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President Schuler’s speech continues a long line of AFL-CIO positions touting hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear as solutions to the climate crisis while neglecting the renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal, that provide far greater climate-safe energy at far less cost -- and create far more jobs. For example, a 2022 AFL-CIO Convention Resolution discussed old and new nuclear technologies, hydrogen, continued use of natural gas and coal, and carbon capture and storage. But there was 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. 

The AFL-CIO would be wise to considerer a recent finding by the International Energy Agency, the intergovernmental organization that governments most rely on for projections about the future of the global energy industry. The IEA has long been an advocate for hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear energy as solutions for the climate crisis. In its 2021 Net Zero Roadmap half the post-2030 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions were to be delivered by new technologies not yet on the market – like hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear energy. But in its 2023 Net Zero Roadmap that share has fallen to 35 percent. According to Dave Jones, a peer reviewer for the IEA World Energy Report, “The biggest change to the 2021 report is the downgrading of carbon capture, hydrogen and bioenergy, and the upgrade awarded to renewables, efficiency and electrification.” 

Striking UAW auto workers are drawing a roadmap for American unions to win a just transition to a climate safe economy. While the Big Three auto companies have resisted the Biden administration’s timetable for electrification of the auto industry, the UAW has taken a strong stand in favor of electrification – and is striking in part to promote electrification plans that will create good jobs and prevent a “race to the bottom” for auto workers. As noted in “A Just Transition for Auto Workers – Just What Is It?” below, they have laid out concrete demands that provide for such a just transition. Not only that; as pointed out in “Auto Workers Winning Steps Toward a Just Transition” below, the auto companies, faced with determined strikers, have already agreed to some of those demands. 

IEA Executive Director Faith Birol says, 

Governments, companies and investors need to get behind clean energy transitions rather than hindering them. There are immense benefits on offer, including new industrial opportunities and jobs, greater energy security, cleaner air, universal energy access and a safer climate for everyone. 

Shouldn’t that go for organized labor as well?

Photo credit UAW

In the on-going strike by UAW auto workers against the auto industry Big Three, one of the central objectives is to win a just transition to climate safe vehicle production for auto workers. At press time the strike continues, but the union has already won significant concessions that will contribute to a just transition. (See next story for more on what a just transition means for auto workers.) 

While collective bargaining is often shrouded in darkness, the UAW has revealed to union members and the public news of what is happening at the bargaining table. In addition to negotiations over wages, hours and working conditions, a central just transition demand has already been met by one of the Big Three.

GM has agreed that all its electric vehicle and battery plants will be included in the UAW master agreement. This puts an even floor under worker conditions and prevents worker-against-worker competition leading to “race to the bottom.” It thereby reduces the incentive for the company to site new EV and battery facilities in low-wage, anti-union states in the South and elsewhere. 

UAW president Sean Fain said, “GM has agreed to lay the foundation for a just transition.” Fain said GM agreed to the concession in response to the union’s threat to extend the strike to some of the company’s more profitable plants. Harley Shaiken, labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said, “This defines the transition to EVs. Clearly, GM’s concession on the master agreement will positively be matched by Ford and Stellantis.”

The strike by the UAW against the Big Three auto companies has brought together autoworkers and climate advocates around the demand for a just transition to a climate-safe auto industry. But what is a just transition? Why is a just transition necessary? And how could a just transition for auto workers be achieved?

A new Commentary by LNS co-founder and senior advisor Jeremy Brecher called “Just Transition for Auto Workers: The Answer to Auto’s Race to the Bottom” provides an in-depth look at the “race to the bottom” in worker conditions that is currently being fomented by the Big Three. And it lays out concrete proposals for protecting auto workers in the transition to electric vehicle transition. The Commentary concludes:

These just transition proposals are not “pie in the sky.” They grow out of existing programs and proposals of the UAW, the climate movement, federal agencies, and state legislators. As President Biden’s unprecedented decision to join the UAW picket line indicates, they come at a time when the government and the auto companies are most vulnerable to pressure to do the right thing. They will not in themselves turn the auto plants into a utopia. But they can play a significant role in halting and even reversing the race to the bottom that is already underway in the auto industry. They can promote both climate protection and a decent future for auto workers. And they can provide a program around which auto workers, climate protectors, and advocates for the public interest can join forces.

For full Commentary: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/strike/just-transition-for-auto-workers-the-answer-to-autos-race-to-the-bottom/

Picket lines are an essential way that workers show their determination and collective power. And they are a key way that others can show their support. Environmental, environmental justice, community, and other supporters have been joining picket lines at auto plants around the country to show their solidarity with striking auto workers.

