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Since then, we’ve tried to make it a way to find out what is going on not only within the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) but within the wider labor-climate movement. Paging through the issues from December 2015 to today, you can see the growth and development of this movement into a significant force within the labor movement specifically and in the broader struggle for worker friendly climate protection. You can see the development of the movement’s ideas and strategies and the action that has grown out of them. And, you can see the way the labor-climate movement is helping the Green New Deal and the Build Back Better plan shift a world headed for catastrophe toward a new direction. 

In this issue, we highlight some of the latest programs and actions by LNS and our allies. LNS' new report, “Workers and Communities in Transition: A Report of the Just Transition Listening Project,” lays the groundwork for protecting the livelihood and wellbeing of working people as the effort to protect the climate by reducing greenhouse gas emissions hits the launching pad. LNS ally DC37 is organizing a 15-mile bike tour to publicize a new report laying out plans for “An Equitable Recovery for NYC.” 

50 Issues: The original LNS newsletter was known as Voices for a Sustainable Future. To see the progress of the labor-climate movement chronicled by our regularly distributed digital newsletter, now known as Making a Living on a Living Planet, you can see the archives here. 

Also in this issue is coverage of the continuing development of the broader labor-climate movement. For example, unions played a significant role in winning total divestment from fossil fuels by Rutgers University. And the new Sierra Club report “How to Build Back Better,” based on the THRIVE Agenda, puts the issues of workers and economic renewal at the center of its plan for climate protection.  

Scattered through this issue are also a few comments from readers about what this newsletter means to them. May we have as much worthwhile activity to cover in our next 50 issues! 

Solidarity,
Jeremy Brecher

After nearly a year of interviewing more than 100 workers and community leaders about how their lives and communities have been affected by factory closings and other major shifts in local and regional economies, the Labor Network for Sustainability and partners has just released its highly anticipated report, “Workers and Communities in Transition.” 

Here is a Congressional briefing on the report »

The report is the first major effort to center the voices of 100-plus workers and indigenous and community leaders affected by workplace closings, climate change, and major shifts in local and regional economies. The report captures “the voices of workers and community members who have experienced, are currently experiencing, or anticipate experiencing some form of economic transition.”

The report underscores a critical point in the shift to much needed climate policies: Workers and their communities must not be left behind in the transition to a green economy and in fact, their role in the process of developing a just transition is critical to making it work fairly.

 “We have rarely done a good job of supporting workers and their communities through these transitions,” says Labor Network for Sustainability Executive Director Michael Leon Guerrero. “If we are to move forward on the climate policies we need–we have to assure to the greatest extent possible that workers and their communities will not get left hanging in the shift to a green economy. ‘Workers and Communities in Transition’ tells the story of these transitions through the lived experience of worker and community leaders. We can learn from the lessons that they offer to make sure that future transitions are truly just.”

Main findings of the report include:

• 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.

Read the full report »

Articles: 

• "Just Transitions Are Possible, But They Require State Investment"
  Leanna First-Arai, Truthout
• "Why Medicare for All Must Be Part of the Green New Deal"
  Dharna Noor, Gizmodo
• Lessons learned from unjust transitions – and a call for cooperation amongst unions and climate activists
  Elizabeth, Perry, Work and Climate Change Report
• “This Is What the Beginning of a Climate-Labor Alliance Looks Like”
  Kate Aronoff, The New Republic

An NPR “All Things Considered” news story produced by Don Gonyea, “Biden Infrastructure Plan Aims To Please Both Labor And Environmentalists,” recently featured LNS President Joe Uehlein. According to Uehlein, Biden

wants to be the best union - you know, pro-union president ever. But at the same time, he's also said he wants to be the climate president. He wants to be the president that finally does something real about addressing the climate crisis. That's going to be a very difficult balancing act.

See the @LN4S  tweet.

Graphic: Sierra Club.

Anyone interested in how to address the concerns of both labor and environmentalists in upcoming legislation  should take a look at the new Sierra Club report “How to Build Back Better: A 10-year Plan for Economic Renewal.” Although the Sierra Club is an environmental organization - in fact, the country’s largest–this “blueprint for economic renewal” has been designed with the needs of workers and discriminated-against groups front and center. 

The plan is based on the THRIVE Agenda, which has been endorsed by 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.  

• By investing $1 trillion per year, an economic renewal plan based on the THRIVE Agenda would create over 15 million good jobs–enough to end the unemployment crisis–while countering systemic racism, supporting public health, and cutting climate pollution nearly in half by 2030.  

• These investments must come with ironclad labor and equity standards to curb racial, economic, and gender inequity instead of reinforcing the unjust status quo.  

Here are some additional materials that illuminate the report’s findings:

• Report Website: sc.org/economicrenewal  (PDF version here)
• Summary: A short synopsis of the findings 
• Media Materials: Press release with quotes from partners, talking points, unbranded graphics, and a social media toolkit 
• Jobs Calculator: See how many jobs your ideal economic renewal plan would create
• Economic Analysis: 70 pages of open-source data from the Political Economy Research Institute on the quantity, quality, and demographic distribution of jobs created 

Finally, here are factsheets with tangible examples of the types of jobs that would be created: 

• Economy-wide Investments: Over 15 Million Good Jobs 
• Cross-cutting Standards: Labor, Equity, and Environment 
• Why Standards Matter: Breakdown of the Jobs Created by Race, Gender, Wages, Benefits, Union Density, and Sector 
• Jobs from Specific Programs in 8 Sectors: Energy, Transportation, Buildings, Manufacturing, Water, Lands, Agriculture, Care

And for a video on the report and the THRIVE Agenda, watch it here.

How do we spread the word about what it will take to have an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the crises of climate, jobs, healthcare, racism and democracy that it has so aggravated? Members of New York’s large DC37 union have an innovative way:

The DC37 Bike Ride for Climate, Jobs and Justice. On Saturday, April 24, they will ride from Kips Bay, Manhattan, to Red Hook, Brooklyn, for a “15 Mile Tour of Public Sector Solutions and Responses to the Climate Crisis.”

• Here's a fabulous story map of the ride »

The bike tour will publicize the new report, “An Equitable Recovery for NYC: Creating 100,000 Climate Jobs for Frontline Communities of Color,” by Climate Works for All. 

For a video designed for NYC candidates on just transition and recovery, watch this presentation on the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) Facebook page. 

Video: "How Appalachia's shale gas boom became an economic bust," by Ohio River Valley Institute.

Over the past decade, many communities, especially impoverished rural communities in Appalachia, have been pitched the idea that extracting natural gas would be the solution to their economic problems. Vast amounts of gas were indeed extracted. But a new report from the Ohio River Valley Institute shows that the benefits did not flow to local communities. See “Fracking Counties Economic Impact Report.”

The report found that:

“Contrary to the predictions of the oil and natural gas industry, which a decade ago published economic impact studies saying the expected boom in natural gas production would give rise to over 450,000 new jobs in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show that jobs in the 22 counties crept up by a paltry 1.6% while nationally the number of jobs grew by 9.9%.”

• Report: Shale gas boom counties saw little growth in local jobs, income - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• The report is from the Ohio River Valley Institute, which tweeted an animated video summarizing the report.

Veronica is an avid connector, promoting partnerships and solidarity relationships among community and labor organizations that address environmental justice and just transitions.

While earning her Master's in Latin American Studies from the University of California, San Diego, she researched land rights, privatization of communal land, and women’s cooperatives in rural Mexico. Veronica is a volunteer committee leader for the Many Winters Gathering of Elders, an annual four-day event to listen and learn about Native American struggles for cultural sustainability, self-determination, and sovereignty for future generations. 

Making a Living on a Living Planet is published by the Labor Network for Sustainability: