Forward » | Read in Browser »

Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people again face the paradoxical destructive effects of climate change as Arctic weather invades and devastates much of North America.

The Labor Network for Sustainability is doing all we can for a just transition to a climate-safe economy. We’ve completed our Just Transition Listening Project and are about to release an in-depth report, “Workers and Communities in Transition,” based on more than 100 interviews with unionized and non-unionized workers; union leaders; members of frontline communities, including environmental justice communities, communities of color, and Indigenous communities; and leaders from labor, environmental justice, climate justice, and other community organizations. Meanwhile, our allies in coal communities around the country are campaigning for the federal government to invest in a future beyond coal. And steelworkers and their allies are helping create good new jobs for union workers making and installing windmills that can help replace climate-destroying fossil fuel energy.

LNS is also taking action for worker-friendly climate protection. Our Transit Equity Days 2021 promoted what may be the single most cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions–public transit. We are helping promote the THRIVE Agenda which puts the principles of the Green New Deal into actionable public policy. And we’ve helped win the first full divestment from all fossil fuels by a major city pension fund. 

We’re in a race against time. And the labor-climate movement is doing our bit to make a jobs-rich, worker-friendly climate policy roll back the momentum of climate destruction.

Coming this month, the Labor Network for Sustainability and partners of the Just Transition Listening Project (JTLP) will release its highly anticipated report capturing "the voices of workers and community members who have experienced, are currently experiencing, or anticipate experiencing some form of economic transition." The first effort to center these voices, the Just Transition Listening Project launched in Spring 2020, resulted in more than 100 interviews with workers, community leaders and activists.

"The idea of 'just transition' has recently become more mainstream in climate discourse," the Executive Summary states, also saying:

More environmental and climate justice advocates are recognizing the need to protect fossil-fuel workers and communities as we transition away from fossil-fuel use.

Yet, as detailed in our report, transition is hardly new or limited to the energy industry. Throughout the decades, workers and communities have experienced near constant economic transitions as industries have risen and declined. And, more often than not, transition has meant loss of jobs, identities, and communities with little to no support.

Adding to the challenges of the energy transition, we are also transitioning to a post-COVID-19-pandemic world. As such, we cannot afford, economically or societally, to repeat the mistakes of the past that left so many workers and communities behind.

The report, compiled and written by J. Mijin Cha, Vivian Price, Dimitris Stevis, and Todd E. Vachon with Maria Brescia-Weiler notes among the main findings:

• Transitions are inevitable and constantly happening across the economy. Past transitions, driven by market forces, corporate entities, and public policies left workers and communities largely behind with little to no support.
• Workers and community members from all regions of the country are suffering from an historic decline and lack of access to opportunities. Many also face the threat of losing opportunities in the near future. The COVID-19 pandemic and persistent structural racism and wealth inequality have exacerbated these realities. People affected by past unjust transitions are reacting harshly to climate action and policy, creating tensions between labor, community and environmental movements that often erupt into open conflicts.
• In the inevitable energy transition some, but not all, fossil-fuel workers will be employed in the renewable energy sector. Proactive policies should create a wide variety of high-quality jobs that can take advantage of these workers’ considerable skills.

The full report is expected to be released by mid-March, accompanied by a news release and social media toolkit. This initial launch of the report will kick off an entire year of sharing findings and lifting up those who shared their stories. Please stay tuned.

by Leo Blain

What were you doing when you were 15? Homework, sports, parties, dances: these are standard fare for 15 year-olds. 

Claudette Colvin was no standard 15-year old, though. When she 15, she sat down on a Montgomery, Alabama bus and refused to give up her seat to a white person. She was arrested and wrongfully charged with assault and battery. Despite being just 15 at the time of her arrest, Colvin was booked into a cell in Montgomery’s adult jail. When Colvin’s pastor, Reverend H.H. Johnson bailed her out the evening of her arrest, he told her that she had “just brought the revolution to Montgomery.”

And, she did it on March 2, 1955: Nine months before Rosa Parks’ similar and much more famous action. 

Colvin brought a lawsuit along with three other women that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and led to the legal desegregation of the Montgomery bus system. When the Montgomery bus system was desegregated Colvin wasn’t invited on the first desegregated bus. Neither was Parks. In fact, none of the women who were among the first to be arrested in protest of the segregated bus system were invited. Five men took the first ride: Martin Luther King Jr., E. D. Nixon, Ralph Abernathy, and Glenn Smiley, and Colvin’s lawyer, Fred Gray. ²

Read Leo's full piece »

Leo is a Content Producer at the Labor Network for Sustainability and a full-time student at Guilford College, North Carolina.

The Labor Network for Sustainability calls for a halt to the Line 3 Pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline and other climate-destroying fossil-fuel infrastructure of the past. It calls instead to start creating the jobs of the future building the climate-safe infrastructure of the future.

The U.S. is already building extensive new fossil-free energy infrastructure and is creating more jobs than a similar investment in fossil fuel facilities. Rather than spend a penny more on new fossil fuel infrastructure, it is time to invest in a massive, jobs-rich conversion to a fossil-free energy infrastructure.   

The U.S. government, the people of the world, and even major oil companies recognize that the climate emergency requires us to move rapidly to a fossil-free economy. President Joe Biden recently recognized this by cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline. It is time to halt other new fossil fuel infrastructure—urgently, the Line 3 and Dakota Access Pipelines—and use our precious resources for a just transition to climate safety.

