SPECIAL CLIMATE STRIKE EDITION #33, September 2019
Making a Living on a Living Planet

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Making a Living on a Living Planet: News of how working people are fighting for a planet that is sustainable—environmentally, economically, and socially. If you like what we are doing and want to connect, please sign up for our newsletter and for other information at labor4sustainability.org. You are welcome to repost anything in this newsletter to spread the word!
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Help us to build a powerful national organization for workers and communities to confront climate change. Membership is open to anyone interested and who endorses our mission and principles.
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IN THIS ISSUE
  • SEIU—America’s Second Largest Union—Supports Climate Strikes
  • 1,000 Amazon Workers Will Strike for Climate
  • Teachers Supporting Their Climate-Striking Students
  • Labor Councils Supporting Student Strikes
  • Unions Worldwide Support Youth Climate Strikes
  • How Labor Can Support the Youth-Led Climate Strikes September 20-27
  • Resources and Materials for Labor on the Climate Strikes
  • Striking for Climate Can Be As Easy As Taking a Snapshot
  • Who We Are: Featured Staff Member Lauren Burke
  • More About Us: LNS - Making a Living on a Living Planet
SEIU—America’s Second Largest Union—Supports Climate Strikes

Above: As LNS gets ready to join the Student Climate Strikes starting on September 20, 2019, we pay tribute to the late Hector J. Figueroa, former president of 32BJ Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Hector was an influential champion in the labor-climate justice movement. In this photo, Hector joins hundreds of thousands of protesters who filled Central Park West in New York, Sunday, September 21, 2014, demanding "system change not climate change" while addressing the labor contingent. Credit: Thomas Good - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.

This week, Service Employees (SEIU) President Mary Kay Henry sent local SEIU leaders this message:

When the SEIU Executive Board voted on a resolution supporting the Green New Deal, we said that we would join with the climate and environmental justice movement in demanding action on climate change, structural racism and economic inequality. Recently, these demands aligned on the streets of Detroit as our union united with youth and environmental justice organizations in a mass rally and march at the Democratic presidential debates.

The next opportunity for cross movement mobilization is coming up on September 20th with the global climate student strike. On that day, young people across the world will be striking. Here in the U.S., young people along with allied organizations will be rallying in cities across the country. This link provides background and mobilization locations across the country. If your local can participate, please contact Jon Barton at jon.barton@seiu.org.

This will be an exciting day to lift up voices along with youth and allied organizations as we build a wider movement to demand a greener, safer and more just world. 
1,000 Amazon Workers Will Strike for Climate

A thousand Amazon employees have signed a form pledging to walk out on September 20 in support of youth climate strikers. According to this article in Vox, an informational letter to Amazon workers from Amazon Employees for Climate Justice said, “We need bold, immediate climate action.” As a large global company, “we must demonstrate real climate leadership.”

Goals of the action are zero carbon emissions by 2030; an end to custom AWS cloud computing contracts with fossil fuel companies; and an end to funding climate-denying lobbyists and politicians. Twenty-six Amazon workers explain why they are walking out in this short, powerful video.
Teachers Supporting Their Climate-Striking Students

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, has just released the following statement:

From students walking out in solidarity against gun violence, to young people marching for action on climate change across the world, we see powerful examples of what happens when young people take action for change. Today’s students are tomorrow’s elected officials, engineers, researchers and scientists; they are designing solutions to preserve the earth’s riches, forging a path for a future they want to inherit.

When students are planning such actions, their parents should be the first resource they engage, because parents can help their kids evaluate the benefits and risks of engaging in civil disobedience. Then, if teachers can help students learn about the science of climate change, help them understand free speech and citizen advocacy as part of civic education, and encourage their belief in themselves, we’ve done our job in helping the next generation secure their future.

This website by AFT, ShareMyLesson, presents an extensive collection of climate change lessons, lesson plans, and other resources for teachers.

For further information about AFT participation and support contact: Bill Shiebler BShiebler@aft.org and Derrick Figures DFigures@aft.org.

Unions affiliated with the National Education Association are also supporting the student strike. For example, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, an affiliate of the NEA, is promoting the strike and distributing this student-produced Teacher Toolkit.
Labor Councils Supporting Student Strikes
 
Alameda Labor Council
 


 
LABOR RISE
 


Unions Worldwide Support Youth Climate Strikes

For statements supporting the youth-led calls for global climate action from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, and elsewhere around the world visit this link »
How Labor Can Support the Youth-Led Climate Strikes September 20-27

Photo: Appeared in this article in Portside.

Thousands of workers and major unions are supporting the youth-led student climate strikes September 20-27. Here’s how workers and unions can join them:

  • Join actions in your area: US Action Map, Global Action Map
  • Register your action (and encourage others in your community to register) on the map 
  • Take an inter-generational pic with youth
  • Sign on as a partner organization with Strike with US (part of how we can raise labor’s visibility is to have as many worker organizations signing on!)
  • Please share your climate strike action plans with LNS by emailing lburke@labor4sustainability.org
  • Send an email with this information to your own list and lists from your union, worker center or labor council. 
  • Pass a resolution in your union supporting the climate strikes, the Green New Deal, and LNS. The following unions are engaged in supporting the youth climate strikes:

    • 1199 SEIU
    • 1199 SEIU UHWE
    • AFSCME DC 37
    • AFSCME Local 3299
    • Alameda Labor Council
    • American Federation of Teachers
    • AFT Guild, Local 1931
    • California Federation of Teachers
    • Massachusetts Teachers Association
    • New York State Nurses Association
    • NYC LCLAA
    • PSC CUNY
    • Rutgers AAUP-AFT
    • SEIU
    • SEIU 32 BJ
    • SEIU 1021
    • UAW Local 2865
    • UAW Local 5810
    • UE
    • UFCW Local 888
    • UPTE/CWA Local 9119
Resources and Materials for Labor on the Climate Strikes

Something for everyone:
Striking for Climate Can Be As Easy As Taking a Snapshot

Photo: LNS Senior Organizer (and former AFL-CIO national staffer) Mike Cavanaugh with his grandchildren Michael (4) and Liam (1) ... standing up (or sitting down) for the Climate Strike in Hoboken NJ.

Take pictures with signs about labor’s support. In advance of September 20 or during the week of action, snap a photo with a younger person, a family member such as a child, grandchild, etc., with a sign that reads: “Workers support the climate strikes,” or “Labor supports the climate strikes,” or “Unions support the climate strike,” and post it to social media. You can also add your union’s name, local number, etc. 

    • On Facebook and Instagram, please make sure tag @labor4sustainability and add the hashtags #climatestrike and #strikewithus to your post
    • On Twitter, please also tag us @LN4S and use the hashtags above
Who We Are:
Featured LNS Staff Member

Lauren Burke, Organizing Consultant

Lauren is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and recently completed a Masters in Inequality and Social Science at the London School of Economics. Her academic research focuses on the intersection of climate justice and labor rights in order to inform social movement organizing strategies.

In 2006, after several years of engagement as a student organizer at Yale University and a member HERE Local 35, Lauren became a worker organizer with UNITE HERE.

 Over the next decade she organized and led campaigns that won union recognition for over 1,400 hotel and food service workers. Most of her work with UNITE HERE was focused on getting people to face their fears, believe in themselves, and take the risks necessary to demand from their employers either union recognition or a better labor contract. Lauren has recruited and trained scores of grassroots leaders; she has taught organizers how to replicate this recruitment and training with other workers. She has designed and led campaigns so that these risks actually lead to concrete and defensible improvements in workers' lives.

In 2012, Lauren led the Real Food Real Jobs campaign at five Washington, DC-area universities. This campaign linked the provision of healthy and sustainable food in university cafeterias with access to healthy and affordable food in the communities where university workers lived. The success of Real Food Real Jobs depended upon recognizing cooks and food service workers as the authorities on providing healthy sustainable food to their communities. In the end, the campaign translated workers' pride in their jobs into power that they mobilized against the deskilling of their labor.

Most recently, her interest in the centrality of workers' voices to issues of ecological sustainability led Lauren to work with the Labor Network for Sustainability where she is leading our work on labor engagement with the youth climate strikes.    
More About Us

The Labor Network for Sustainability: Making A Living On A Living Planet

The mission of the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) is to engage workers and communities in building a transition to a society that is ecologically sustainable and economically just. We work to foster deep relationships that help the labor movement engage in the climate movement and the climate movement understand the economics of climate change and the importance of organized labor as a key partner in confronting the climate crisis.

We work with trade unions, worker centers and labor support organizations to advance a climate action program that will help the labor movement be a leading force for a just transition to a climate safe and equitable economy. This includes building a network of leaders and rank and file activists in the labor movement to confront climate change called the Labor Convergence on Climate.

We also work with climate and climate justice leaders to develop approaches to more effectively build partnerships with the labor movement, to understand the central importance of work in peoples’ lives and assure that good jobs are an essential element of a just transition. We encourage these organizations to integrate workers' rights policies in their agendas.

LNS serves also as a primary resource on just transition within the climate and labor movements. We identify and analyze policies related to just transition, develop principles that advance the rights of workers and communities who will be impacted in the transition to a climate safe economy, and we share information about just transition victories and effective strategies.
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Copyright Labor Network for Sustainability. 2019. Content may be re-used with attribution.

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