A green new voice for Connecticut workers

The Green New Deal recognizes the vital role of the labor movement in solving the dual crises of climate change and runaway inequality.

The resolution by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Ma., and co-sponsored by Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and Reps. Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro, Jahana Hayes and John Larson — calls for “strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free from coercion, intimidation, and harassment.”

It’s a wise provision.

In my recent research with Allen Hyde from Georgia Tech, we find that countries with highly unionized workforces have on average done a better job of addressing climate change than the U.S. and other countries with smaller labor movements. After controlling for a variety of social, economic and political factors, our statistical analyses find that unionization has a significant negative effect on greenhouse gas emissions. The effects are even greater when unions have a formal seat at the table by participating in management and policy decisions.

It should be no surprise that strong labor movements are associated with emissions reductions. Unions at their core are the organized political voice of a working class that has become increasingly concerned with climate change — despite the sporadic outbreak of particular “jobs vs. the environment” struggles. In a previous study I conducted with historian Jeremy Brecher, we found that unionized workers in the U.S. are more likely to hold pro-environmental views than the general population. We see a strong example of this in the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs, which brings together labor leaders, environmentalists and faith-based leaders to promote worker-friendly solutions to the state’s climate crises.

Teachers, firefighters, construction workers, nurses, transportation workers, manufacturing workers and service workers alike have a stake in ensuring a livable climate for their children and grandchildren. We all do. We also have a stake in providing economic opportunities for ourselves and generations to come.

Investments in renewable energy projects, clean vehicle infrastructure, mass transit and energy efficiency programs for buildings would simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create tremendous job opportunities. Enabling workers to unionize in these new, green jobs would ensure good salaries and benefits, just as the old fossil fuel jobs benefited from decades of collective bargaining. And with prevailing wages, job training programs, local hiring policies, strong workplace health and safety measures and ample fringe benefits, these new jobs could help overcome the wage stagnation that has plagued the U.S. economy since the 1970s.

In addition to creating good jobs, it’s also important to ensure that the green transition does not inflict undue harm on current fossil fuel workers or exacerbate existing social, environmental and economic inequalities. Climate change has disproportionately affected low-income communities, communities of color, deindustrialized communities and depopulating rural areas. To address these pitfalls, I look to what is arguably the most important line in the Green New Deal resolution: “A Green New Deal must be developed through transparent and inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and businesses.”

Ensuring a seat at the table for those who are most negatively impacted by climate change — as well as those who may be harmed by the policies required to address it — is the right and just thing to do. As research has shown, it is also a prerequisite to building the broad base of support required to develop and implement the climate policies needed to save us from ourselves.

For that reason alone, the Green New Deal is a good deal for Connecticut workers.

Todd Vachon is a postdoctoral associate in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Connecticut, where he served as the founding president of the Graduate Employee Union-UAW Local 6950.