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The September climate action in New York, which was defined as a “March to End Fossil Fuels,” had a strong labor contingent and endorsements from 30 unions. 

Workers rightly fear that the need for climate protection will be exploited by corporations to drive down wages and shift jobs from unionized workers to those without union protections. And that is exactly what the Big Three auto companies are doing today. They are taking the subsidies the federal government is using to shift to electric cars and using them to replace unionized auto plants with new plants in low-wage areas in so-called right-to-work states, most of them in the South.

The auto workers strike is directly combatting what it calls this “race to the bottom.” It is calling instead for “a new model that puts working people, climate justice and human rights before profit.” They call for investing the $300 billion projected as subsidies for electric vehicles by 2031 in “high-road, green American manufacturing jobs that create broad-based prosperity for working class communities.”

President Joe Biden has walked the picket line in support of the striking auto workers. But this important symbolic action will matter far more if it is backed by real action – ensuring that there will be no use of climate subsidies whose intent or result is to replace union jobs with non-union jobs or to move work from higher-paid to lower-paid locations. If climate protection policies drive down conditions for working people, Donald Trump and his ilk are standing in the wings – indeed, rushing onto the stage – to exploit it.

At the recent UN climate summit Secretary-General António Guterres targeted fossil fuels as he said that “humanity has opened the gates of hell” by unleashing worsening heatwaves, floods and wildfires seen around the world and that a “dangerous and unstable” future of 2.8C global heating, compared with the pre-industrial era, was awaiting without radical action. “The future of humanity is in our hands,” he said. “We must turn up the tempo, turn plans into action and turn the tide.” Wealthy countries need to get their planet-heating emissions to net zero as close as possible to 2040. “We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels.” 

The world has just experienced its hottest June to August season on record. Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions from the global energy industry are still rising. 

Will the American labor movement answer Secretary-General Guterres’ call? Will it follow the lead of the unions that supported the March to End Fossil Fuels? It’s time for the American labor movement to decide, in the words of the famous labor anthem, “Which Side Are You On?”

By Sydney Ghazarian, LNS Staff 

The United Auto Workers (UAW) are making history with their Stand Up Strike against corporate greed, and for economic and social justice during the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Their fight is our fight too. We’re joining with Public Citizen, Greenpeace USA, Sunrise Movement, Evergreen Action, Jobs with Justice, DSA, Working Families Party, 350, Sierra Club, Green New Deal Network, and UAW for a Day of Action this Saturday October 7, in solidarity with striking auto workers.

Solidarity is powerful, it is collective, and it is a verb. 

We’re calling on activists and supporters across the country to stand up to Big 3 Auto’s corporate greed, to stand with UAW, and to join us in taking action on 10/7. Together, we are powerful.

Top Ways to Participate in the Day of Action on 10/7

• If you’re nearby a striking UAW location, show up in a red shirt and walk the picket line with auto workers! Find nearby picket lines here.
• Never been to a picket line before? No worries– just show up and join the fun! You can check out the Labor Network for Sustainability’s guide on strike support here. 
• If you’re not near a UAW picket line, join or host a car dealership canvass! This easy tactic, aimed at informing the public about the strike and what UAW auto workers are fighting for in their union contract, is not a boycott or rally. But, because car dealerships generate significant profit, it is a powerful pressure tactic against Big 3 CEOs. You can learn more about these canvasses, and sign up to host or join one, here.
• On 10/7, take a picture of you, your community, friends, and family participating in an action and post it online with the hashtag #StandUpUAW (Feel free to use this social media toolkit too! Or just Click to Tweet.) You can tag us on Twitter- @LN4S! 

Let us know how you plan on joining the October 7 Day of Action by filling out this form!

Help build momentum for the Day of Action on October 7! Invite your friends, family, and community to participate. Sign up to host a canvass, help organize a carpool, print flyers (find canvassing flyers here), and share why you’re taking action in solidarity with UAW. You can use this 10/7 Day of Action social media toolkit to make it easy. And, of course, you don’t have to wait until 10/7 to take action- head out the picket line or host a canvassing event in the lead up to Saturday too! Also, consider donating to UAW Region 6 and UAW Region 8’s solidarity fundraisers.

