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Workers are certainly going to need the power that comes from organization to meet many needs -- like the need for worker-friendly climate protection.

Since workers at the first Starbucks in Buffalo, NY won union recognition earlier this year, workers at 200 Starbucks stores around the country have filed for union elections, and 19 of the 20 that have voted so far voted to join the Starbucks Workers United union. Starbucks workers have also struck in Denver, Overland Park, and Buffalo against understaffing, cuts to hours, spying, and firing union supporters.

Workers are certainly going to need the power that comes from organization to meet many needs -- like the need for worker-friendly climate protection. The latest report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) portrays the need for a “just transition” that protects workers as part of the change to a climate-safe economy. And the groundwork is being laid for such a “just transition” in many parts of the world. In Germany, government plans for 100% renewable electricity by 2035 are supported by $47 billion in funding to create new jobs over the coming two decades as coal is phased out. In Maine, the AFL-CIO and allies have ensured that green jobs are good jobs by new legislation that raises standards for green energy jobs.

A just transition is no longer just a vague concept; there are now detailed plans for a just transition for many industries and locations. For example, a new study lays out “Rhode Island’s route to an equitable, worker-centered, green economy.” And a vision of a just transition for one industry is provided in a new report from an organization of warehouse workers based in Illinois. Its title:  For Good Jobs and Clean Air: How a Just Transition to Zero Emission Vehicles Can Transform Warehousing.

How can workers and allies begin to realize these visions locally? “A Green New Deal for Somerville, MA” tells how unions, community organizations, and climate advocates joined to create “shovel-ready projects” that would “renew the city’s built environment in a way that forsakes dependence on fossil fuels that damage the environment to reliance on renewable energy sources that save the environment.”

If they can do it, why can’t you?

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The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emphasizes the need for immediate action to protect the climate and lays out detailed strategies for how to do it. The report includes a lengthy analysis of ‘just transitions’ in countering climate change. A just transition could entail that

the state intervenes more actively in the eradication of poverty, and creates jobs in lower-carbon sectors, in part to compensate for soon-to-be abandoned fossil-fuel-based sectors, and that governments, polluting industries, corporations and those more able to pay higher associated taxes pay for transition costs, provide a welfare safety net and adequate compensation for people, communities, places, and regions that have been impacted by pollution, marginalized or negatively impacted by a transition from a high- to low-carbon economy and society.

The just transition concept has become

an international focal point tying together social movements, trade unions, and other key stakeholders to ensure equity is better accounted for in low-carbon transitions and to seek to protect workers and communities.

 According to the IPCC, “just transition” also forms a central pillar of the growing movement for a “Green New Deal”—a “roadmap for a broad spectrum of policies, programs, and legislation that aims to rapidly decarbonize the economy while significantly reducing economic inequality.”

The US Green New Deal Resolution for example positions structural inequality, poverty mitigation, and a just transition at its center. In 2019, the European Green Deal proposed including a UDF100 billion “Just Transition Mechanism” to mitigate the social effects of transitioning away from jobs in fossil based industries. National level green new deals with strong just transition components have been proposed in South Korea, Australia, Spain, UK, Puerto Rico, Canada, as well as regional proposals across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The report provides a list of organizations supporting just transition, including the Labor Network for Sustainability.

The report treats a just transition as part of the broader question of climate equity. Its section on “Equity in a just transition” says,

Looking at climate change from a justice perspective means placing the emphasis on a) the protection of vulnerable populations from the impacts of climate change; b) mitigating the effects of the transformations themselves, including easing the transition for those whose livelihoods currently rely on fossil fuel-based sectors; and c) envisaging an equitable decarbonized world. Neglecting issues of justice risks a backlash against climate action generally, particularly from those who stand to lose from such actions. 

For the report:

Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change

WORKING GROUP III CONTRIBUTION

TO THE IPCC SIXTH ASSESSMENT REPORT (AR6)

Section 4.5, "Equity, including just transitions," starts on page 4-99.

You can access the report here.

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Somerville, MA is an inner suburb of Boston with 81,000 residents undergoing rapid development – most of it non-union. In 2017, more than a dozen unions and several allies established Somerville Stands Together (SST), a community-labor coalition advocating a new orientation for development.                

