Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS)

By Todd E. Vachon and Ayesha T. Qazi-Lampert - Common Dreams, April 22, 2023

The pathway to a Green New Deal for Education runs through teachers, school leaders, students, and organized communities willing to embrace a bold vision for learning and a more sustainable future.

The Earth is burning, and our schools are crumbling. Investments in healthy, sustainable, green schools can help solve both problems.

As a result of human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, generated primarily by the combustion of fossil fuels, the global climate is now about 1°C (nearly 2°F) warmer than the historical climate in which modern civilization emerged. Every amount of GHG emitted into the atmosphere worsens the global climate crisis, leading to real and increasingly measurable risks to human and ecosystem health, to the economy, and to global security. Predominantly Black and Brown communities and economically disadvantaged communities are at the frontlines of the impacts of the crisis.

At the same time, our nation’s public schools are drastically in need of improvements. According to the Aspen Institute, there are nearly 100,000 public schools in the U.S. They are, on average, 50 years old and emit 78 million metric tons of CO2 per year at an energy cost of about $8 billion annually. Investments in school infrastructure and climate mitigation, including the replacement of outdated and ineffective heating and cooling systems, improvements to ventilation and insulation, the installation of rooftop solar, and the remediation of asbestos, lead, and mold will not only improve the school environment for students and staff, but will also address historical injustices along the lines of race and class. These investments will also contribute to stabilizing the Earth’s climate.

That's why this Earth Week (April 17-22), students, educators, parents, school staff, and community members around the U.S. are taking action to demand healthy, green schools now.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, April 2, 2023

Seventeen years ago California passed one of the nation’s first workplace heat stress rules. Since then California has been inundated with heat waves resulting from global warming. A new study, “Feeling the Heat: How California’s Workplace Heat Standards Can Inform Stronger Protections Nationwide,” finds that the state’s heat stress rule provides some protection, but that its coverage is limited, it is often unenforced, and that penalties are so modest that many employers simply ignore it. The study calls for expanding the rule to all California workers, increasing enforcement, and establishing a federal heat standard for all workers in the US.

The California rule requires employers to provide heat training, free drinking water, and shade to employees. It covers only outdoor workers, but the study identified heat-related cases in 463 different industries outside agriculture and construction, including janitorial services, home health care, museums, and newspaper publishers.

The study found that hundreds of businesses repeatedly violated the rule but avoided the usually higher fines meted out to repeat violators. UPS received 41 citations for violating the heat standard but was issued only one for a repeat violation.

Only Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington have similar workplace heat stress rules. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been working for years on a national heat stress standard but none has so far been issued. Rep, Judy Chu and Sen. Alex Padilla of California and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio have introduced legislation to accelerate development of such a standard.

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, April 1, 2023

American unions increasingly recognize the threat of climate change to workers and their communities. Yet some unions continue to promote programs like Alaska’s Willow Project that violate the basic requirement of climate safety: that fossil fuel extraction and burning must be subject to a rapid, managed decline. Fortunately, they are not the only voices in the labor movement.

On March 21 retired members from over 30 international unions rallied, marched, and demonstrated for climate protection. They stated, “Science tells us we have to stop burning fossil fuels and cut emissions by 50% in the next seven years or face climate disasters far worse than we are already experiencing.” They called for a stop to “all new investment in fossil fuel expansion, including production, infrastructure, and exploration,” and for funds to be redirected to “projects that will build renewable energy infrastructure and meet the other needs of our communities, especially workers and their families who are negatively impacted either directly or indirectly by the transition away from fossil fuels.”[1] These union veterans may be aging, but if the labor movement is to have a future it had better listen to what they have to say.

Just days before, the Biden administration had announced approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project, the largest fossil fuel extraction project on federal lands in history. It is expected to produce five hundred and seventy-five million barrels of oil over the next thirty years. Burning that oil will result in the emission of about ten million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or some three hundred million tons over the life of the project.[2] The project will wipe out the emissions cuts provided by all renewable energy developments over the next decade, adding the equivalent of two million new gasoline cars to the roads.[3]

When the union climate protectors said to stop “all new investment in fossil fuel expansion,” there’s nothing that could have applied to more clearly than the Willow Project. And yet, other parts of the labor movement have been presenting labor as that project’s enthusiastic advocate.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, March 31, 2023

There is a through-line between the denial of sick days to railroad workers and residents of East Palestine fleeing their homes in the aftermath of a derailed freight train poisoning their town. The through-line is the rail industry’s drive for profit costing workers and communities their health and safety. The through-line is workers sounding the alarm, to no avail.

For decades, the railroad industry has been increasing profits by raising prices and cutting labor costs, resulting in degraded safety standards and short-staffing. This, and the pursuit of short-term profit, are at the heart of why 45,000 rail workers have lost their jobs since 2015, why rail industry lobbyists have spent millions to undermine safety regulations, why the industry has delayed the electrification of railroads, and why a “100% preventable” rail disaster in East Palestine has caused residents to flee, animals to die, and at least 1.1 million gallons of water and 15,000 pounds of soil to become contaminated. To those who own the railroads, all of this has been a great success: CEOs at five of the largest railroad conglomerates have made $200 million over the last 3 years. After all, the point of private industry is profit.

Private interests must be prevented from dictating the future of rail– critical infrastructure that serves as a backbone for the economy, communities, and a climate-safe future. To that end, the Labor Network for Sustainability supports Railroad Workers United’s demand to nationalize the railroads.

Alongside necessary public investments, public ownership of rail will allow us to transform our rail system into one that truly serves the common good. Untethered from the market, we can electrify and expand rail, institute fairer working conditions, and engage communities throughout the process so that equity, sustainability, and justice are at the forefront.

The latest Synthesis Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly stated that the choices we make in the next decade will impact us now and for the next thousand years. Now is the time for bold decisions. Without public and democratic ownership of rail, many of those crucial decisions will not be made by us– they will be made by a wealthy few.

To our partners and allies who value democracy, workers rights, and climate justice– join us in demanding that rail becomes a public good!

By Lynn Fries and Robert Pollin - The Analysis News, March 27, 2023

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, March 23, 2023

Climate protection will create jobs for workers and economic development for communities. But as fossil fuel facilities are closed down there will also be some jobs lost and some communities will lose taxes and other economic benefits. This Commentary recounts what communities around the country are doing “on the ground” to protect workers and local economies from collateral damage from the transition to climate-safe energy. The next Commentary describes what states are doing to include such protections in their climate and energy programs.

By Carl Rosen, Scott Slawson, mark! Lopez, Ivette Torres, Yvette Arellano, and Bill Moyer - Solutionary Rail, March 1, 2023

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, February 2023

As the Green New Deal program has met headwinds in Washington, many states have plowed ahead with efforts to correct injustices and create good jobs as part of programs to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “The Green New Deal in the States –Part 1” reviewed the climate, jobs, and justice programs in Hawaii and Illinois. This commentary examines the extensive Green New Deal-style programs that California has instituted this year and draws conclusions from the experience of many states.

As the Green New Deal program has met headwinds in Washington, many states have plowed ahead with efforts to correct injustices and create good jobs as part of programs to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “The Green New Deal in the States –Part 1” reviewed the climate, jobs, and justice programs in Hawaii and Illinois. This commentary examines the extensive Green New Deal-style programs that California has instituted this year and draws conclusions from the experience of many states.

California: The Summer of Climate Catastrophe – and of Climate Protection

California is the world’s fifth largest economy. Climate change has led to unprecedented heat, drought, wildfires, and other extreme weather conditions that have devasted many parts of the state. Partially as a result, 80% of Californians consider climate change “a serious concern” and 60 percent want to see state-led climate action.

In 1988, just as scientists were confirming the threat of climate change, California mandated an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2002 it passed vehicle emission standards far exceeding those set by the federal government. In 2006 it passed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, which required that greenhouse gas emissions be reduced back to 1990 levels by 2020 and established a cap-and-trade program. Subsequent legislation required emissions be cut to 40% below 1990 levels and mandated 60% of all electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% by 2045.[1]

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, February 2023

Workers’ problems are not limited to their relationships with their immediate employers. How can they gain the power to affect the hidden decisionmakers who affect them both at work and in the rest of their lives? Two new books shed light on that question..

Books discussed:

•  Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor by Kim Kelly, Simon and Schuster, 2022.
•  The Future We Need: Organizing For a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century by Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta, Cornell University Press, 2022.

Kim Kelly’s Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor describes the heroic battles of workers to gain their rights and create a better life for all working people. It illuminates those who have often been left out of historical accounts, like “poor and working-class women, Black people, Latino people, Indigenous people, Asian and Pacific Islander people, immigrants of all backgrounds, religious minorities, queer and trans people, disabled people, the sex workers and undocumented people whose work is criminalized, and people who are incarcerated.” Many of them have been excluded not only from the history books, but from the self-declared “House of Labor” itself. This is labor history for the era of diversity.

Fight Like Hell not only recounts worker action in the past, it describes how these struggles are continuing today. Contemporary accounts range from the effort to win a union election at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama to recent struggles for equal rights for Black, LGBTQIA, and sex workers. Like workers in the past, such workers today have to put their jobs, their well-being, and sometimes even their lives on the line to win the most elementary rights on the job.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, February 2023

The Young Worker Listening Project interviewed 70 young workers in all parts of the country about the ways climate change impacts how they do and think about work, and how their work informs their understanding of the climate crisis and potential solutions. They ranged from 16-year-olds who were just starting to think about what kind of work they might do to 35-year-olds with 20 years experience as construction workers, government employees, teachers, and nonprofit workers.

Many young workers shared common trajectories in developing their consciousness around climate change. While most interviewees never received formal education about workers and unions, almost everyone shared memories of learning about climate change as children. Folks talked about recycling and measuring their carbon footprints; watching An Inconvenient Truth; and seeing the news about Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. Many of them perceived that the scale of the solutions they were being offered didn’t match the scale of the crises they were witnessing. Learning about climate change through the lens of individual responsibility often led to an understanding that urgent action must be taken – combined with feelings of anxiety and depression and a general sense of paralysis.

Generational consciousness-shaping events came up over and over again: 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; the Great Recession and the Occupy movement; direct action at Standing Rock in 2016, at the Trump Inauguration on J20, in the Youth Climate Strikes, and during the George Floyd uprisings.

Economic and environmental uncertainty have been the backdrop of young workers’ entire lives, and they have an intuitive understanding of how deeply linked these issues are to each other, as well as to issues of racial inequality, militarism and imperialism, and gender equity.

This has led many young workers to seek out education about and participation in collective action. They are seeking economic stability, a sense of community, and the opportunity to effect political change, and have realized worker activism and union participation can provide avenues for achieving all of these at once. This is the foundation of a shared and unrelentingly intersectional analysis that has brought many young workers to the Young Worker Project and on which we hope to build deeper coordination for a powerful labor-climate movement.