UAW’s fight against corporate greed and to win a union contract that ensures a just transition, good EV jobs, and wages and benefits that uplift working people during the transition to zero emissions is our movement’s fight too. By acting in solidarity, we can help win a strong contract for auto workers and a better future for us all.

In the words of UAW President Shawn Fain, "That's how we're going to defeat corporate greed, by standing together!"

In a September op-ed, UAW President Shawn Fain and Congressman Ro Khanna say record auto profits should be used to address inequality and the climate crisis. 

“The climate crisis and income inequality are the two greatest challenges facing our generation. Both are being determined in the union contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers Union and Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.”

The electric vehicle transition, they write, “must be as much about workers’ rights as it is about fighting the climate crisis. Forcing workers to decide between good jobs and green jobs is a false choice. We can and must achieve both – and it can start with a fair contract for UAW autoworkers.”

The electric vehicle future must be union made. “We can have both economic and climate justice – and that starts by ensuring that the electric vehicle industry is entirely unionized and that EV jobs come with union standards.”

We will not let corporate greed manipulate the transition to a green economy into a roll back of economic justice. That money must be invested in high-road, green American manufacturing jobs that create broad-based prosperity for working class communities. 

“We’re mobilizing for a new model that puts working people, climate justice and human rights before profit.” 

A recent article in In These Times by journalist Sarah Lazare says, “Mainstream media coverage of the UAW strike has implied that workers’ demands stand in conflict with achieving climate goals. That’s BS.”

The article is titled, “The Big 3 Want You To Think Striking Workers and the Climate Are at Odds. They’re Not.” It quotes several LNS staff members and friends to make its point:

Sydney Ghazarian, LNS organizer who helped get more than 100 environmental and other organizations to support the auto workers strike, told Lazare,

Personally, I have no patience for the industry framing that workers are somehow responsible for slowing down the transition to EVs. 

It wasn’t auto workers who suppressed global warming research beginning in the 1960s while also lobbying against climate protections, ​It wasn’t auto workers who made the decision to produce gas-guzzling vehicles, or to locate pollutive plants in working class communities of color. Those decisions were made by auto industry bosses like Mary Barra, Jim Farley, and Carlos Tavares (the CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, respectively) whose primary motive was ensuring they could pocket millions and millions of dollars a year, at any moral, societal or planetary cost.

Mijin Cha, an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California-Santa Cruz and co-author of the LNS report “Workers and Communities in Transition,” told Lazare,

​The Big Three all currently have union contracts. They are making record profits while also having a union workforce. It’s unclear to me why the EV sector can’t also make profits while paying workers well. We must reject the idea that the only way to transition to a low-carbon or carbon-free future is by exploiting workers.

Joshua Dedmond, LNS co-director, said,

​For the transition off fossil fuels to succeed, it’s imperative that it is a just transition that can convince millions of people to take the leap of faith into the new green economy.

 

For more on the UAW strike, check out this Citations Needed podcast interview with Sydney Ghazarian exposing Republican-Corporate-Media effort to divide climate advocates and auto workers.

In a climate mobilization endorsed by 30 labor unions, an estimated 75,000 people took part in a March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City on September 17. Chris Silvera, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 808, addressed the rally:  

First of all, let me just say thank you to my IATSE brothers and sisters who are here. This is a union stage. We’re not like them other people. We’ve got to remember SAG and AFTRA and the UAW. Where’s my union brothers and sisters standing up? This is a workers’ fight. It is the poor, it is the working class that suffers with these fossil fuel devils. We have to move on.

Labor has to be in the vanguard of this struggle, because we have the resources, we have the organization, we have the power to join together with poor communities, with Indigenous communities to say “no” to any more pipelines, “no” because we can live without oil but we can’t live without water. We can live without oil, but we need clean air.

And we are here as labor to stand in solidarity with — let me do the count right quick — woo, look like about 75,000 people. We are here with you. Power belongs to the people. To the people belongs the power. 

The Labor Network for Sustainability was proud to take part in the march by coordinating and organizing its labor contingent. Over 30 labor unions and organizations endorsed the NYC march.

An estimated 1 million people took part in coordinated actions around the world.

President Joe Biden announced a new initiative to train young people for jobs in the clean energy economy. 

The American Climate Corps will put a new generation of Americans to work conserving our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, advancing environmental justice, deploying clean energy, implementing energy efficient technologies, and tackling climate change. American Climate Corps members will gain the skills necessary to access good-paying jobs that are aligned with high-quality employment opportunities after they complete their paid training or service program.

The youth jobs corps is a central part of the original program for the Green New Deal. Biden’s announcement comes after a multi-year campaign by the youth climate organization Sunrise – and immediately following large demonstrations in New York and worldwide demanding an end to fossil fuels.

An early example of American Climate Corps program is a partnership between AmeriCorps and the US Forest Service to establish the new AmeriCorps NCCC Forest Corps. 

This is a five-year, $15 million interagency agreement, with the first cohort of 80 members to begin service in the summer of 2024. The AmeriCorps NCCC Forest Corps will deploy across America to conserve national forests and grasslands, mitigate risks of wildfires in high-risk regions, and support reforestation efforts and wildfire crisis response.

To allay fears that Climate Corp jobs might supplant existing union jobs, LNS President Joe Uehlein suggests that explicit language in regulations for the program require that the jobs created must be new jobs -- not replacement of existing workers. 

For how to join the Climate Corps: https://www.whitehouse.gov/climatecorps/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Image Source: New Africa- stock.adobe.com

The federal government is launching a series of Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to help communities impacted by recent or impending closing of fossil fuel facilities.

RRTs are intended to work with energy communities who have experienced a recent or approaching fossil fuel facility closure to address worker and community needs using existing federal resources. RRT members work with community members to identify economic transformation and revitalization goals, figure out ways to pursue those goals, and make the connections between programs across the federal family and up and down levels of government. RRTs aim to understand the needs of communities and work to make sure barriers to meeting those needs are smoothed over.

The RRT program was initiated by the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization. There are four existing RRTs in Wyoming, the Four Corners, the Illinois Basin and Eastern Kentucky. “Each region has a unique set of challenges the RRTs aim to address, including workforce training, economic diversification, reclamation of legacy energy assets, broadband access, infrastructure improvements and more.” So far RRT locations have been chosen by identifying the regions with the highest loss of coal assets and with inadequate financial and local community resources to address those losses. 

If your community or region is interested in being considered for an RRT, contact contact@energycommunities.gov.

For more: https://energycommunities.gov/technical-assistance/rapid-response-teams/

Despite opposition to a national Green New Deal by rightwing politicians and the fossil fuel industry, many “Little Green New Deals'' are under way at the local and state level. A new commentary by LNS co-founder and senior advisor Jeremy Brecher called “The Green New Deal from Below Means Jobs” describes how they are already expanding the number and improving the quality of jobs. The Commentary starts with the youth jobs corps that have developed in Green New Deal cities and others with climate protection programs. It reviews the jobs that are already being created by state and local Green New Deal from Below programs and evaluates how many could be created by a fully developed Green New Deal. 

To read the Commentary: 

https://www.labor4sustainability.org/articles/the-green-new-deal-from-below-means-jobs/

She also co-managed local advocacy campaigns that led one of the largest transit agencies in the U.S. to agree to swap out its fleet of fossil fuel-powered buses to zero emission buses.

Erika earned her Bachelor's degree in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University and her Master's degree from University of California, Los Angeles in Urban and Regional Planning.  

Erika has played a vital role in ongoing United Auto Workers (UAW) solidarity work.

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: