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But there are ways to augment the positive and reduce the negative aspects of the IRA.

 For example, the substantial funds available from the IRA can make it possible for activists to start creating jobs and countering injustice by immediately initiating projects in their communities, cities, and states. Programs can include renewable energy, energy efficiency, phasing out fossil fuel use, housing, healthcare, and other human needs. State and local governments can start phasing out fossil fuel use by requiring utilities to make annual reductions in their greenhouse gas pollution. Such efforts can build on initiatives already under way to create a veritable “Green New Deal from Below.”

 The IRA, astonishingly, provides for an increase in oil and gas exploration leasing on federal lands, causing environmental disaster in Texas and Louisiana while actually increasing greenhouse gas pollution. As part of the deal made to win Sen. Manchin’s support, Democrats agreed to support the environmentally destructive Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline through Virginia and West Virginia. But, as the successful struggle against the Keystone XL pipeline revealed, such fossil fuel infrastructure projects can be halted by a combination of lawsuits, state and local legislation, and direct action. Blocking such destructive aspects of the IRA should be a top priority for the labor-climate movement.

In response to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Labor Network for Sustainability has just released the following statement:

The fossil fuel industry, the Republican Party, conservative fossil-fuel Democrats, and right-wing ideologues combined to block the climate, labor, and social justice programs of the Green New Deal and Build Back Better resulting in compromise legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Passage of the IRA, despite its drawbacks and limitations, is the most significant climate legislation ever passed into law. It could represent a huge opportunity for the labor-climate movement to shape the significant federal subsidies provided for non-fossil energy development, manufacturing, and for consumers. It will create an estimated 1 to 1.5 million jobs. It includes very modest funding to address pollution in frontline communities.

But the power of the fossil fuel industry and its allies was still enough to gut important parts of a program for climate, jobs and justice – and to add provisions that promote injustice and climate change. The legislation includes only one-quarter of the investment necessary to meet the Paris climate goals and prevent the worst consequences of global warming. It allows much of its funding to be squandered on unproven technologies that claim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but whose primary effect may simply be to permit the continued burning of fossil fuels – and enrich their promoters. 

It allows increased drilling for fossil fuels, especially on federal lands. It allows drilling and pipeline construction that will continue to see areas like the Gulf Coast and Appalachia turned into de facto “sacrifice zones” where expanded fossil fuel infrastructure will devastate the environment – and the people.  It does not guarantee that the jobs it creates will be good union jobs. It makes no “just transition” provisions for workers and communities whose livelihoods may be threatened by the transition to a climate-safe economy. 

The Inflation Reduction Act can provide the basis for an unprecedented people’s mobilization for climate, labor, and justice. That is what it will take to provide a sustainable future for our environment and a fairer economy.

Source: Teen Vogue

“Young Workers Are Bridging the Climate and Labor Movements” – that’s the title of an article by journalist Leanna First-Arai that just appeared in Teen Vogue and Truthout. It features the Labor Network for Sustainability’s Young Workers Listening Project.

The article reports that the LNS Young Workers Listening Project is analyzing 400 surveys and 70 in-depth interviews with young workers exploring “young people’s experiences dealing with the impacts of climate change on the job” and their opinion on “how the labor and climate movements could further strengthen one another.”

Joshua Dedmond, youth organizer with the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS), told First-Arai that, based on preliminary survey results, “There is a sincere yearning” by young workers to “bridge these existing chasms between the labor movement and climate justice movement.”

Dedmond said, “Younger workers are quicker to see the connections between intersecting crises they’re dealing with.” They bring “a refreshing analysis” that “we don’t have to trade off good jobs for the environment and we don’t have to trade off the environment for good jobs — we can very much work in concert.”

Young people in the labor movement, he added, “want to bargain on climate issues in contract negotiations.”

First-Arai reports that, “The Labor Network for Sustainability is in the midst of planning a September Young Workers Climate Convergence in Los Angeles,"... "where they’ll bring together workers across professions who want labor to lead on climate.”

Heat protection will be one of the key issues in the upcoming Teamsters negotiations at UPS for the biggest union contract in North America, which covers the majority of UPS’s 350,000 workers. The current contract expires next year.

The Teamsters issued a public letter last week outlining a series of steps it says UPS should take immediately to improve the safety of its drivers in excessive heat. They include providing fans in every truck, cooling neck towels, consistent supplies of water and ice, more breathable uniforms, and hiring more drivers to reduce workload. 

Sean M. O’Brien, Teamsters general president, says, “By refusing to implement these safety measures, the company is literally sending drivers out to die in the heat.”

In New York City, the local Teamsters union held a rally after four UPS employees in Long Island and Manhattan went to emergency rooms in two days. Local union president Vincent Perrone announced he was taking the unusual step of pulling all union representatives from weekly safety meetings with the company.

“If and when the Company decides to take the safety of our people seriously, I will consider reinstating the committee,” he wrote in a public letter.

As Oklahoma suffered weeks of record 100-plus degree days, a group of UPS drivers distributed thermometers to collect temperature readings from the front and back of several dozen trucks. On one 103-degree afternoon, they logged 12 different readings between 110 and 127 degrees, according to an NBC review of their data. 

Image Source: Antonio Rodriguez- stock.adobe.com

A pair of new commentaries by Making a Living on a Living Planet’s editor Jeremy Brecher provides dozens of examples of how unions in the most diverse industries and occupations are creating their own Green New Deal-type programs in localities around the country.

The commentaries describe initiatives by unions and workers across the entire workforce, including

• Electrical workers in San Diego creating solar and wind energy installations, electric vehicle charging stations, and training programs for young workers.
• Members of the Laborers’ union building windmills, light rail public transit, solar power plants, and public housing energy efficiency retrofits in locations around the country.
• Minneapolis janitors striking for a green training fund.
• A labor-climate-community coalition initiated by the building trades in Massachusetts winning federal funding for what they call the Somerville Green New Deal.
• Union-led coalitions in Illinois, Connecticut, New York, and Maine reshaping the laws and policies of their states to create jobs and equality by moving to climate-safe energy.
  

The occupations involved run from loggers to professors and from port truck drivers to nurses. Unions involved include, among many others, the IBEW, LIUNA, and SEIU.

According to the commentaries,

Workers are critical to fixing our economy because they have the skills and knowledge to actually create the Green New Deal. They are already showing that we can start achieving GND goals from climate-safe energy to good jobs to a more equal society right now. And they represent an organized force that can press for the interests of ordinary people in both the economic and the political arena.

Workers are showing that they don’t have to wait to start addressing the problems we face. Unions, labor councils, and other worker organizations can start addressing them right now – in fact, they are already doing so. The next step could be to recognize – and celebrate – this growing wave of constructive activity. To start sharing with each other what workers are doing and what we can learn from it. And ultimately to combine them to create labor’s own Green New Deal from Below.

Links:

www.labor4sustainability.org/strike/unions-making-a-green-new-deal-from-below-part-1/

www.labor4sustainability.org/strike/unions-making-a-green-new-deal-from-below-part-2/

Image Source: Marks, Alexander. United States Postal Service delivery truck in San Francisco residential area. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Under pressure from unions and environmental groups, the U.S. Postal Service just announced that 40% of its new delivery vehicles will be electric.

In April the United Auto Workers and the National Resources Defense Council sued the U.S. Postal Service over its plan to buy tens of thousands of polluting fossil fueled trucks for its fleet rather than cleaner electric vehicles. Another suit filed in April by a coalition of environmental organizations demanded a redo of the USPS’ shoddy analysis of the climate impacts of its fossil fuel truck plans. The USPS was also sued by more than a dozen state attorney generals to halt its original procurement plan.

"Public pressure works, and today's announcement from the Postal Service is proof of that," noted Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club's Clean Transportation for All campaign.

Union and environmental advocates of electric vehicles say the USPS announcement is only a beginning: Postal fleet purchases should be 100% electric.

Something that may help realize that goal: The just-passed Inflation Reduction Act includes $3 billion for the U.S. Postal Service to purchase zero-emission vehicles.

Image Source: BillionPhotos.com- stock.adobe.com

The July convention of the 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers urged that its members’ retirement assets be divested “from all corporations or other entities that extract, transport, trade or otherwise contribute to the production of coal, oil and gas” and that they those funds be reinvested in “projects that benefit displaced workers and frontline communities.” AFT members participate in pension plans with assets totaling $5.8 trillion, of which an estimated $255 billion is invested in fossil fuel corporations. The resolution also called for the giant higher education pension organization TIAA to similarly divest from fossil fuel corporations and “to reinvest those funds in socially responsible, climate-positive projects.”

The AFT’s official Climate Justice Task Force was assigned to implement the resolution.

Following the convention, a network of AFT and National Education Association members interested in organizing in their unions and schools for green demands has begun meeting. LNS’s staff members Liz Ratzloff and Oren Kadosh are helping to coordinate the network and its meetings. If you’re an educator interested in getting involved, email  liz@labor4sustainability.org.

Image Source: Chicago Teachers Union. Twitter- @CTULocal1. View the Tweet here.

It all started when the General Iron Company decided to move its car-shredding operation to Chicago’s Southeast Side community. Students, teachers, and community members held numerous marches and demonstrations to protest the move to a location little more than half a mile from George Washington High School. In addition, teacher Chuck Stark took part in a hunger strike and teacher Lauren Bianchi was arrested at a protest outside a city official’s home.

Chicago Public Schools recommended firing the two for alleged “repeated instances of poor judgment and bias in their instructional roles and in their faculty adviser roles.” At a rally in support of the two teachers, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said, “This is retaliation because we have two educators who stood in lockstep with their students, their families and their communities to challenge racism.” In the face of such  protests, Chicago Public Schools’ governing board unanimously rejected the recommendation to fire Stark and Bianchi, ruling instead that they should receive warnings and agree to receive training related to district rules. 

At the close of the meeting, Chicago Board of Education President Miguel del Valle said, “This board believes in culturally relevant education and it is a core value of CPS. We will continue to be supportive of all our teachers who promote education that is relevant and sensitive to the environments of our students and the overall status of their communities. So in no way do we want to move away from that commitment.”

Were the General Iron protests effective? In February, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration denied a permit for the business to operate. And after a two-year investigation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found in July that the city of Chicago is violating the civil rights of its residents by relocating polluting businesses from white communities into Black and Latino areas that already are overwhelmed with environmental and health issues. In a letter to the city, HUD threatened to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars unless Chicago changes its unlawful planning, zoning, and land-use policies so they don’t discriminate against communities of color.

For more:

www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/cps-board-rejects-move-to-fire-teachers-for-encouraging-students-environmental-activism/2900448/

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/7/19/23270084/hud-civil-rights-general-iron-polluters-black-latino-neighborhoods-lightfoot

Image Source: Antonio Rodriguez- stock.adobe.com

In response to the Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v EPA that gutted the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Marie Owens Powell, President of AFGE Council 238, which represents EPA employees, recently stated,  

The decision attacks our union, 7500-plus E. P. A. workers across the country. It strips federal scientists of their ability to help the American public tackle the worst effects of climate change. And it strips the E. P. A. of its power to protect the environment and our communities from a worsening climate crisis. The decision essentially made it so E. P. A. scientists need to request permission from Congress in order to do our job, which is the protection of human health and the environment.

Nicole Cantello, the president of the local representing E.P.A. workers in the Midwest, said the Supreme Court has "declared war on A.F.G.E. Local 704.” She added that “Gutting of the Clean Air Act has the effect of causing thousands of people to suffer grievous consequences because of the new radical ideas the majority justices have used to destroy your future.”

Britta Copt, President of AFGE Local 3607, which represents EPA employees in Denver, Colorado and Helena, Montana, said:

Every American, regardless of race, gender, income or geography wants the same thing: to be able to provide a better future for our children. Together, we can accomplish long-term, meaningful change. You are the most powerful decision makers in our fight for climate justice. You must demand climate justice from your Representatives and Senators, and demand that they reverse this Supreme Court decision. Stand in solidarity with EPA scientists and fight for E.P.A. and all other agencies that protect our environment and our communities.

Image Source:WavebreakMediaMicro- stock.adobe.com

At its 29th Constitutional Convention in June, the AFL-CIO passed a resolution on “Climate Change, Energy and Union Jobs.”

The resolution begins by pointing out the threat of climate change and the necessity of reducing emissions to meet it:

 The effects of climate change in the United States and around the world are serious and growing. Severe weather, including floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme heat and sea-level rise are affecting working people, our health and our communities in ways that call for an urgent and sustained response. We need increased investment in reducing emissions and adaptation to the unavoidable challenges across our economy and to our infrastructure.

The resolution goes on to address the problem of climate justice:

We know that climate change places a disproportionate burden on childhood development, low-income families and communities of color, raising serious issues of socioeconomic and racial justice.

It emphasized the importance of union jobs and of having clean energy technologies be “mined, produced, constructed and operated under union contracts.” 

And, without using the phrase, it called for what is often termed a “just transition”:

We will fight for investment in communities that have suffered from pollution and historic underinvestment, and in communities dependent on lost or at-risk fossil-fuel employment, thereby creating jobs for the future and renewing the tax base that supports public services. 

We will ensure workers affected by changes in technology get the training they need to keep the good union job they have, and that those who lose jobs have free training that is connected to a job, appropriate and acceptable.

The resolution is also notable for what it does not include:

•   There is no mention of meeting the targets and timetables for greenhouse gas reduction that climate scientists and the world’s governments have established as necessary to escape the most devastating consequences of climate change.
• There is mention of old and new nuclear technologies, hydrogen, continued use of natural gas and coal, and carbon capture and storage. But there is not even a mention of such renewable energy sources as solar energy, wind power, and geothermal power, even though these are now producing far more new jobs than fossil fuel production and use. 
• There is no mention of the millions of jobs that would be created by programs like the Green New Deal and Build Back Better, both of which have made the creation of union jobs a centerpiece of their proposals.
  

Various member unions of the AFL-CIO have advocated science-based targets and timetables for greenhouse gas reduction; rapidly expanded renewable energy; and the Green New Deal and Build Back Better programs. These policies were not included in the AFL-CIO climate resolution.

Image Source: Lenz, Leonhard. Fronttransparent der FridaysForFuture Demonstration am 25. Januar 2019 in Berlin. via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Social movement researcher Dalilah Shemia-Goeke recently reviewed Common Preservation in a Time of Mutual Destruction by LNS co-founder and senior advisor Jeremy Brecher. Her review, “How a Global Nonviolent Insurgency Could Prevent Climate Destruction,” was published in Resistance Studies and Waging Nonviolence. Shemia-Goeke writes,

While I was putting together some tools for my research to assess the effectiveness of resistance strategies challenging corporations, I came across Common Preservation: In a time of mutual destruction. It is a complete toolbox covering everything from identifying and analyzing to solving societal problems. Not just any problems, but addressing the most pressing issue of our times: climate destruction.

 Brecher has put considerable effort into bringing the labor movement and the climate movement closer together, uniting forces to overcome the destructive consequences of the fossil-fueled economy. In his latest book, in which he shares his mentioned ‘toolbox’, he brings all this together; his past experiences, insights and reflections from half a century of dedicated engagement in activism and theory in a variety of different areas.

This book is highly recommended for activists seeking inspiration for innovative ways to think about strategy, as well as for scholars who look for impulses on how research and academic work can be put in service of movements, while still staying committed to truth-seeking that is rooted in reason and evidence. And it is for both activists and scholars alike who yearn for non-dogmatic ways to learn about social change.

 Prior to joining IBEW, as a young parent fresh out of high school, Celina took a job as a credit analyst to secure health insurance for her young family. Her time in corporate America ended after 5 years, thanks to the Great Recession. She has been an integral member of the Young Worker Organizing Committee since its founding, helping to shape and conduct the Young Worker Listening Project as well as plan the upcoming Young Worker Convergence in September. 

Our Mission

To be a relentless force for urgent, science-based climate action by building a powerful labor-climate movement to secure an ecologically sustainable and economically just future where everyone can make a living on a living planet.

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