Initially there were no environmental groups in SST. But the head of the municipal workers union hosted a local cable TV show on labor, climate, and the Green New Deal with Joe Uehlein of the Labor Network for Sustainability, which led to the holding of a Somerville Labor-Climate Summit in September 2020. It established an SST working group that proposed carbon neutrality by 2035; established interim benchmarks; delineated labor standards; and incorporated plans to meet equity goals. Another SST working group developed a program for “shovel-ready” projects for anticipated federal funding. The working groups developed a Somerville Green New Deal statement that set out four goals for the city:  Increase economic, social, and racial equity; target projects to meet city carbon neutrality by 2035; adopt model project labor standards; and build Workforce of the Future.          

Nearly $72 million is now on its way to Somerville under the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) and more is expected from other national and state programs. SST aims to use that funding for nothing less than what it calls a “Green New Deal for Somerville.”        

We can renew the city’s built environment in a way that forsakes dependence on fossil fuels that damage the environment to reliance on renewable energy sources that save the environment. And doing this will create many new, well-paying jobs, that can raise the living standards of all the city’s residents, and promote social, economic and racial equality. The city can become a model of a local Green New Deal, that can be emulated by other cities across the state and the country.

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The Maine legislature has just passed legislation to raise the standards for clean energy jobs and advance equity in the renewable energy sector.

 “This is a big deal for the Maine workers and the environment,” said Cynthia Phinney, President of the Maine AFL-CIO and a Board member of the Labor Network for Sustainability. “As we move toward a clean energy economy to avert climate instability, it is crucial that we create high quality jobs with living wages, decent benefits, strong labor and workplace safety protections and collective bargaining rights.”

The legislation requires contractors on large renewable energy projects (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, hydro, etc) to pay prevailing wages, which ensure that workers are paid decent wages and benefits that are customary for each occupation in an industry. The measure also helps working class Mainers access clean energy careers by building out a system for developing and utilizing pre-apprenticeship programs, which prepare workers for direct entry into registered apprenticeship programs and advance equity.

Finally, the measure incentivizes the use of Project Labor Agreements and employee ownership on renewable energy construction projects. The bill directs the Maine Public Utilities Commission to consider these factors when procuring energy under Maine’s Renewable Portfolio Standard.

The bill is the result of deep work over the past few years by a number of unions and the Maine AFL-CIO, and has been a principal focus of the newly formed Maine Labor Climate Council. The legislation was sponsored by IBEW member State Representative Scott Cuddy, who also participated as part of the LNS Just Transition Listening Project interview team in 2020.

You can read Maine AFL-CIO’s statement on the legislation here. 

A growing convergence between climate protection and worker justice is embodied in a new report from Warehouse Workers for Justice titled "For Good Jobs and Clean Air: How a Just Transition to Zero Emission Vehicles Can Transform Warehousing."

Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ) is a worker center founded in 2008 to win “stable, living wage jobs with dignity” for the hundreds of thousands of workers in Illinois’ logistics and distribution industry. WWJ “provides workshops about workplace rights, unites warehouse workers to defend their rights on the job, builds community support for the struggles of warehouse workers and fights for public and private policies that promote full-time work at decent wages in the warehouse industry.” 

The new report, which includes both scientific information and vivid accounts by warehouse workers themselves, documents the toxic, diesel-driven air quality, public health, and labor impacts of warehousing at the nation’s largest inland port, Will County, IL. Its findings were generated by community-driven air quality monitoring, truck counting, and interviews. 

The report finds that through environmental racism and poor labor standards, companies like Amazon put their predominantly Black and Latine workers at a "double jeopardy" of exploitation on the shop floor and toxic air pollution in the community.

The report shows that the transition to electric trucks creates an opportunity to uplift labor standards for warehouse workers and truckers while mitigating diesel-related public health crises -- but only if the shift to EVs adequately prioritizes workers and residents. 

Read the full report here.

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A new report from the Cornell University Worker Institute titled “Building a Just Transition for a Resilient Future: A Climate Jobs Program for Rhode Island” lays out “Rhode Island’s route to an equitable, worker-centered, green economy.”

The report examines the climate crisis in Rhode Island and outlines a set of high-impact climate jobs recommendations:

1) Create thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs that help reverse inequality

 2) Drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and meet the state's Act on Climate targets, and

3) Invest in infrastructure that will make Rhode Island communities healthier, more resilient and more equitable.

According to a commentary in the Boston Globe by George Nee, President of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and Sheila Dormody, RI Director of Climate and Cities Programs for The Nature Conservancy, core provisions of the plan include “decarbonizing the state’s K-12 public school buildings, installing 900 MW of solar energy and 1,300 MW of offshore wind energy, and modernizing the state’s electrical grid by 2030.” The report also recommends “slashing emissions from households and municipal buildings, expanding public transportation, and facilitating a just transition for workers and communities that rely on the fossil fuel sector.”

Nee and Dormody add, “With a state budget surplus of $618 million and more than $2.5 billion in federal infrastructure money in our public coffers, Rhode Island is in a strong position to tackle the climate crisis, rebuild our infrastructure, and invest in an equitable economy that works for all.”

For full commentary: Rhode Island’s route to an equitable, worker-centered, green economy - The Boston Globe

Read the full Rhode Island climate jobs report here.    

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The Labor Network for Sustainability has endorsed the "Energy Security and Independence Act" (ESIA), sponsored by Senator Sanders and Representatives Bush and Crow. The legislation would take on the climate crisis, deny revenues to authoritarian petrostates, and invest in clean energy manufacturing and energy efficiency.

Here are some highlights of the bill:

• Invest $100 billion in reinvigorating the domestic clean energy industrial base using the Defense Production Act
• Create a Domestic Renewable Energy Industrial Base Task Force to coordinate an all-of-government approach that engages environmental justice communities, manufacturers, scientists, engineers, planners, and labor unions to plan and implement a transition to 100 percent renewable energy
• Provide $10 billion in loans and grants to bolster the domestic renewable energy system component manufacturing supply chain with strong corporate governance standards and benefits for taxpayers
• Provide $30 billion to weatherize 6.4 million homes over the next 10 years to save working families nearly $2 billion each year on their utility bills
• Invest $10 billion to procure and install millions of heat pumps, significantly reducing the consumption of imported fossil fuels
• Create good, union jobs by requiring high-road labor standards for all funded projects
• Fulfill EJ40 commitments by investing at least 40 percent of funds in environmental justice communities

Meanwhile, a group of senators are calling for an “Energy Marshall Plan” to help get Europeans off of Russian energy. In a letter to Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Ed Markey (Mass.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) urged the administration to use the Defense Production Act and military sales to boost manufacturing of electric heat pumps, efficient electric appliances and renewable energy technology. They also asked the president to push for reduced trade barriers and to ramp up clean energy exports to “mirror the Lend-Lease Act program implemented during World War II, through which the United States sent critical supplies to Allied nations invaded by Germany.”

And the Congressional Progressive Caucus, with nearly 100 members, called on the Biden administration to take immediate action to

•  Use the Defense Production Act to ramp up deployment of renewable energy technologies.
• Ban new fossil fuel leasing on federal lands and waters.
• Declare a climate emergency and ban crude oil exports. 

Read the full CPC executive action agenda here.

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According to an April 5 article in the Guardian, US labor leaders view this year’s elections – and 2024’s -- as “a goal-line stand to preserve America’s democracy.”

Shane Larson, Director of Government Affairs for the Communications Workers of America, told the Guardian, “Many union leaders used to pooh-pooh talk about saving democracy. All that changed after the January 6 assault on the Capitol and after many Republicans pushed to overturn Biden’s victory in several states.”

Just a few years ago, some union leaders would complain, ‘Why are we focusing on these do-good democratic issues?” They’d say we need to focus exclusively on labor rights and jobs, jobs, jobs. Now no one is complaining about this at all. There’s a real recognition that the entire labor movement has to be involved in this effort, that we have to do something for our democracy or we can lose it.

According to the Guardian, union leaders see two parallel strategies to preserve American democracy. One is to “battle against efforts that roll back voting rights, reduce the political voice of minorities and enable hyper-partisans to skew, even overturn vote counts.” The Service Employees International Union, for example, ran internet ads that criticized Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, and Home Depot for donating to GOP lawmakers who backed new voting restrictions. Unite HERE co-sponsored a “freedom ride” of buses to Washington to urge senators to enact new voting rights legislation.

The other strategy is to “ensure that Democrats win key battleground states, especially longtime union strongholds Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” Unite HERE, for example, is educating voters in Arizona and Georgia about how to navigate around newly enacted voter restrictions. It plans to mobilize local poll watchers to help ensure that voters, especially voters of color, are not intimidated by the “army” of poll watchers Trump has said he will mobilize.

HERE plans to deploy hundreds of canvassers to help Democrats retain control of the Senate. Gwen Mills, Unite Here’s secretary-treasurer, says the union plans to have “500 people moving around, going door to door, reigniting people to vote.” The work of democracy, she adds, “is labor-intensive, is people-intensive.”

For more: ‘January 6 was a real wake-up call’: US unions fight to save democracy | US unions | The Guardian

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Germany, which imports around two-thirds of its gas from Russia and other former Soviet Union states and which aims for net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, is planning to require nearly 100% renewable electricity by 2035. Robert Habeck, German’s economic affairs and climate minister, said Germany needs to triple its rate of emissions reductions.

In response to the Russian attack on Ukraine, Germany has denied a license to the recently constructed Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was to be a major conduit for gas from Russia to Germany. It is also scheduled to close its three nuclear plants by the end of this year.

Germany adopted a plan two years ago to close all coal-fired power plants by 2038. It includes compensation for coal regions, coal companies, and their workers. The total government investment to diversify the regions’ economies and create new jobs over the coming two decades as coal is phased out is $47.3 billion.

For the new German policy:  Germany’s New Government Had Big Plans on Climate, Then Russia Invaded Ukraine. What Happens Now? - Inside Climate News

For more on Germany’s just transition program for coal regions and workers: What should coal communities do when power plants shut down? Ask Germany. - Vox

LNS board member Sarita Gupta and Jobs with Justice leader Erica Smiley have just published a new book called The Future We Need, Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. The book lays out ways to evolve collective bargaining to match the needs of modern people—not only changing their wages and working conditions, but being able to govern more aspects of their lives.

Ai-jen Poo, Founder and Executive Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance and author of The Age of Dignity, calls The Future We Need "A refreshing call-to-action.” It helps us understand both “the challenges facing workers today” and “what must happen to change our economy for the better.” The narratives and case studies offer strategies that “go beyond outdated, more traditional frameworks that left key groups of workers, like domestic workers, behind.” It’s “a blueprint for the way forward."

Get the book here. 

To hear an interview with Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta: Catch the podcast here.

As the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) bids farewell to our outstanding outgoing Executive Director, we are excited to be underway with the recruitment of a new Executive Director who will join and lead our dedicated and talented team into the future. These are big shoes to fill, and we have high expectations. 

LNS has worked for the past 16 years as a relentless force for urgent, science-based climate action, 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.

The LNS Executive Director is the key public voice for LNS and oversees all of its operations. Here is a downloadable description of the position we will be filling and the characteristics we seek in our new Executive Director.

If you have thoughts about who could be the right choice for LNS we are eager to hear them. Or, if you yourself are interested in being considered, please let us know.

Write to us at jobs@labor4sustainability.org and a member of our search team will reach out.

In Solidarity,

The Labor Network for Sustainability Board of Directors

Edgar and Familias Unidas por la Justicia just helped tulip workers win a significant battle at Washington Bulb, the largest tulip grower in the US. Two weeks before the celebrated Skagit Valley Tulip Festival ninety workers, many of whom were already members of Familias Unidas at another company, pulled a “lightning strike” and forced the owners of Washington Bulb to negotiate with them. The workers presented 16 demands, including pay for work the employer required them to perform on unpaid time; more and cleaner bathrooms; protective gloves; and respectful treatment from supervisors. The workers won all their major demands except union recognition – but the company agreed to meet regularly with the workers committee. 

Commenting on this victory, Edgar said,

Direct action is what makes things move,” Franks says. “People put up with a lot because they’re scared that they could be unemployed. But when workers go on strike, they lose that fear, they push back, and that’s what makes things move. Direct action is the most valuable tool we have, and the bosses’ biggest fear. When workers take that leap of faith they can see the world in a whole new way, and recognize their own true value.

Edgar has strong farmworker roots in Skagit County, WA where he grew up. Edgar honed his organizing skills supporting the formation of the first independent farmworker union in WA State since 1986. As an organizer he works in Whatcom and Skagit Counties and sometimes travels to Eastern WA to meet with farm workers as needed and supports their organizing efforts working with union organizers of Familias Unidas por la Justicia. Before joining Familias Unidas, Edgar served as the Civic Engagement Program Coordinator at Community to Community Development, working to engage allies to develop strategies that ensure the voices of farmworkers are represented at all levels of the political process.

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: