This January the San-Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council AFL-CIO overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting the Green New Deal with strong labor provisions. They hope it will serve as a touchstone to help spark a larger discussion inside the American labor movement. 

The resolution notes that “with the support of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, AFL-CIO, California has adopted a goal of 100% renewable and zero-carbon electricity and has demonstrated that clean energy industries can create good, middle-class jobs when linked with collective bargaining agreements.” The resolution lays out a program of strong labor provisions for a Green New Deal. The San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO:

supports a Green New Deal that expands collective bargaining and ensures the creation of union jobs through card check neutrality agreements, prevailing wages, project labor agreements, enacting the provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act and requiring direct partnerships with joint labor-management apprenticeship programs; and

supports a Green New Deal prioritizing projects, union career opportunities and investments in working-class, low-income and communities of color historically and disproportionality impacted by pollution, high unemployment, poverty and environmental injustice; and

supports a Green New Deal that includes a fair and equitable Just Transition for workers impacted by a transitioning economy including a fund to provide severance packages, lifetime income, free education and family healthcare; and

supports a Green New Deal that includes Buy America provisions.

will advocate for a Green New Deal with strong labor provisions in concert with our environmental and community partners.

In a commentary on the resolution Jim Miller of the labor council’s Environmental Caucus asks, “So what would a Green New Deal entail and why should working people support it?  He quotes “a pithy summary” by Jeremy Brecher and Joe Uehlein of the Labor Network for Sustainability in a recent In These Times piece “12 Reasons Labor Should Demand a Green New Deal”:

The Green New Deal is a program that all trade unionists and advocates for working people can and should get behind.

While there are a variety of detailed proposals for a Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ proposal promises to create millions of jobs through building a new 100%-renewable electrical system and a national “smart grid,” retrofitting residential and industrial buildings, and building a new, low-emission transportation system.

It also seeks to end the epidemic of poverty by mitigating deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth and distributing federal aid and other investment equitably to historically impoverished and marginalized communities.

At its core, the Green New Deal would work toward saving the climate by meeting scientific targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases, investing in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases, and making “green” technology a major export of the United States to help other countries transition to carbon-neutral economies.

Miller continues,

Brecher and Uehlein go on to outline why labor should robustly support such a program citing the need to avert climate catastrophe, providing jobs for all, abolishing poverty, rebuilding the labor movement, uniting the working class, winning wide support for a labor-friendly program, building a powerful union-friendly coalition, unifying labor and environmental groups, challenging the corporate domination of the Democratic Party, strengthening worker bargaining power, expanding union apprenticeships and training, and establishing a standard for how politicians can claim to be friends of labor. 

Read the full text of the resolution and commentary by Jim Miller of the Council’s Environmental Caucus »

Hector Figueroa, president of 32BJ SEIU, the largest property service union in the country, issued the following statement: 

As a union representing 163,000 doormen, security officers, cleaners and airport workers up and down the east coast, we support the Green New Deal, which was officially introduced today by New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey. For the first time, our elected officials recognize that our climate and economic crises are intertwined and can only be solved with bold and effective government action. We reside in coastal cities that have been flooded by storms like Hurricanes Sandy and Maria, so we know this kind of ambitious, large scale vision to reduce greenhouse gasses and switch to renewable energies is both doable and indispensable. 

For labor unions like ours, climate change is an environmental issue, an economic opportunity and a political challenge that we know can destabilize our communities. This is an opportunity to tackle economic inequality and re-industrialize America with a green economy through jobs that, with the right training, can provide career ladders for many low-wage workers who struggle to afford the high cost of living. At 32BJ, we have pioneered Green Buildings Programs that serve as large scale examples that investing in long-term training and education for current workers can help them become leaders in this kind of bold vision to reduce greenhouse gasses, switch to renewable energies, and create good jobs. 

As our country weighs the viability of the Green New Deal, we urge elected officials, labor unions, environmental groups and community organizations to support and grow its vision and to be smart, compassionate and bold. 

See the statement »

Photo by IBEW: Lou Antonellis and colleagues always think “green on the job.”

On Monday, February 18, 2019, Chris Bangert-Drowns, a senior reporter with WPFW, the Pacifica Radio affiliate in Washington, D.C. spoke with LNS founding president Joe Uehlein about the Green New Deal and the tepid response from some unions. Listen here »

Photo by Senate Democrats: Green New Deal Press Conference, Feb. 2, 2019. Used with permission through Creative Commons.

Back in 2016, representatives of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), Verde (a community-based environmental organization), the Coalition of Communities of Color, the NAACP, and 350PDX (the local affiliate of 350.org) met to discuss how work to fight climate change could simultaneously address racial and economic justice and create living wage jobs. The result was a “clean energy initiative” that was passed in November by Portland voters in November, 2018 almost two-to-one.

An article by Bill Bigelow in Rethinking Schools explains:

The Clean Energy Fund will be supported by a tax — technically, a surcharge — of 1 percent on corporations with gross retail receipts nationally of $1 billion and at least $500,000 in Portland. Food, medicine, and healthcare are exempt. A 1 percent tax on the 1 percent. Corporations affected include big retailers like Walmart, Target, J. C. Penney, and Best Buy, but also the media behemoth Comcast, which dominates Portland’s cable market. Organizers estimate that the tax will raise $30 million a year. The money will go to a fund dedicated to clean energy projects — renewable energy and energy efficiency — targeted explicitly to benefit low-income communities and communities of color. The fund will also support regenerative agriculture and green infrastructure projects aimed at greenhouse gas sequestration and sustainable local food production.

An important component of the new initiative will be creating clean energy jobs that “prioritize skills training, and workforce development for economically disadvantaged and traditionally underemployed workers, including communities of color, women, persons with disabilities, and the chronically underemployed.” Workers will be paid more than $20 an hour, at least 180 percent of minimum wage.

Bigelow quotes Khanh Pham, an organizer with APANO: “Asians and Pacific Islanders are the first and hardest hit by climate change. Many of our members, particularly our immigrant members, are struggling to find living wage work. This ballot initiative allows us to tackle both climate change and growing inequality at the same time.”

Read the full article »

Mike Cavanaugh (pictured front right) joined the staff of the Labor Network for Sustainability as of February, 2019 as our Senior Strategic Advisor/Organizer  after a lifetime of working in the labor movement as an organizer and advocate for workers and their unions.

A native of Chicago, Mike began working in the labor movement in 1973 as an organizer building community and student support across the Midwest for striking garment workers of the Farah manufacturing company in El Paso and San Antonio Texas. He went on to organize hospital workers, clothing and textile workers, warehouse workers, public employees and more with a focus on building labor-community alliances for social and economic justice in states throughout New England, where he eventually became the Secretary Treasurer of the New England Regional Joint Board of UNITE.

After leaving his union in 1999 to accept a position at the national AFL-CIO in Washington DC, Mike held a number of senior positions in the Federation’s Field Department working to build and strengthen the nationwide network of State Federations, Area and Central Labor Councils.  When the 2013 AFL-CIO Convention elected Tefere Gebre,  the first immigrant, refugee, and central labor council leader to be elected to the top leadership as its Executive Vice President, Mike joined Tefere as his Executive Assistant,  a position he held until retiring from the national federation in 2018.

Mike has a B.A. in Studies for Social Change from Knox College in Galesburg Illinois, and a Masters Degree in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts.  His wife Dianne of Portland Maine  is Nurse Practitioner currently working in Queens, NY.  Their children Jennifer and Brendan and their spouses Daniel and Michelle live in New Jersey as do their two grandchildren, (around whom the world rotates) Michael Graceon (3 years) and Liam Gregory (6 months). 

Mike brings a lifetime of organizing experience and a passion for building a progressive labor movement to the important work of LNS. For all of our children and grandchildren – our efforts must be consistent and long term to build a just and sustainable economy, environment and society.