Not on strike yourself but want to help workers who are? Then a new LNS publication, “How You Can Support Striking Workers: An LNS Guide to Solidarity,” is for you. It will tell you

• How to get informed about a strike even if you are not a participant
• How to find out about joining a picket line
• How to prepare to join a picket line
• Picket line do’s and don’ts
• Other ways to support strikers

As the Guide concludes,

When you turn out to support strikers, you are doing more than helping to win the strike. You are contributing to creating new relationships and helping create a movement based on common interests and mutual aid. 

Read the Guide: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/files/pdf_StrikeSupport_09212023.pdf

On October 3 the Executive Council of the American Federation of Teachers passed a resolution “Declaring a Climate Emergency and Developing Climate Action and Healthy Building Plans.” It resolved that:

• The AFT urgently demands that President Biden take bold action by declaring a national climate emergency and working to build a robust, just and regenerative energy system
• The AFT will bring together AFT leaders and district/city/employer teams, at the earliest time and place practicable, to discuss and develop model clean energy and healthy building climate action plans specific to employers―local government, school districts, colleges, universities and hospitals―to access the new federal resources
• Such plans will advocate that states and municipalities use President Biden’s clean energy and infrastructure program funds to do their part to mitigate and prepare for the unfolding climate crisis, with plans including such items as retrofitting and weatherizing, remediating facilities for toxic substances, installing energy efficient systems, integrating climate justice curriculum, implementing sustainable practices to reduce carbon footprint, and supporting green careers through training and education for students and communities 
• Such plans will also be rooted in community needs and include input from students, parents, local administrative leaders, appropriate green and union allies, and diverse community representatives

The resolution came in the wake of extensive organizing by union educators through the Educators Climate Action Network facilitated by LNS, the AFT Climate and Environmental Justice Caucus, and LNS's organizing of the "labor hub" of the September 17th March to End Fossil fuels in New York.

For the full resolution: https://www.aft.org/resolution/declaring-climate-emergency-and-developing-climate-action-and-healthy-building-plans

On October 24 a new labor union coalition released the California Worker Climate Bill of Rights calling on legislators to take urgent action to support workers through the economic upheaval and hazardous conditions wrought by a rapidly changing climate.

The new coalition, California Labor for Climate Jobs (CLCJ), includes labor unions representing public sector workers, teachers, oil workers, utility workers, domestic workers, healthcare workers, farmworkers, janitors, autoworkers and more. Coalition members have pledged to stand in solidarity with each other as they fight for a worker-led transition with policy solutions to improve California’s economy for low-income workers and communities of color.

According to Kathryn Lybarger, President of AFSCME 3299 representing workers at the University of California,

Every working Californian is impacted by climate change and the massive restructuring of our economy that is already underway,” said Kathryn Lybarger, President of AFSCME 3299 representing workers at the University of California. “If we leave it to big business, the transition will mean unplanned layoffs, the creation of low-wage jobs and the decimation of our public sector. For working people to thrive under a changing climate we need the opposite - new and stronger labor protections, expanded public services for our communities and safety nets for workers in shuttering industries.

LA Times Coverage by Sammy Roth: https://calaborforclimatejobs.org/boiling-point-can-climate-activists-and-labor-unions-find-common-ground/ 

For more on California Labor for Climate Jobs: https://calaborforclimatejobs.org/

For the California Worker Climate Bill of Rights: California Worker Climate Bill of Rights

On October 4 Americans for Democratic Action presented LNS co-founder and president with the Winn Newman Lifetime Achievement Award. In his acceptance speech, Joe said in part:

Art is a critical complement to activism, because no matter how brilliant our attempts to inform, it is our ability to inspire that makes the difference and builds a movement. Music is my art form and I’ve been a proud member of the American Federation of Musicians for 57 years, having joined in Cleveland, OH at the age of 13.

We live in a time like no other in human history. Income inequality has reached disgusting levels. Never before have so few taken so much from so many for so long. And after four decades of public knowledge about global warming, with all the early predictions not only coming true but with the impacts arriving sooner than we thought, and with far more intensity, we are living in the era of climate chaos and the human race is staring at the precipice of climate catastrophe that will cause massive economic and social disruption.

But we can do something about it. We can end the extraction and  burning of fossil fuels, reconstruct our energy, agriculture, and  transportation systems, and reverse global warming; and we can do this while creating good paying jobs, union jobs, throughout the economy. We CAN imagine and create a new societal construct built on the concepts of full spectrum sustainability: economic, social, and environmental justice. At the Labor Network for Sustainability we are fighting for a future where everyone can make a living on a living planet. That’s our mission.

For video of Joe’s segment of awards ceremony: https://youtu.be/P-B9nYw0WhM

For video of full awards ceremony: https://youtu.be/qlD3jcJjcXA?si=Fh_MaXjDxZ6Isi57

For text of Joe’s talk: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/message-from-joe-uehlein-lns-founder-and-board-president/

Photo credit Seattle 350/Eli VanderBilt, Instagram @vanderbilt.eli

LNS Board Chair and former president of the Washington State AFL-CIO Jeff Johnson made the following remarks to the September 17 Climate Rally in Seattle:

Saving the planet ironically just isn’t part of the corporate plan.

Also, not part of the corporate plan is allowing workers, communities of color, Indigenous people, students, environmentalists, and seniors having a say in how we should build a just, equitable, and sustainable world. But this is what the struggle is about.

Imagine for a moment what the world would look like if a broad coalition of climate justice advocates were in charge of creating this outcome. There would be:

Targeted investments in clean energy, starting where the need was greatest

Deep dive energy retrofits in all public buildings, followed by private buildings, creating lifetime jobs and lowering carbon footprints

Building truly affordable zero carbon housing

Massive investments in resiliency efforts for clean air, water, forest and farm land 

A Civil Conservation Corps on steroids

Community wind and solar with local hire

Clean electric transportation systems

And all of this, and more, built with union labor and with high labor standards

This would be a world of massive job creation, climate change reversal, and a significant narrowing of inequality.

To get there, to transition to a truly just, equitable, and sustainable world we will need an economic and social paradigm shift.

And it starts here:

With a united front of environmental justice, Communities of Color, labor, indigenous, youth, student, environmental, and senior organizations demanding a plan to rapidly stop the use of fossil fuel production; end fossil fuel subsidies; and to democratize the creation and building of a “Just, Equitable and Sustainable planet.”

This is no time for small changes. 

For text of Jeff’s speech: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/comments-by-jeff-johnson-lns-board-member-and-former-president-of-the-washington-state-afl-cio/

The Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents more than 5,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and EOF counselors at the state university’s three main campuses, has been holding a series of “Freedom Schools” in the tradition of “Ella Baker, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the 1960s civil rights movement.” The goal of the Freedom School is to be a” virtual classroom and discussion space for union members, students, and the community to develop leadership and political consciousness for a new generation.” 

The most recent Freedom School, streamed live on October 16 and now available on youtube, was titled “What Is Climate Justice, and Why Are Unions Integral to It?” It featured Ayesha Qazi-Lampert of the Chicago Teachers Union, Kate Delany of NJ Food & Water Watch, and Rutgers professors and climate justice activists Todd Vachon, Jovanna Rosen, and David Hughes. 

For Freedom School on Unions and Climate Justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuU18r8SqwM 

For Rutgers AAUP-AFT Freedom School series: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rutgers+aft+freedom+school

According to April Sims, President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, 

Washington must tackle the dual crises of climate chaos and inequality by expanding access to union climate careers for women, communities of color, and rural communities. By winning strong labor and equity standards for workers in the clean energy economy, we can create training pathways to good union careers that pay family-sustaining wages in communities that need them most.

To learn more: https://www.thestand.org/2023/07/unions-launch-climate-jobs-washington/ 

To read the report: https://www.climatejobswa.org/our-report

While protecting the climate will require millions of jobs, there is no guarantee that those jobs will be good jobs. In his new Commentary “The Green New Deal from Below and the Future of Work,” newsletter editor Jeremy Brecher describes how the local and state Green New Deals that have sprung up around the country are not only creating new jobs, they are also addressing low wages, lack of opportunities for training and advancement, de facto exclusion from access to good jobs, and other dimensions of job quality. They are making it easier for workers to organize. And some of them are moving toward providing a “jobs guarantee.” Taken together, these initiatives are laying the foundations for a transformation of the world of work.

To read the Commentary: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/strike/the-green-new-deal-from-below-and-the-future-of-work/

Image credit Icons-Icons

A survey commissioned by the British charity Protect has found that concerns about being fired or victimized at work are preventing people from calling out their employers on the climate crisis and the wider environment.

Fear of reprisals and uncertainty about how to provide proof were the main barriers to reporting on poor and misleading behavior about the environment. Employees were also skeptical that their concerns would be properly dealt with. Three quarters of those who contacted the Protect hotline about an environmental issue at work said they faced negative treatment as a result. Caitlín Comins, a legal officer at Protect, said

Workers are the eyes and ears of an organization and are best placed to spot when things go wrong. With the right information, they can raise concerns and damage can be prevented, minimizing the impact on the environment. By exposing environmental wrongdoing, they can also help ensure organizations are accountable for their climate impact and there is appropriate intervention where required.

LNS would like to be made aware of any similar hotline, study, or toolkit in the US.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/14/fear-of-reprisals-prevent-people-calling-out-employers-on-climate-says-charity

Environmental Whistleblowing Toolkit: https://protect-advice.org.uk/environmental-whistleblowing-toolkit/

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: