green unionism

By Don Anair - The Equation, October 24, 2023

A global transition to electric transportation is underway and momentum is growing. Traditional and new auto manufacturers are bringing more and more models to market. Even in California, where a tradition of stringent regulation has pushed the industry to innovate over the past 50 years, automakers are selling EVs at levels well above sales requirements. This momentum is spreading across the country with US EV sales now over 9% and climbing.

When a change as big as this is underway, it’s important to understand what impact it can have on employment and to take steps to ensure that workers benefit from the transition and aren’t left behind.

But what is the outlook for jobs in an electric transportation future? Can the EV transition support good, family- and community-supporting jobs and support a strong US economy?  The fundamentals show there’s reason to be optimistic.

By David Hill and Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, November 30, 2023

British journalist DAVID HILL interviewed Jeremy Brecher in the lead-up to COP28 about why international climate negotiations fail and how a “global nonviolent constitutional insurgency” could be a climate game-changer.

DH: Last year when we were in touch you said you thought COP27 “should be the most important meeting in the history of the world – nothing could be more important than international agreement to meet the climate targets laid out by climate science and agreed to by the world’s governments at the Paris Climate Summit.” Do you feel the same about COP28?

JB: Of course, COP28 should be the most important meeting in the history of the world. That was also true of COP27, COP26 and all the previous COP climate meetings. While they should be producing international agreement to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to zero, the reality is that the decades of international climate conferences have simply legitimated ever rising GHG emissions and ever increasing climate destruction. The idea that it is being hosted by Dubai and chaired by Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the head of the United Arab Emirates’s state-owned oil company, represents the height of absurdity – like putting Al Capone in charge of alcohol regulation. Sultan al-Jaber’s letter laying out plans for COP 28 is lacking in ambition to reduce climate destruction. The entire so-called international climate protection process is now controlled by those who hope to gain by climate destruction. A global nonviolent insurgency against the domination of the fossil fuel industry and the governments it controls appears to be the only practical means to counter their plan to destroy humanity.

DH: In other words, COP28 should be the most important meeting in the history of the world, but it’s not going to be. What do you think is the percentage chance of an international agreement to phase out fossil fuels being reached?

JB: The answer to this one is easy: there is zero chance that COP28 will produce an agreement that will actually phase out fossil fuels. The forces that are in control of the governments represented in COP28 represent fossil fuel interests that are intent on continuing and if possible expanding their use. US President Eisenhower once said that the people wanted peace so much that some day the governments would have to get out of their way and let them have it. An international agreement that will actually phase out fossil fuels will come when governments discover that if they want to go on governing they have to let the people have climate safety.

By Jake Johnson - Common Dreams, November 2, 2023

Web Editor's Note: unfortunately, they didn't.

"The citizens of Cincinnati are at a historical crossroads," wrote one locomotive engineer of Issue 22. "The choice they make could either uphold a legacy of public ownership that has withstood the test of time or cede control to private interests."

Cincinnati voters will decide next Tuesday whether to allow the company responsible for the toxic train crash in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this year to purchase the last remaining municipally owned interstate railroad in the United States.

Norfolk Southern has been working to buy the Cincinnati Southern Railway (CSR) for years, but the effort largely flew under the national radar until one of the company's trains derailed in East Palestine in February 2023, unleashing chemical pollution that sparked major public health concerns and put the small Ohio town in the spotlight.

The wreck brought renewed scrutiny to Norfolk Southern's lax safety procedures, poor treatment of workers, and long history of lobbying against basic regulatory measures, making the hugely profitable corporation a poster child of rail industry greed and dysfunction.

Concerns about Norfolk Southern's practices in the wake of the East Palestine disaster have fueled opposition to the company's proposed $1.6 billion purchase of the CSR, which has been in public hands since its construction in the late 1800s.

The unelected Cincinnati board of trustees that manages the 338-mile CSR and the city's Democratic mayor announced and celebrated the proposed sale last November, setting the stage for the November 7 vote on Issue 22.

Cincinnati Interfaith Workers Center organizer Magda Orlander toldIn These Times on Wednesday that public opposition to the proposed sale has been "snowballing" since early voting began in early October. The grassroots group Derail the Sale has formed in opposition to Issue 22 and a number of local organizations, including the Cincinnati NAACP and Neighborhoods United Cincinnati, have joined the fight.

By Maddock Thomas, Ron Kaminkow, and Adam Barrington - Public Rail Now, July 21, 2024

By Chandra Childers, Union Jake, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, July 12, 2024

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, July 9, 2024

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, July 5, 2024

By Colin Smalley, Chris D, Union Jake, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, July 3, 2024