A2. Green Unionism

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

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The previous Strike! commentary told the story of America’s largest protest, the 1973 national meat boycott. It demonstrated that ordinary people can organize themselves and act on a massive scale when they are aroused around something that affects them directly – like the price of food. Today, the price of food is again provoking consumer rage. How can it become a target for mass mobilization – and how can that mobilization converge with the movement-based opposition to Trump and MAGA?

A Meals on Wheels delivery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2017. Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Page, MC2 Pyoung K. Yi/U.S. Navy, Public Domain

The US currently has two overlapping food crises. One is the elimination of food programs for the needy. According to the Center for American Progress,

“Project 2025 and the Republican Study Committee budget envisioned a transformative dismantling of federal nutrition assistance programs. In January, the Trump administration chaotically froze federal funding, leaving farmers reeling and nonprofits serving the needy worrying about steady access to support from SNAP and Meals on Wheels. In March, the administration cut more than $1 billion of funding from two programs that supply schools and food banks with food from local farms and ranches. These cuts affected schoolchildren and small farmers in all 50 states.”

Despite the end of the government shutdown, millions face cutoff of food assistance right now. The GOP’s ​“Big Beautiful Bill,” passed earlier this year, cuts the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)  — often referred to by its former name “food stamps” — by roughly 20 percent. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the addition of new work requirements alone will cause 2.4 million people to lose benefits in an average month.

There is also another food crisis that affects everyone – poor and less poor — the fast-rising cost of food.

As you may have noticed, the price of food in American supermarkets has soared. As surveys indicate, the cost of groceries has become a major source of stress for American consumers.

Many consumers compare food prices now to five years ago. According to the Department of Agriculture, five years ago the average cost of groceries for a family of two working adults and two children ranged between $613 and $1,500 per month. In 2025, such a family is spending between $1,000 and $1,600 per month at the grocery store.

Food prices have continued rising through Trump’s presidency. In September 2025, banana prices were up 7% from a year before, ground beef had risen 13%, and roasted coffee rose 19%, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index data available as of this writing. As of September, the average cost of a pound of ground beef was $6.30, according to Federal Reserve data — the highest since the Department of Labor started tracking beef prices in the 1980s and 65% higher than in late 2019. The average retail price of ground roast coffee reached a record high of $9.14 per pound in September, more than twice the price in December 2019 when a pound of ground coffee cost just over $4.

Discontent over inflation was a principal cause of Trump’s 2024 election victory. It was also a principal cause of the Republican rout in the 2025 elections. But there is little public confidence that either Democrats or Republicans will rectify high food prices. And neither has much in the way of a program to fix it – beyond each blaming the other.

The Fight for Food

(8 Apr 1973) “Boycot Meat” protesters in New York demand cut down on weapons expenditure and roll back on food prices. Video credit: AP Archive

In the 1973 meat boycott, households with 50 million members found a way to protest high food prices without waiting for elections. Today, the hundreds of millions of victims of exorbitant food prices may be enraged, but they have not yet found a way to organize themselves and fight back. Nor has the movement-based opposition that has challenged Trump’s galloping autocracy yet found a way to address food and other affordability issues. Food deprivation presents an opportunity for the movement to defend society against Trump’s depredations to bring a new front – and a new constituency –into that struggle.

Although food inflation has multiple causes, our current food crises are in considerable part a result of actions by Trump and MAGA’s would-be autocracy. For example, Trump’s tariffs, a significant cause of rising food prices, represent an unconstitutional usurpation of the exclusive authority of the legislative branch to levy taxes. The violent attacks by ICE on immigrant workers – especially on farm workers – has driven workers from the fields, leading to farm labor shortages and rising food prices. And of course the cuts in SNAP and other food support programs make food immensely more expensive for millions of people. While long-term solutions to food prices and food security will require major reforms in agricultural and other policies, reversing Trump’s tariff, anti-immigrant, and anti-SNAP policies could help a lot right now.

The anti-autocracy movement has the opportunity to raise the issues of food and other consumer prices as a fundamental part of the way MAGA autocracy is hurting ordinary people. The message can be: The destruction of democracy is hurting your pocketbook. This can open a way to the convergence of “pocketbook” concerns and the “No Kings” struggle for democracy. The movement-based opposition can serve as an ally to help people organize themselves and fight for themselves – as households with 50 million members did in the 1973 meat boycott.

That boycott grew out of the daily life conditions of millions of people; mass response to today’s food crises will similarly depend on the experiences, feelings, reflections, discussions, and above all experimental actions of those suffering their consequences. But one of the limits on the meat boycott’s success was the difficulty it had formulating concrete demands and a program which could actually realize its objectives. Today, there are proposals “in the wind” to bring down food prices that are well worth discussing and testing. They include:

End all tariffs on food Trump’s tariffs contribute significantly to the high cost of meat, coffee, bananas, and other groceries — tariffs on Brazilian beef imports are more than 75%, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Whatever the Supreme Court decides about current challenges to the constitutionality of Trump’s tariff programs, he will almost certainly try to perpetuate his tariff powers using different legal justifications – and the impact on consumers will continue. Yet his recent reduction of some tariffs on food shows how politically vulnerable he is on this issue – and indicates that pressure could force even more reductions.

