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Building trades workers are often exposed to the elements as they construct the cities and spaces we live in. The environment is their workplace, and Crystal is working to create a cleaner and healthier workplace for all workers while rebuilding the middle class for IBEW members, and for the broader working class.

The drive to unionize the auto industry in the South is crucial to a “just transition” as the auto industry goes electric. Private-sector investment in electric vehicle and battery manufacturing has reached nearly $140 billion in the past four years – 55% of it in the anti-union, “right-to-work” South. This is a blatant attempt to foment a “race to the bottom” in which low wages and bad working conditions in the South would force unionized workers to accept lower wages and worse working conditions elsewhere. The UAW drive to unionize the South is a strategy to turn that into a “race to the top” in which conversion to electric vehicles will mean better rather than worse conditions for auto workers. The vote to unionize the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant is the first victory for that strategy. 

The UAW’s next scheduled unionization vote will be at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, where 5,000 workers will vote May, 13-17. According to UAW president Sean Fain,

Workers at Mercedes have literally run this campaign with very little help from us. They wanted it that way. It’s great to see those workers feeling their power and being able to exercise their power.

Young workers were crucial to the union victory at Volkswagen. When the plant expanded to produce the all-electric ID.4, the company hired 2,000 new workers, many much younger and more diverse. According to veteran Chattanooga Volkswagen worker Caleb Michalski, 32,  

A lot of the people who’ve been staunchly anti-union are from an older generation. A lot of the younger generation, through a combination of social media and education and stuff like that, they realize, like, hey, it doesn’t make sense.”

This generational shift is not limited to auto workers. According to research by the Labor Network for Sustainability’s “Young Workers Listening Project,” many young workers are seeking ways to address both work and climate concerns. (To learn more about their findings, see “Young Workers Listening Project – a Sneak Peek” below.)

The vision guiding the UAW’s campaign for a just transition expresses some of the traditional values of the labor movement. As UAW president Sean Fain recently put it,

The foundation of all religion is love – love of your fellow human beings. It’s important when we talk as workers and as labor that we talk about these things, that everything we do is about making life better for human beings. When three families have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans, that’s the antithesis of everything that religion teaches.

By Laura Bray, LNS Young Workers Listening Project

Last month, I presented research from the LNS Young Worker Listening Project (YWLP) at the annual conference of the Southern Sociological Society. The presentation, titled “Laboring through the Storm: Young workers, climate change, and the pursuit of meaningful work,” explored how the climate crisis is shaping the meaning of work for young workers.

Through interviews with young workers organizing at the intersection of labor and climate, we found that climate change has disrupted both the meaning (e.g., self-fulfillment and purpose) and security (e.g., health and safety, fair wages, and long-term stability) that people expect work to provide. Some young worker organizers we talked to chose to pursue careers that they believed could “make a difference” in the climate crisis and saw this as an essential component of “meaningful work.” Yet many doing mission-driven work encountered organizational barriers that prevented them from enacting meaningful change in the way they had hoped. Even for those doing work without an explicit climate focus, we found that management inaction to address climate impacts meant that work failed to support their mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.

For young worker organizers, the failure of work to provide either security or meaning in the face of climate change has led them to embrace unionism as a “shelter from the storm.” Part of their enthusiasm for the labor movement is the belief that unions can meaningfully intervene in the climate crisis in a way that other institutions cannot. They also found security in unions through a sense of solidarity and community, as well as higher wages and greater workplace protections.

Look for the forthcoming YWLP report, “Earth is a Hot Shop,” to read more about these findings!

For more information email Maria@labor4sustainability.org

On May 7 at noon eastern time the youth voter organization Next Gen America will hold an on-line Climate Workshop for young people who are looking for a well-paying job that’s good for the environment. Attendees can expect

a professional development program that will empower young people to receive hands-on experience in the climate space. It will provide information on employment opportunities in climate; national and state climate advocacy; and climate issue education. 

Panelists include LNS’s own organizer Celina Barron, who will share information about how to access apprenticeship programs, and why joining a trade union is an opportunity to have a "climate job" with built-in training and good union wages & benefits.

Join here: https://www.mobilize.us/nextgeneducationfund/event/614081/

20,000 young people will work this summer and fall to care for their communities and tackle the climate crisis through the American Climate Corps. The Climate Corp has been a key campaign issue for the Green New Deal and groups like the youth Sunrise Movement.

 The Climate Corp invites young people to 

join the next generation of creators, thinkers, leaders, and doers, working together to tackle the climate crisis. Help build a clean energy and climate-resilient future in your own community and across the nation.

For information about applying: https://www.acc.gov/

April 15-May 30th continues to be packed with actions around the country connecting the concerns of workers and the environment by linking up Earth Day to May Day.

Western Massachusetts was one center of such action. The Western Mass Area Labor Federation, Climate Action Now, and the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition teamed up to link events and build solidarity and community across the region. Their calendar of events included twenty items, such as:

Green Energy Jobs in Springfield Clean energy jobs recruitment program to let the community know about new green energy jobs in Springfield. With a low bar for entry and paid training, this is an amazing opportunity for anyone looking for a career change or a job.

Cancel Student Debt to Support Workers Student debt impacts workers of all kinds, from nurses to teachers, custodians to truck drivers, personal care attendants to childcare workers, and many more. On May Day, as we celebrate workers, we demand that all student debt be cancelled.

Voices of Working People’s History A free program of dramatic readings and lots of songs, with emphasis on Western Mass. Voices.

Unionizing 101: A Workshop on Building Power at Your Job What can unions do for you? What is it like to have a union at your job? How do you start a union? What are the basics of organizing a union?

A Just Transition Farm to Table A panel of workers from various industries discuss their frontline work as farmers, grocery workers and line cooks. Hear what they love and hate about their jobs, how they see themselves impacted by a growing climate crisis, and what opportunities and challenges they see for change from their vantage point as a worker.

For more information on the Western Mass Area Labor Federation events: https://sites.google.com/view/earthdaytomayday2024/home 

By Veronica Wilson, LNS California Organizer

On May 8, 2024, California Labor for Climate Jobs (CLCJ) will rally for a Day of Action at the California state capitol. As legislators head into final days of committee hearings and Governor Gavin Newsom prepares to announce his 2024-2025 State Budget revisions, CLCJ will turn up the volume to voice their pro-worker and pro-climate demands. Now with 15 unions on board, the coalition already has some wins like EV manufacturing block grant programs in the state to prioritize high road employers to enhance labor standards, community benefits and labor peace agreements.

Adding to that momentum, the coalition’s manufacturing, home care, service, education, food and commercial, and public employees unions will link arms to call for climate resilient schools, Cal OSHA staffing, indoor and outdoor heat protections for workers, and more. Track #workerledtransition and #labormustleadonclimate and please help amplify the worker-led transition to a climate-safe economy. You can follow these and more on CLCJ social media, including CLCJ Instagram, CLCJ Facebook, and CLCJ Twitter/X.

Leading up to the Day of Action, CLCJ hosted two Worker Summits earlier this spring, which brought together union members including teachers, caregivers, food packing employees, refinery operators, sound techs, and groundskeepers, among many others. They gathered to hear and share how climate change is affecting them at work and in some cases how it’s changing their work. One union member talked about her typical workday in a food processing plant where indoor temperatures reach 120 degrees fahrenheit. The physical toll of extreme indoor temperatures are exacerbated at times by heat waves in summer, with hundreds of dollars in electricity bills adding an economic burden onto the negative health impacts.

Climate hazards for workers are undeniable, and at the same time climate investments are opening opportunities. Teachers talked about making sure federal climate investments reach schools and communities that need it most. Others are working with their union leaders to be ready for climate disasters like the extreme flooding that devastated parts of Southern California this past winter. Moreover, despite working in different industries, unionists agreed that urgent action on climate change is paramount and our best chance is organizing together to build a vision of hope and solidarity.  

For more on CLCJ, please visit calaborforclimatejobs.org.

Global Energy Monitor map of extraction sites discovered and sanctioned in 2022 and 2023, from the report “Drilling Deeper 2024: Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker”

According to a new study, the world’s fossil-fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade.

In 2021 the authoritative International Energy Agency (IEA) found that the goal of the Paris Agreement to keep global warming under 1.5C can only be met if there is no new oil and gas infrastructure. A total of 45 projects have been fully sanctioned, with 16 billion barrels of oil equivalent, since the 2021 IEA report. The US had the highest number of new oil and gas projects in 2022 and 2023. For the past six years it has produced more crude oil annually than any country in history. 

Source: “Surge of new US-led oil and gas activity threatens to wreck Paris climate goals,” Guardian

To read the report “Drilling Deeper 2024: Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker”: https://globalenergymonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/GEM-global-oil-and-gas-extraction-tracker-March-2024.pdf 

Seven countries now generate all their energy from renewable sources, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). More than 99.7 percent of electricity in Albania, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Iceland, Nepal, Paraguay and the Democratic Republic of Congo comes from geothermal, hydro, solar, or wind power.

An additional 40 countries got at least half of their electricity from such renewable energy sources in 2021 and 2022. Other countries, including Germany and Portugal, can run exclusively on renewables for limited times.

Source: “Two countries in Europe are powered by 100% renewable energy as wind capacity soars,” Euronews

Insert graphic below credit Guardian and Dr He Yin, assistant professor, geography department, Kent State University

The Geneva conventions require that warring parties not use methods that cause “widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.” It is a war crime under the Rome Statute, which governs the international criminal court, to intentionally launch an excessive attack knowing that it will cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment. 

According to satellite analysis by Forensic Architecture, a British research group that investigates state violence, before the Israeli assault on Gaza that began October 7, 2023, farms and orchards covered about 47% of Gaza’s total land area. By the end of February, Israeli military activity had destroyed more than 38% of that land. Nearly one-third of Gaza’s 7,500 greenhouses have also been destroyed entirely. 

A member of the Abu Suffiyeh family said of their Gaza farm, 

There is almost nothing to recognize there. It is now the same as it was before: desert. There is no single tree there. No traces of prior life. If I was to go there, I wouldn’t be able to recognize it.

Source: “‘Ecocide in Gaza’: does scale of environmental destruction amount to a war crime?” Guardian

By Chris Litchfield, LNS Actions and Logistics Coordinator

In conjunction with the US Climate Action Network and RE-AMP Network, LNS convened thirty community leaders and union activists in Chicago, April 11th and 12th, to discuss regional solidarity in the fight for just transition. Grounded by RE-AMP’s technical analysis on current state of emissions in the Midwest and updates from USCAN’s international and regional campaigns (both the Fast, Full, Fair Fossil Fuel Phase-Out and the Power 4 Southern People, NOT Southern Company campaigns, respectively), just economic and social transition, and the importance of labor’s engagement in that transition, took center stage.

What really came through was the necessity to embrace a broader framework for just transition, rooting our understanding in the history of the United States. As there has yet to be a truly just transition from the underpinnings of the US economic system, namely slavery and settler colonialism, it was agreed upon that same system cannot be expected to equitably transition from fossil fuels, and any struggle for a sustainable future has to proactively address those previous unjust transitions. A visit to the site of the Haymarket Square Rally and the resting place of the Haymarket martyrs was a further reminder of the long struggle for an equitable, sustainable future we carry forward despite violence from the right wing and the state.

Perhaps expectedly there was significant interest in the broad new spectrum of EPA technical support and grant programs including:

• Inflation Reduction Act Community Change Grants
• Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program
• Climate Pollution Reduction Grants
• Clean Ports Program
• Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers

Success of the Biden administration’s climate policy in many ways hinges on the dispersal of these federal funds, a notoriously convoluted process, and together with EPA representatives and community leaders attendees strategized on how best to access the grants. Familiarity with this process will be useful not only for movement capacity building but also as a point of leverage for workers when making demands of employers and sectors who are -or could be- receiving new federal investment. The Midwest has an opportunity to be a resilient climate haven, but only if we join together across the region and demand a truly just transition.

For more information email info@labornetwork4sustainability.org

LNS organizer and IBEW Local 11 member Celina Barron moderated a panel with workers in the renewable energy sector about challenges they face as they push for better safety practices, retention through better pay and equitable benefits, and to form unions! Across the solar and wind fields poor training, turnover, and lack of commitment to safety have been a breaking point to a sector plagued by low pay and isolated workplaces divided by both distance and specialized contractors. Renewable workers are getting organized - to improve their conditions and ensure our transition to sustainable energy is truly sustainable.

LNS also helped facilitate a Climate Change and Labor meetup building on conversations from the last Labor Notes conference, and LNS’s Transit Equity Network joined the Railroad Workers United convention to strategize around a publicly owned, sustainable rail sector. We also coordinated a contingent of climate organizers in attendance to continue to prepare for and deepen cross-movement solidarity. 

For those unable to attend (and even those in attendance as there was so much going on) below are video recordings of the main sessions:

• Friday featured session: Rebuilding a Fighting UAW
• Friday main session
• Saturday main session
• Saturday featured session: Organizing the South
• Sunday featured session: Black Labor Struggles Over Time
• Sunday main session

Full event report from Labor Notes: https://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2024/04/pulsing-life-2024-labor-notes-conference

On April 9 a post on Twitter/X announced:

Evergreen Action was founded on the belief that people are at the heart of our clean energy future. Simply put, staying true to the values we champion as an organization MEANS coming together to organize a union.

In record-breaking time, within an hour of the announcement Evergreen Action agreed to recognize the Evergreen Action Union.

Evergreen Action joins other environmental groups that have unionized in recent years, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, 350.org, Defenders of Wildlife, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, and the Labor Network for Sustainability. 

To follow their efforts: https://twitter.com/union_evergreen 

For two years, the GKN auto parts plant in Florence, Italy, has been occupied by laid-off workers. In late March, thousands of people from all over Italy marched in solidarity with workers from the plant. The call for the March 25 demonstration was signed by hundreds of organizations.

The workers issued a plan for “reindustrialization from below” with reconversion toward sustainable mobility and renewable energy. A Reindustrialization Group has identified the skills of the workers, mapped the factory’s layout, and inventoried its machinery and infrastructure. It is now seeking projects to make use of their machinery and skills. The workers are negotiating with a company that specializes in clean energy production to explore the possibility of producing cutting-edge photovoltaic panels and batteries at the plant. Meanwhile, an “Ex GKN for Future” crowdfunding campaign is laying the groundwork for a future based on “popular shareholding.” It raised nearly 60,000 Euros in the first two weeks – anyone can invest.

To learn more: https://jacobin.com/2023/04/italy-gkn-factory-occupation-transform-production-workers-jobs-climate-change 

For the crowdfunding campaign portal (in English, French, German, and Spanish, and Italian): https://www.produzionidalbasso.com/project/gkn-for-future/ 

"Champions” features current and historic figures who can inspire the struggle for a worker - and climate - safe world.

Charles Young was born into slavery in Kentucky on March 12, 1864. Through the legacy of his father, who had escaped slavery to join the Union Army during the Civil War, Young attended West Point Military Academy, becoming the third black American to graduate from West Point. He became the first Black colonel in the United States Army. 

Young became the first black National Parks Superintendent, with environmental preservation at the forefront of his life’s work. He was best known for his role in the construction of California’s Sequoia National Park. As Superintendent, he fought for preservation of the sequoias. He commanded a group of park rangers that became known as the “Buffalo Soldiers.”  They kept the park free from poachers and ranchers whose grazing sheep destroyed the park’s natural habitats. 

In 2013, Young was recognized as a true American hero, when President Barack Obama used the Antiquities Act to designate Young’s house as the 401st unit of the National Park System, the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument.

To learn more: https://sustainability.uconn.edu/2018/03/27/4-black-environmentalists-who-changed-the-environmental-movement/

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: