they'll be able to play an active role and by that I mean, we're hoping that a lot of the members of earth workers co-operative will want to set up local groups.

We will assist them in doing that, depending the region they are in they may have ideas that occur to them as to the types of social enterprise that they would like to see set up. So long as it is around renewables we will talk to them.

We want to see the growth of real peoples power, not just limited to one hundred thousand Australians, that's just the first one hundred thousand so.

Vivian Langford: I love this you talking big that is great.

Dave Kerin: Well I think we have to.

Vivian Langford: Well thanks David