A 2013 LNS study compares jobs created by the Keystone XL pipeline to the jobs that could be created by water, sewer and gas repair projects in the five states the pipeline crosses. It finds that meeting unmet water and gas line repair infrastructure needs in the five states along the KXL pipeline route would create:

• More than 300,000 total jobs across all sectors;
• Five times more jobs, and better jobs, than KXL;
• 156% of the number of direct jobs created by Keystone XL per unit of investment.

See the full report: "The Keystone Pipeline Debate: An Alternative Job Creation Strategy"

Workers should not have to pay the price of protecting the climate—they deserve a just transition to a climate-safe future. Cancelation of fossil fuel projects like the tar sands pipelines should be paired with a program to see that every worker whose job may be threatened by climate policies has access to a new job creating the economy of the future. 

A few months ago, the national Green New Deal Network, along with nearly 100 Congressional endorsers and a range of climate and national union endorsers, which include the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, American Federation of Teachers, American Postal Workers Union, Amalgamated Transit Union, Communications Workers of America, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America and Service Employees International Union, unveiled a bold agenda for Economic Recovery based on addressing the interlocking crises of healthcare, economic justice, racial justice and the climate crisis.

THRIVE (Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy) sets out core principles that must be addressed simultaneously and boldly and will need a coordinated campaign to win support for what these principles look like at the ground level–where people live and work and build community. 

Working with our partners in the Green New Deal Network, the Labor Network for Sustainability connects labor with emerging coalitions to support THRIVE principles in states all across the country. While the composition and character of coalitions must be determined locally, we believe labor engagement and partnership are necessary in every state–around whatever climate, infrastructure and just transition initiatives are developed. 

In the coming weeks, LNS will work to introduce the THRIVE Agenda principles to local labor movements and where possible build bridges with local coalitions to advance a shared agenda.

According to a recent Op-Ed in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, wind energy is going to mean union jobs. The Op-Ed, “Steelworkers and Windmills–Perfect Together,” co-authored by Del Vitale, Director of District 4 for the United Steelworkers and Debra Coyle McFadden, Executive Director for the New Jersey Work Environment Council–both organizations that are partners in the Jersey Renews coalition, which recently sponsored the Time for Turbines Conference.

They explain that Ørsted, “a developer of offshore wind power that already operates energy generation facilities in Rhode Island and constructed pilot sites in Virginia, among other projects” recently reached an agreement with  North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) “to train a generation of construction workers for the company’s ambitious expansion.” Furthermore, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy just announced that “Ørsted and German manufacturer EEW will partner on a $250 million factory at Paulsboro Marine Terminal to make steel platforms for offshore wind turbines in the Northeast and across the United States.”

The result? “Millions of manufacturing workers in United Steelworkers and other unions across the country anticipate a major role in this vitally important effort.”

Want to know more? Watch the 2021 Time for Turbines conference, which brings together policymakers, labor and environmental advocates and wind energy professionals to discuss New Jersey’s rapidly expanding offshore wind industry. The conference focused on workforce development and equity in the offshore wind industry, with an emphasis on identifying access barriers to good jobs in this field and offering policy solutions. Videos from the various panels can be found here.

New York City’s largest pension funds have voted to divest from companies related to fossil fuels. The $4 billion divestment is one of the largest in the country and the first time a major city has committed to complete divestment of fossil fuel holdings.

Union leaders representing workers whose pensions are in the funds strongly endorsed the decision. Henry Garrido, Executive Director, District Council 37, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, said, “As NYCERS (members of the New York City Employees' Retirement System) Trustee and Executive Director of District Council 37, New York City’s largest municipal union, I am proud to vote today with Mayor de Blasio, Comptroller Stringer, and my fellow NYCERS Trustees in support of divestiture from fossil fuel stocks.”

Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd said, “We at Teamsters Local 237 have concluded that, under the current proposal, we can confidently support a vote to divest from fossil fuel holdings in the NYCERS portfolio, and most importantly do so without an adverse effect on the pension fund.” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said, “The world economy and our pension investments need to focus on the future, while fossil fuels are the energy sources of the past.”

The divestment represents the culmination of an eight-year campaign by #Divest NY, an alliance of more than 40 labor, environmental and other groups that has now won partial or complete divestment from the largest New York City and State pension funds. 

In February, the International Union of Electronic Workers - Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) held actions at Walmart locations around the U.S. to save jobs for workers who manufacture LED light bulbs produced by Walmart, who recently announced plans to move production to China.

"Corporations like Walmart love to send jobs abroad where they can exploit workers with low pay, dangerous working conditions and low environmental standards," the IUE-CWA says. "Walmart makes more money exploiting workers while our communities suffer and good jobs disappear. This is opposite of Walmart’s claims that they are committed to supporting American manufacturing and reducing their carbon footprint."

Their Saturday, February 20 action was a step in the right direction. On their Facebook page, IUE-CWA said:

"This Saturday hundreds from our union family came out to demand that Walmart keep LED light bulbs made in the USA by IUE-CWA Local 84704 workers at Savant LLC in Bucyrus, Ohio! We hit nearly 50 Walmart locations from coast to coast. Walmart shoppers joined to sign our petition, and to send the message to Walmart that they need to keep their promise to support American manufacturing! Thank you for all who came out, we are going to keep the heat on Walmart - stay tuned..."

They also encouraged everyone to sign their petition, which you can access here.

Additionally, he has environmental legal experience combating toxic chemicals, defending clean water, protecting endangered species, and working on FOIA litigation.