Join Labor Network for Sustainability during our #Labor4Climate2020 membership drive.

Let’s move forward together in 2020 as LNS continues to address key issues that shape the labor-climate movement:

Above: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (center) speaks on the Green New Deal with Senator Ed Markey (right) in front of the Capitol Building in February 2019. Credit: Senate Democrats.

According to a recent article in The Guardian by Labor Network for Sustainability Research and Policy Director Jeremy Brecher and Assistant Professor at Occidental College J Mijin Cha, 62 percent of union members support the Green New Deal, while just 22% oppose it.

They write, “Far from being opponents of climate action, rank-and-file union members understand that climate change is a real threat, that addressing it can create jobs and strengthen unions, and that the government has a responsibility to protect climate, communities and workers.”

Read the entire article:
“Reject the ‘jobs versus environment’ narrative – we can do both” »

The Maine AFL-CIO just passed a resolution at its October Convention “to Address the Climate Crisis and Inequality Crisis and Create Union Jobs.” The resolution said climate change poses “an immediate and long-term threat to all working class people, our communities and our economic security.” It resolved that the Maine AFL-CIO will push to include the following measures in climate policies developed at the state and federal level:

• Expand collective bargaining and ensure the creation of union jobs through card check neutrality agreements, prevailing wage requirements, project labor agreements, the use of provisions of the 2019 PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act, and the requirement of direct partnerships with joint labor-management registered apprenticeship programs; and
• Prioritize projects, union career opportunities for Maine workers and investments in working class, rural, people of color and indigenous communities historically disproportionately impacted by pollution, environmental injustice and economic insecurity; and
• Include a fair and equitable Just Transition for workers impacted by a transitioning economy, including but not limited to workers in power generation, that will make them whole, including a fund to provide access to sustainable jobs and education opportunities, income protection, bridges to retirement, and
• Include incentives for domestic manufacturing like Buy American and Buy Clean provisions; and work to make the supply chain for any projects as strongly union as possible; and
• Include adequate resources for any public agency expected to enforce the provisions of climate legislation
• Include incentives for the building of publicly owned, union built affordable housing. Read the full resolution »

Mustafa Salahuddin (above) is the president and business agent of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1316 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In this edited interview with Labor Network for Sustainability, he tells how the local became part of the company procurement process—leading the company to convert to climate-safe electric buses. Credits Taylor Mayes, Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs.

I had just become president in 2014. We started a campaign about the working stations. And then it occurred to me, the next time I talk to the Chief Operating Officer of the company I’m going to ask him if there is any way that someone from the union itself could be part of the procurements? He said, what kind of relationship would that be? I said, I can send you some information on what the drivers are looking for in terms of their working stations and what we believe will be essential to the needs of us being able to navigate around the city in a comfortable and safe way. So he said, OK, what are some of the ideas? I said, some drivers are talking about the monitors being in the wrong place. There are some drivers complaining about the way the seatbelt is cutting their neck, and maybe there should be something adjustable so you can change to different weights and sizes. And then there are the blind spots. What better person is there to tell you about that than the person who is actually operating the bus?

We talked about these different issues. The blind spot became a very much smaller blindspot. They put indicators on the bus—nice loudspeakers – to let the public know, bus is turning left, bus is turning right. It’s a warning—it’s loud! The CEO said, this is great! We’ve never thought of getting the union involved.  

I told him, we’re both young. You should want to leave a legacy that you had something to do with renewable energy. You’re a young man. It is something to be proud of later on. Your kids can look back on it and say, my dad had something to do with that. I told him climate change, fossil fuels -- it’s a no-brainer. That diesel with that air that’s going through the bus – the drivers and passengers are breathing unhealthy and detrimental air. Sit with the drivers and you’ll see. This will stop people from getting sick so much. He said, you’re absolutely right. 

So he purchased about four or five hybrids. Then they ordered five to seven fully electric ones. Now he wants to go fully electric. His goal is to try to do it before the projected year of 2030.

This is a work in progress, but it is work worth engaging in. I’m looking to the unveiling of our first fully electric buses. I’m really looking forward to that. 

Many unions are considering resolutions on climate change. Here’s one just passed by the local executive board of the Rutgers University AAUP-AFT, that endorses the Green New Deal, demands that Rutgers develop a climate action plan to be carbon neutral, and proclaims support and alignment with LNS. Read the resolution »

Above: (L-R, back) John Cusick, Illinois Federation of Teachers Legislative Director, Hallie Trauger and Jackson Potter, Chicago Teachers Union and Back of the Yards College Prep; (L-R, front) Mark Stoch, Illinois Federation of Teachers Local 571 and Bea Lumpkin, CTU retiree. Credit: John Cusick at the LNS Third National Convergence on Climate, in Chicago at the Kimpton Allegro, June 2019.

Reporting on the LNS National Labor Convergence on Climate this past June, labor veteran Bea Lumpkin described a special meeting of educators at the conference:

Educators at the conference agreed that we have a special responsibility in the struggle to mitigate the harm that climate change is already causing our communities. We also need to be well armed with the facts to help our students think scientifically and to understand the basic science of climate change. Attendees planned to meet again this summer and exchange materials for teaching climate change. 

Read Lumpkin’s complete article, “Wanted: Labor and Community Alliance Needed to Fight Climate Change” »

The Illinois Federation of Teachers delegation to the Convergence included Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey and members of IFT locals 571, 1211, 3939 and IFT Legislative Director John Cusick.

Above: United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) is the second largest teacher's union in the country. Their strike in January shows what Bargaining for the Common Good looks like in action. Photo credit: UTLA.

An article by four labor and climate activists recently published in the American Prospect calls for a “Bargaining for the Common Good” approach to the climate crisis.

Bargaining for the Common Good (BCG) is an innovative way of building community-labor alignments, bringing unions and allies together, that go beyond the limits to traditional collective bargaining and jointly shape bargaining campaigns that advance the mutual interests of workers and communities alike. It developed over the last decade out of the struggles of teachers in St. Paul, Chicago, and Seattle; out of the fights of public employees in San Diego and Los Angeles; and in other settings where unions partnered with their community allies to advance a common agenda through direct-action protests—including strikes—and campaigns that targeted the power structures of their communities.

This year’s strike by members of the United Teachers of Los Angeles shows what BCG looks like in action. The teachers and drew up demands in collaboration with community, parent, and student groups won commitments from the district to reduce class sizes, increase investment in the schools, hire school nurses and full-time librarians, reduce standardized testing and random searches of students, provide more green spaces for students, and launch a dedicated hotline for immigrant families who need legal assistance.

The article calls for applying BCG to climate in three areas:

• Climate change mitigation—reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a just transition for workers, in order to slow global warming;
• Environmental equity—pursuing an equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens in order to eradicate the legacy of environmental racism; and
• Just recoveries—putting the interests of communities and workers before private profits in the wake of climate disasters, such as extreme storms and wildfires, and economic disasters, such as mine and plant closures. 

The article was written by Todd E. Vachon, fellow with the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization and on the faculty at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University; Gerry Hudson, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union; Judith LeBlanc, director of the Native Organizers Alliance; and Saket Soni, the executive director of Resilience Force and the National Guestworker Alliance. 

Looking for beautiful and powerful graphics for your activities around labor, climate, and the Green New Deal? The Labor Network for Sustainability has partnered with 350.org and engaged artists to create "Green New Deal Arts: Signs of the Times" to share images that people can carry in the streets to help organize for and win a Green New Deal.

LNS President and singer-songwriter Joe Uehlein says,

“The writer Bertolt Brecht wrote, 'Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.' That is true, but only partly true. Art is both. Especially today, with our attention captured by fragmented soundbites and speeded-up attention-getters, it is really important to do things that invite contemplation and thoughtfulness. Art invites that. Art that reflects reality can push the right buttons in people that help them become hammers to shape it differently. Art can reflect reality and help people to become the hammers that shape reality in different ways. Ways that call into question the existing order of things—and suggest ways to change it.”

Green New Deal Arts Project Coordinator David Solnit says,

These images are tools to support organizing, and designed to be used in a lot of ways; you can make signs, create posters, screen print them on fabric or paper, print stickers, project them on walls at night, use them online, copy or print the black and white versions and hand color them with watercolors, colored pencils and markers. We offer some tools and resources on how you can use these and also hope they will encourage creation in your groups and community of your own images, songs, poems, dance, theater–with an eye toward being effective and winning.

Download the Green New Deal Arts at arts.350.org »