The Yale Budget Lab recently estimated that tariffs will cost American households almost $2,400 a year. In a recent poll, three-quarters said their regular monthly household costs have increased by at least $100 a month from last year. Respondents identified the tariffs as the second biggest threat to the economy. Only 22% supported Trump’s tariffs. A demand to end all tariffs on food might win quick and massive support – and find allies among the public officials and corporate leaders who are turning against Trump’s tariffs. Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada recently introduced the No Tariffs on Groceries Act, saying, “Donald Trump lied to the American people when he promised to bring prices down ‘on day one.’ His reckless tariffs have done the opposite, raising grocery costs and making it harder for hardworking families to put food on the table.”

Restore all food programs The hunger-producing cuts in nutrition programs like SNAP are immensely unpopular. In October, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, of all people,  introduced two bills to reinstate SNAP benefits and critical farm programs during the government shutdown. Despite the end of the government shutdown, cuts in SNAP and other nutrition programs are burgeoning. A campaign to cancel all cuts in all food programs would have wide popular support and could be spearheaded by local food pantries and those who have lost or will lose their benefits. Legislation to do so was introduced in Congress in late November by Congresswoman Jahana Hayes and others.

Provide free school meals Free school meal programs represent a widely accepted form of support for all families –without demeaning means tests. In Colorado voters just passed statewide ballot measures which would raise $95 million annually for school meals by limiting tax deductions for high income taxpayers. The measures will support Healthy School Meals for All, a state program that provides free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of their family’s income level. Excess receipts can be used to compensate for the loss of federal SNAP funds. Nine states and many cities already provide free meals for all students. Such programs can directly reduce the money families have to pay for food.

Expand SNAP to all who need it A proposal by food insecurity expert Craig Gunderson would provide SNAP benefits to all those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty line. If benefits were also expanded by roughly 25%, it would reduce food insecurity by more than 98% at a cost of $564.5 billion. While such a program is not likely to be instituted all at once, the demand to expand SNAP eligibility could win wide popular support and directly benefit tens of millions of people. According to Gunderson, states can and have set higher eligibility thresholds of up to 200 percent of the poverty line. Given the wide public outrage over the soaring wealth of the wealthy, surely a tax on high-income people to pay for such a program could win popular support.

Support community gardens, local farms, and food mutual aid The Trump administration has eliminated two programs that provided schools and food banks $1 billion to buy food from local farms. This has directly impacted food banks, schools, and farmers by cutting off a key market for local produce and reducing the amount of fresh food available to those in need. People don’t have to wait for government programs to start growing their own food to fight hunger – in fact, they are doing so already, for example, through community gardens. But state and municipal programs can provide essential support for expanding these efforts.

Open public grocery stores New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has proposed a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, rather than on making a profit. They would buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing.

“Don’t Starve – Fight”

Dozens of immigrant rights activists protested at a Home Depot store in New Jersey and delivered a letter of demands to the store’s manager, July 4, 2025. Video credit: People Dispatch

Historically it has often been hard to find the levers of power to affect food prices. The 1973 meat boycott was powerful enough to bring about token action by President Richard Nixon. But it was unable to parlay participation by families with 50 million members into an effective way to reduce food prices. Around the world food riots have often been more successful in bringing down governments than in bringing down the price of food.

Targeted boycotts have recently proved effective where they could seriously affect a powerful target – witness the Tesla Takedown causing Elon Musk to withdraw from his Doge disaster and Disney’s rapid rehiring of Jimmy Kimmel. Targets might include food companies that have supported Trump.

Today’s boycotts are highly effective at generating new and creative tactics: Consider the anti-ICE activists in Los Angeles, Charlotte, and elsewhere who swelled long lines to buy 17-cent ice scrapers, then again swelled long lines to return them — to send a message to Home Depot “to scrape ICE out of their stores.”

Boycotts are only one means that could be used for food protests. Local demonstrations and “hunger marches” can be vehicles for dramatizing the issue and mobilizing people around it. Food pantries, unions, churches, and other local institutions are in a strong position to initiate such actions. There is no way to know in advance what actions will achieve traction, but that is a good reason to start “testing the waters.”

Under public pressure, many states are stepping up to replace SNAP funding to compensate for federal cuts. A special session of the New Mexico legislature, for example, authorized $20 million weekly to provide state nutrition assistance benefits to the 460,000 New Mexicans who rely on SNAP.

But states will only be able to fill in for the federal government for a limited period of time. The New Mexico program, for example, only provides funding through the week of Jan. 19, 2026. At some point, even Republican governors and legislators may well begin demanding “re-federalization” of food programs.

Such a dynamic can be seen in the federalization of relief in the early days of the Great Depression. The entire American establishment, led by President Herbert Hoover, abhorred the idea of federal help for the poor and hungry, maintaining it was exclusively the responsibility of local governments and charities. But “hunger marches” and other protests, often under the slogan “Don’t Starve – Fight!” created disruption and fear of social upheaval. In response, many cities and states created emergency relief programs, but soon many of them were on the verge of bankruptcy. Once-conservative city and state leaders began trooping to Washington to ask for federal support. As Cloward and Piven put it, “Driven by the protests of the masses of unemployed and the threat of financial ruin, mayors of the biggest cities of the United States, joined by business and banking leaders, had become lobbyists for the poor.”

Under such pressure, the Hoover administration developed a program of loans to states to pay for relief programs. With the coming of the New Deal, this became an enormously expanded program of federal grants. The New Deal also began to buy surplus commodities from farmers and distribute them to families with low income.

While the details are different, this basic dynamic of pressure from people to cities and states to the federal government is still relevant today. Pressure to expand local and state programs is not an alternative to federal programs, but a step to forcing their expansion.

One weakness of the 1973 meat boycott was its isolation from the other burgeoning movements of the time, including the civil rights movement, the movement against the Vietnam war, and the large-scale wave of strikes, many of them wildcats. This made it less powerful than it otherwise might have been. A food movement today would have the opportunity for powerful alliances. Like consumers, farmers are being devastated by Trump’s tariffs and would benefit from expanded food programs. Like food consumers, farmers are also being hurt by the ICE policies driving farm workers away from the fields.

Food inflation might seem to be a middle-class issue, but low-income people spend a substantially higher proportion of their total income on food, so rising food prices affect them even more. In 2023, the one-fifth of the population with the lowest incomes spent nearly one-third of their income on food; the highest-income fifth spent less than one-tenth of their income on food. The rising cost of food means the poor can buy even less with whatever small funds they have. So low-income and better off food consumers are natural allies.

High food prices were an important reason for Donald Trump’s election; he promised to reduce prices on “day one” of his presidency. Spooked by rising consumer anger at high food prices, on December 6 Trump established two task forces to investigate “whether anti-competitive behavior, especially by foreign-controlled companies, increases the cost of living for Americans.” An accompanying fact sheet stated, “President Trump is fighting every day to reverse Biden’s inflation crisis and bring down sky-high grocery prices — and he will not rest until every American feels the relief at the checkout line.” The task forces were instructed to report their findings to Congress within 180 days and present recommendations for Congressional action within a year.

A movement against the failure to bring down high food prices could be a natural ally for the emerging movement to defend society against Trump and MAGA – what I have called “Social Self-Defense.” Conversely, the emerging movement-based opposition to Trump and MAGA has everything to gain by encouraging the development of a movement that allows millions of people to fight, not starve.

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By LNS Executive Director Joshua Dedmond

As 2025 draws to a close and we look toward a deeply uncertain future, we at LNS return to a central truth that defines our work: we are living through a massive political crisis simultaneously fueled by the onset of authoritarianism and white supremacist nationalism, while facing pervasive environmental and climate challenges. Jeremy Brecher aptly describes this confluence of crises as the “Polycrisis.”

In this critical moment, it is more important than ever that we remain committed to our mission: to more swiftly bring the labor movement and the environmental and climate justice movement together. Our work is a vital bridge, essential for forging a united front capable of meeting this historic challenge.

We must stand firm in the chaos!

The current political environment is brutally challenging for small, mission-driven environmental justice non-profits. The administration has labeled our groups “pariah” and “terrorist,” sowing confusion and violence to silence justice and dissent. This year has brought significant losses, including the sunsetting of key partners like the Green New Deal Network and 350.org.

Despite its small size and challenges, LNS significantly impacts the lasting connection forged between the labor and Environmental Justice (EJ) movements, highlighting a shared struggle rooted in mutual humanity and community well-being.

The forces of authoritarianism seek to divide us, to distract us, and to strip us of our democratic and environmental rights. Their goal is to fracture the very solidarity we need to survive this polycrisis.

LNS will continue leading the movement, linking workers’ rights and planetary health. A just transition is essential. We urge your sustained support to ensure the vital work of labor and climate justice thrives.

At the close of this year, please consider this a clarion call to our friends, supporters, and comrades. Now is not the moment to abandon our missions. In this tough political moment, your commitment to LNS is not just an investment in a small non-profit; it is an investment in the foundational principle that we must challenge the authoritarianism at hand.

We must always remember: This is our planet, and we deserve to “make a living on a living planet.”

Joshua D. Dedmond,
Executive Director,
Labor Network for Sustainability

The post The Polycrisis Demands Our Solidarity: A Year-End Clarion Call first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Jennifer Krill is the Executive Director of Earthworks, and has been a LNS board member since the organization’s founding in 2010. Her journey in the movement at the intersection of labor and climate began when she was working as a landscape architect and felt the need to reconcile human needs with the natural limits of the environment in our infrastructure.

Krill then began working on a campaign to save the Redwood Forest from being logged, where she immediately identified a connection between environmental and labor struggles–the employees in the woods who were not unionized had jobs that would be liquidated when the forest was done being logged. It was clear that there was a shared interest in long-term economic and ecological sustainability.

Krill furthered her collaboration with labor when she met organizers fighting Kaiser Aluminum’s union-busting campaign, where striking Steelworkers were locked out for months. This began an alliance between environmentalists and the Steelworkers union; together they formed the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment (ASJE). Together, they shut down WTO meetings in Seattle and forged powerful ties with longshore workers, timber workers, and the King County Labor Council.

Krill joined LNS after these experiences revealed to her how important labor is to achieving environmental sustainability. Too often, she sees environmental and labor movements being pitted against each other in ways that only benefit bosses and corporate interests. She believes doing work that demonstrates how these movements are aligned is the work of a lifetime. Krill has dedicated her career to the work of building these bridges through organizing workers, strengthening alliances, and ensuring environmental progress never comes at the expense of working people.

The post January 2026 LNS Spotlight: Jennifer Krill first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo credit: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Illinois has just passed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act to restructure the state’s energy policies. The package was supported by environmentalists, the renewable energy industry, and the union-backed Climate Jobs Illinois.

According to Capital News Illinois, the bill will fund energy storage projects the way it now funds wind and solar power. It will require energy efficiency programs for utilities to reduce demand and lower prices for consumers. It lifts a longstanding moratorium on large-scale nuclear power plants, but it also hikes fees for nuclear plant operators. And requires community solar project developers to hire union labor, a major priority for organized labor groups.

Source: Capital News Illinois.

The post Illinois Labor and Environmentalists Cut Electric Bills, Help the Climate first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo credit: Joe Piette, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

More than 1,000 Amazon employees have signed an open letter expressing “serious concerns” about AI development. It warns that Amaxon’s “all-costs justified, warp speed” approach to the powerful technology will cause damage to “democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth.” The letter was organized by employees affiliated with Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.

The workers say Amazon is “casting aside its climate goals to build AI. Amazon’s annual emissions have “grown roughly 35% since 2019”, despite the company’s promise in 2019 to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Many of Amazon’s investments in AI infrastructure will be in “locations where their energy demands will force utility companies to keep coal plans online or build new gas plants.”

The Amazon workers demand that the company power all its data centers with clean energy, make sure its AI-powered products and services do not enable “violence, surveillance and mass deportation,” and form a working group comprised of non-managers “that will have significant ownership over org-level goals and how or if AI should be used in their orgs, how or if AI-related layoffs or headcount freezes are implemented, and how to mitigate or minimize the collateral effects of AI use, such as environmental impact.”

The letter was also endorsed by more than 2,400 workers from other tech companies, including Meta, Google, Apple and Microsoft.

To learn more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/28/amazon-ai-climate-change

The post Amazon Workers Warn AI Rollout Threatens Jobs and Climate first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo credit: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By Gianna Sansonetti, LNS Staff

I recently sat down with Jennifer Krill, Executive Director of Earthworks and LNS board member, featured in this issue’s “LNS Spotlight.” Krill discussed a long-term project her team at Earthworks has been working on to improve the labor and environmental conditions of mining communities worldwide, and what we can take away from this work as we look towards the transition to a more sustainable economy.

Earthworks has focused on tracking the human rights and environmental impacts of the expansion of the mining industry for the renewable energy transition, particularly due to the boom caused by electric vehicles (EVs). Earthworks collaborates with a broad coalition: Industrial Global Union, Steelworkers, Human Rights Watch, First Nations partners across Canada, mining-affected communities in Africa, and corporate stakeholders from automakers to electronics companies.

The minerals used for EVs, such as lithium, are currently needed at a scale that the world has never seen before, demanding more and more extraction from frontline communities across the globe. Legal protections for Indigenous communities are weak or nonexistent where these minerals are currently being sourced. In the cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, there are tremendous labor problems, and local unions are interested in working to solve these issues. The unions support environmental protections in the places the mining occurs.

In the absence of effective protections by national governments, Earthworks, the Industrial Global Union, and other partners built an accreditation system that requires more responsible practices. This coalition has also created an independent audit system to ensure that wherever mining is occurring, it occurs with just practices for workers and the environment.

Krill emphasized the need to reduce the global demand for all these materials, and for transportation to be seen as a human right with mass transit, rather than personal vehicles, at the center. EVs are not the whole solution, she argued. Reducing the demand for them and the minerals they use can start with building a “circular economy.” The US throws away massive amounts of copper, lithium, and other metals; increasing copper recycling alone would create significant union jobs while lowering the need for new mineral extraction.

EVs can be a symbol of hope, but only if the minerals that power them are mined responsibly, and only if society begins to confront its addiction to constant consumption at the expense of workers, lands, and waterways in the Global South.

The post Liberating the EV Supply Chain first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Jeremy Brecher’s newest report, co-published by the Labor Network for Sustainability and ZNetwork.org, argues that the US is facing an increased authoritarian threat under Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, characterized by executive overreach, suppression of dissent, and the use of state and vigilante violence. In response, Brecher asserts that the country must look beyond conventional means and consider social strikes–large-scale, nonviolent withdrawal of cooperation, which has brought down authoritarian regimes around the world. He defines social strikes as mass actions that make society ungovernable by disrupting not just workplaces, but all political and social structures that enable tyranny. By citing international and US examples, the report outlines how such strikes have been organized, what tactics they use, and how they might serve as a last line of defense if democratic institutions are further eroded. While success is never guaranteed, Brecher emphasizes that understanding these methods is essential to resisting a potential MAGA dictatorship.

Read the Report: Social Strikes

The post Social Strikes vs. MAGA? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo Credit: Andreas Bohnenstengel, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons

By the Just Transition and Care Network

Just Transition and Care: An International Inquiry is a report prepared by an international research team and published November 20 by the UN Research Institute for Social Development. The report reflects on the results of an international “workers’ inquiry” conducted by the Just Transition and Care Network between 2021 and 2023 to hear the voices of care workers, union representatives, and members of social movements and grassroot organizations from around the world. The research drew on the experience of LNS’s Just Transition Listening Project.

Motivated by the devastating impacts of the pandemic we saw the just transition framework as an unprecedented opportunity to re-orient ecological and social policies towards the satisfaction of the largely unmet needs of both care givers and care receivers. This led us to ask what a just transition could look like when considering “care work.” We shared this question with 17 representatives from 12 countries and in 5 different areas of caring -domestic and community care, food provision, environmental care, health care and education.

Our report broadens the concepts of “care” and “just transition.” We refer to “care” as work, even when it is unwaged, informal, or not commonly recognized as work. And we refer to “carers” or “care workers” as those who do the work of caring in both social and environmental realms. This approach expands upon restricted understandings of “care work” as that which is provided by paid “service” workers and sheds light on the fact that care workers are the majority of the working class.

We understand just transition as including both a concern for work and for the conditions that sustain people’s lives beyond the job, including the biophysical environment. From this angle, JT policies are part of the repertoire of ecosocial welfare policies such as health care, education, clean air and water. In fact, a comprehensive just transition points to a transition away from persistent inequalities — whether capitalism, patriarchy, racism, xenophobia or ableism.

Our report is not the first or final word on the subject, even for the JTC Network. It allows us, however, to identify several persistent problems, such as the plight of care workers, mostly women and many immigrants, and to propose that a just transition in care, and beyond, requires well-funded and democratic public policies that include care workers in their formation.

The post A Just Transition for Care Workers first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo credit: David, January 16, 2021, Flickr, CC BY 2.0

In an article published December 14 on Common Dreams, LNS co-founder and senior strategic advisor Jeremy Brecher writes, “It’s Time for an All-Out Food Fight With Trump.”

Half-a-century ago, tens of millions of households mobilized a nationwide meat boycott to challenge soaring food prices. It was arguably the largest protest in American history. It demonstrated that ordinary people can organize themselves and act on a massive scale when they are aroused around something that affects them directly – like the price of food.

Today, the price of food is again provoking consumer rage. Donald Trump is running scared in the face of consumer anger. Polls show that majority of Americans are stressing out over food prices and other signs of an “affordability crisis.” “It’s Time for an All-Out Food Fight with Trump” lays out how today’s soaring price of food can become a target for mass mobilization – and how can that mobilization can converge with the movement-based opposition to Trump and MAGA. It tells how ordinary grocery shoppers can organize — and how they can become part of the movement that is endeavoring to protect society against Trump’s authoritarian juggernaut.

For the full article: It’s Time for an All-Out Food Fight With Trump

The post Food Fight, Anyone? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

As part of the FFP’s on-the-clock, worker-to-worker education, a CIW staff member and two volunteers display a new Fair Food Program education drawing, depicting a supervisor scolding a worker for speaking up on the job.

Dear Fair Food Allies,

As the year-end giving season comes to a close, we cannot thank you enough for your generous support.

Together, we have accomplished so much.

Earlier this year, we launched an urgent appeal after an Immokalee-based farmworker, Marco Antonio Hernández Guevara, lost his life to heat stress while laboring on a farm that’s not part of the Fair Food Program. You responded with compassion and resolve, raising more than $27,000 to help his family cover the sudden and overwhelming costs that accompanied the unfathomable loss of their beloved husband and father. In just the past month, you helped raise nearly $10,000 toward the urgently needed expansion of the CIW’s community co-op, ensuring Immokalee families can access affordable groceries after the town’s only major supermarket closed. And throughout the year, hundreds of you have given month after month to sustain the Fair Food Program, ensuring it continues to guarantee freedom and dignity for tens of thousands of farmworkers across the United States, Chile, and South Africa.

Without you, there would be no Fair Food Program—only a deferred dream of dignity for farmworkers forced instead to endure daily exploitation in the fields.

After a long and often difficult year, your support has been a powerful source of hope for the Immokalee community. During this time, the Fair Food Program has expanded significantly, and the broader Worker-driven Social Responsibility model has become a global beacon of hope.

From nursery workers in Florida and construction workers in Vermont to sugarcane harvesters in India and banana harvesters in Ecuador, WSR is lighting a path toward human rights for millions of low-wage workers across the globe.

But our work does not end here.

In the year ahead, we are committed to expanding the Fair Food Program to protect thousands of more farmworkers. At a moment when human rights conditions in agriculture continue to deteriorate, the Fair Food Program must grow to meet the challenge of the growing human rights crisis. At the same time, as WSR gains prominence, our responsibility to worker- and human-rights organizations around the world seeking to adapt the model to their own industries grows only larger. To meet both of these challenges—the growth of the FFP and the spread of WSR—we need your support.

Please consider making a one-time year-end contribution by December 31.

DONATE TODAY

As you gather with loved ones around the table this holiday season, we invite you to pause and honor the workers who put food on our tables. Thank you for standing in solidarity with farmworkers—this giving season and throughout the year. We look forward to taking our work to the next level together in 2026.

As the year comes to a close, we want to share something with the rest of the Fair Food community that has deeply moved all of us here in Immokalee.

Students from All Saints Catholic School recently took the time and care to write personal letters to farmworkers — messages of gratitude, encouragement, and solidarity for the people whose hard work feeds us all. These letters were a powerful reminder that farmworkers are valued and supported far beyond the fields — an important truth to remember in a moment when it is so frequently and loudly denied.

One student wrote:

“Dear farmworkers, thank you for your hard work in the fields. Because of you, we have food to eat every day. You show God’s love because you make sure we eat. I want you to know that your work is very important to God and to us. It inspires me to help others and do better.”

Another shared:

“Dear farmworkers, thank you for giving us the crops we need to live and the yummy fruits. Your guys’ fruits are all different flavors and taste amazing. Also your vegetables too. We all thank you for your effort. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

Children of farmworkers and Immokalee community members gather during the Pilgrimage of Hope in Palm Beach, Florida in 2024

We were honored to share these heartfelt messages with members of the farmworker community here in Immokalee during a recent Wednesday night meeting at the CIW office. For workers who too often experience exploitation and abuse, these letters were a meaningful affirmation that they are not alone — and that the next generation believes deeply in their right to a life of dignity and respect.

At the CIW, we see this same spirit reflected every day in the Fair Food Program, where farmworkers, growers, and buyers work together to ensure that the people who feed this nation can do so free from harassment, wage theft, retaliation, and modern-day slavery. We also see it reflected in the ongoing Campaign for Fair Food, which brings together consumers, students, and faith communities in solidarity with farmworkers, urging more corporate buyers to join the Fair Food Program.

If you are able, we invite you to support those unique and essential efforts by making a year-end contribution today.

While the Fair Food Program currently protects tens of thousands of farmworkers across more than 20 states, countless others remain vulnerable outside of the Program’s worker-led, market-enforced protections. Conditions in those unprotected fields continue to worsen, as farmworkers are pushed to work faster, longer, and harder for wages that are stagnating — or even declining.

In the new year, we are committed to building on the momentum of the past few years and accelerating the expansion of the Fair Food Program, so that farmworkers everywhere can experience a new day of human rights in agriculture.

DONATE TODAY

Meanwhile, in the Campaign for Fair Food front, students are raising their voices in support of farmworkers. Your year-end gift helps ensure those voices translate into real protections in the fields.

We are ever grateful to be part of a community that believes farmworkers deserve dignity, respect, and a voice. Thank you for standing with farmworkers, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

It’s three years since the public launch of ChatGPT, and the rapid roll-out of artificial intelligence apps since then has amplified fears that AI will lead to massive job loss as human workers are replaced by algorithms. For many concrete reasons, this is unlikely. However, the exaggerated financial hype associated with AI investments poses a more imminent threat to employment. In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford explains how the stock market’s mania for AI assets is inflating a financial bubble that will inevitably pop, with major consequences for the real economy.

You Won’t be Replaced by an Algorithm, but you Could be Disemployed by a Financial Collapse By Jim Stanford

Many people worry that artificial intelligence (AI) threatens their future job security. But this concern is largely misplaced. Most AI applications have dubious productive merit. Few algorithms can do tasks actually performed by humans. Many AI users are students cheating on their homework, or bored commuters creating silly videos.

And like previous technologies, AI facilitates new functions and capacities that will likely offset whatever jobs are eliminated by the technology. Without doubt, right now AI is currently creating more jobs than it is destroying.

However, there’s another way AI may indeed threaten your job – and it’s got nothing to do with an algorithm replacing you. Since ChatGPT launched three years ago, an unprecedented financial bubble has inflated in AI-related investments, concentrated in the U.S.

Fueled by speculative hype, the share prices of AI-adjacent companies have soared to valuations unprecedented in the history of the stock market. The top seven alone (the so-called Magnificent Seven) are worth over $20 trillion (U.S.), accounting for 35 percent of the combined value of the S&P 500.

This bubble magically creates trillions in paper wealth, in turn fostering all kinds of risky gambits. Financial investors take on debt to buy AI-related assets, pushing share prices even higher. Tech companies spend enormous sums on data centres, computers to put in them, software to operate the computers, and carbon-belching power plants to run it all. Incestuous transactions and financial engineering within and between the big AI firms artificially inflate revenues even further, pouring gasoline on an already-blazing market.

Meanwhile, consumer spending by rich Americans (who think they are even richer thanks to soaring portfolios) is the biggest source of new demand in the U.S. economy. Inflated by sky-high AI stocks, stock market equity now accounts for one-third of all U.S. household assets (most held by the richest tenth of the population).

This mania is reminiscent of the dot-com bubble that popped in 2001 – causing a short recession in the U.S., and laying waste to much of Canada’s then-promising tech sector (anyone remember Nortel Networks??). As usual, the stock market’s hyperactive search for the next big thing creates a bandwagon effect that vastly outstrips any realistic cost-benefit analysis.

No major AI services are currently profitable, and tech executives now publicly doubt the trillions they are investing will ever generate an acceptable return. Indeed, every query submitted to ChatGPT or other AI apps generates a further loss, since the costs (including soaring U.S. electricity prices) exceed the revenue.

These ethereal valuations also badly distort Canada-U.S. economic comparisons, even more than usual. Conservative commentators habitually post memes showing bemoaning that Canadian capital investment lags the U.S. But the AI frenzy now accounts for most of that apparent U.S. advantage. Genuine manufacturing investment and employment in the U.S. is falling, not growing. Canadians will soon be grateful we didn’t buy into this speculative mania as much as our southern neighbours.

If I could predict exactly when the AI bubble will burst, I’d short the stock market and make billions (which I would promptly donate to the activists fighting to protect privacy against creeping AI surveillance). I can’t do that. But I am completely certain that the financial exuberance on full display in America right now has no real economic foundation, and will eventually come crashing down.

When the AI bubble pops, it will cause a recession and major job losses in the U.S. Overheated capital spending on data centres and power plants, and excessive luxury consumption by those who’ve been made rich (on paper) by the speculative flight of the market, will quickly shift into reverse. That downturn will spill over into Canada – although not as fully as in past downturns, since our exposure to the U.S. market has been moderated (a silver lining to Donald Trump’s trade war).

This is the real reason workers should fear AI – or, more precisely, fear the misdemeanours of the tech bro’s and financial wizards whose profit-seeking is exposing us to massive, needless risks. The AI algorithms cannot perform most of the useful work we do every day. But in a world dominated by greed and speculation, they could nevertheless put millions of us on the soup line.

The post Your Job is at Risk from Artificial Intelligence… but not for the Reasons You Think appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Lucas Benitez with John Esformes, CEO of Pacific Tomato Growers DBA Sunripe Certified Brands as the CIW and Pacific agree to join forces to launch Fair Food Program in 2010 ProPublica on the Fair Food Program: “…The Fair Food Program’s protections currently extend to more than 20,000 farmworkers in nearly half of all states. It has led to workers getting paid more than $50 million in premiums. It is embraced by federal officials… The participants include other large tomato growers in Florida, corn harvesters in Colorado and sweet potato farmers in North Carolina.” Jon Esformes, CEO Pacific Tomato Growers and first major grower to join the FFP: “All of these things that are illegal were going on under the labor contractor system on every farm, including ours,” Esformes said. “I’m not sitting here with my head in the sand saying we were squeaky clean before. We knew there were problems. We wanted them fixed.”

Since its inception 15 years ago, the Fair Food Program has ushered in a new day for farmworkers across the United States, guaranteeing essential human rights protections against a raft of longstanding abuses — including wage theft, sexual harassment, retaliation, and modern-day slavery.

The program’s unprecedented success is a testament to the extraordinary passion and commitment of the Fair Food community — from farmworkers in Immokalee to students, people of faith, and everyday consumers across the country. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed their time, effort, and resources over the past 25 years to make that success possible.

In many ways, the extraordinary story of the Fair Food Program is the story of all who have stood with farmworkers year after year, demanding a life of freedom and dignity for the people who feed this country. Because of your support, tens of thousands of farmworkers are empowered to serve as frontline monitors of their own rights — and countless more will soon gain that power as the Fair Food Program expands nationwide and the broader Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model gains momentum around the world.

Today, with the holidays all but upon us, we are excited to share the latest installment in an ongoing investigative series by ProPublica, the nation’s leading investigative journalism outlet. While the first article in the series, published back in September, examined the horrifying conditions uncovered in Operation Blooming Onion — a sprawling modern-day slavery case first brought to light by the CIW more than a decade ago — today’s installment focuses on how the Fair Food Program prevents such extreme abuses from happening in the first place, while creating a rare win-win for both workers and growers in the process.

Help Us Keep the Fair Food Program on the Road

Before sharing key excerpts from this important reporting, however, we want to pause to ask for your support. The advances in fundamental human rights on Fair Food Program farms highlighted in the latest ProPublica article would not be possible without it. And today, we need your help to keep our Worker-to-Worker Education Team on the road, leading essential rights education workshops on FFP farms from Florida to California.

Most large-scale farms in this country span endless acres of land divided into blocks of row crops and crisscrossed with sandy and muddy dirt roads — roads that can easily trap a regular vehicle and are difficult to escape without specialized equipment. As a general rule, busy tractor drivers are not eager to stop work to pull a stuck car from the dirt. Yet Fair Food Program education sessions — like the one pictured below — take place on the clock and on the farm, usually just before the day’s picking begins. The FFP Education Team always aims to get in and out of the fields with as little disruption to the hard work underway as possible.  

CIW Education Team members provide an on-the-farm, worker-to-worker rights education session, a pillar of the Fair Food Program

That is why the CIW Education Team relies on sturdy, off-road-capable 4×4 vehicles that can navigate deep sand, mud, and whatever else lies between the road and the fields. At present, however, the team is down to just one such vehicle serving the entire program. Two trusted older vehicles were recently lost to the wear and tear of 15 years of service, leaving the team with no choice but to repurpose less sturdy vehicles to get the job done.

What’s more, as the Fair Food Program continues to expand — a welcome and long-sought development, of course — we are facing a new and very real challenge: the need for a reliable fleet of off-road vehicles is only growing as we work to keep pace with surging demand for worker education and rights enforcement.

So, if you happen to own a 4×4 vehicle that may be getting on in years — an SUV you might be considering trading in, or an off-road vehicle you no longer use the way you once did — here is your chance to make a direct, tangible contribution to the program recognized by the USDA as the gold standard for human rights protection in U.S. agriculture!

By donating your vehicle to the CIW, you can help thousands of farmworkers learn about their rights and play their essential role as frontline defenders of those rights within the Fair Food Program. If you think you may have a vehicle that fits the bill, or if you have any questions, please contact us at workers@ciw-online.org.

And even if you don’t have a vehicle to donate, you can still help. Your financial contribution today will support the purchase and maintenance of the vehicles needed to keep the Fair Food Program running — and growing — in the fields where it matters most.

Donate today!

Below are a few excerpts from ProPublica’s powerful reporting on how the Fair Food Program safeguards farmworker dignity while strengthening growers’ businesses. We will be sharing more insights from this series in the near future. To read today’s article in its entirety, click here. 

Farmworkers Are Frequently Exploited. But Few Farms Participate in a Program That Experts Say Could Prevent Abuse.

By Max Blau, Dec 16, 2025

… Pacific, with its 2,500 workers at farms and packing houses in four states, was able to show that it could adopt such reforms at scale without disrupting the profits it draws from over $90 million in annual revenue. Those reforms were possible in part through the company’s participation in the Fair Food Program, an initiative that launched in 2010 with the goal of preventing farmworkers from being harmed in the fields. By the end of Pacific’s first year in the program, other major tomato growers followed its lead, in hopes of not losing customers because of their labor practices…

Over the next decade and a half, the program would help protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of farmworkers. It would also resolve thousands of the workers’ complaints. But its protections would only reach a tiny fraction of the country’s farms…

At first, Esformes [CEO of Pacific Tomato Growers] was chiefly concerned with doing right by his workers. But after a few seasons there were unexpected benefits.

The FFP Education Team leads a worker-to-worker education session on a Pacific Tomato Growers farm in Tennessee in July, 2024.

At a time when many farmers haven’t been able to find enough workers, Pacific largely stopped experiencing labor shortages. Over time, as Esformes’ fields became safer and the number of injuries declined, so did the risks of workers’ compensation claims. The programs’ mandatory rest breaks — 10 minutes every two hours during the summer — did not lessen productivity. Those breaks ended up having the opposite effect: The workers had more energy to pick faster, compared to when they were getting exhausted and less efficient at the end of each day.

When workers returned home, they chatted about life on Esformes’ farms. The pickers wanted to come back the next season. Before long, their friends and family members back home started asking for jobs too.

What was good for his workers ended up being good for his business… (read the full ProPublica article here).

The Centre for Future Work recently released a major report, as part of its PowerShare research project, on the role of collective voice and representation in facilitating more effective and fair employment transitions as most production and use of fossil fuels is phased out in line with reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. The full report is available here.

In a one-hour webinar, the report’s authors (Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett) discussed the methodology, key findings, and policy implications of the research. The webinar was hosted by John Woodside, Ottawa Bureau Chief for Canada’s National Observer.

The webinar also featured comments from Jessica McCormick, President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, and Megan Gordon, Manager of Equitable Transition for the Pembina Institute.

The webinar is available on YouTube.

The post Webinar on Employment Transitions for Fossil Fuel Workers appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

CBC journalist Andrew Chang is known for his unique ability to break down complex topics, for his ‘About That’ program. He has recently posted an outstanding segment on how Canada’s big banks make so much money. Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford was one of the experts interviewed for the show.

The segment explains that a widening gap between the interest rates bank pay on money deposited in banks, and the interest they charge for mortgages and other loans, was a big driver of record profits. This year, however, an even bigger factor was income on investment banking, wealth management, and other financialized activities – in essence, capturing some of the cream from the current AI stock bubble.

One nuance that is hard to explain in a short segment is that the banks’ “net interest margin” is not solely the difference between what banks pay on Canadians’ savings accounts (currently almost nothing), and what they charge for loans. In Canada’s endogenous credit monetary system, banks don’t actually need your savings to lend out in the first place.

Issuing new loans comes first, with new credit money created by a simple computer entry. Personal deposits are handy for the banks (and cheaper for them than other forms of liquidity, like borrowing on wholesale credit markets), but not necessary. As new credit is spent, it flows through the banking system, creating deposits in all banks. Banks can easily settle overnight cash balances with other banks, or when needed by borrowing from the Bank of Canada.

Banks literally have a license to create money out of thin air. No wonder they’re profitable! It’s generally beneficial for an economy to have strong, stable banks, and that’s why some calls to break up bank into smaller, more scrappy competitors may not actually be sensible (those small, scrappy banks are more likely to engage in riskier activity, and more likely to face instability in the event of an economic downturn). Credit unions are a good, democratic alternative to commercial banks for personal and small business banking. And private banks should be more accountable for how they use their unique (and profitable) power: including through better regulations on fees and access to credit, requirements to fund domestic investments (including affordable housing or environmental projects) …and they should certainly pay higher taxes on their profits.

The post How do Banks Make so Much Money, Anyway? appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

A report from the Centre for Future Work presents new research on the ongoing decline of fossil fuel employment in Canada, and strategies for managing that decline more effectively and fairly. The report, Worker Voice and Effective Transitions for Fossil Fuel Workers in Canada (by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett), also asks fossil fuel workers what sorts of supports they want as this decline continues, and lays out best practices to avoid unemployment during the transition.

Key findings of the report include:

• • There were 177,000 jobs in direct fossil fuel work in Canada in 2024 (including oil and gas, coal, petroleum refining, pipelines, natural gas distribution, and the share of electricity generation tied to fossil fuel combustion). That is just under 1% of total payroll employment.
  • Fossil fuel employment declined by 38,000 jobs over the previous ten years (mostly in upstream oil and gas) – despite a 35% increase in Canadian oil production, and a 24% increase in natural gas production.
  • This long-term decline is set to continue for many reasons, not solely or mostly climate policy. New technologies, economic forces, resource depletion, and corporate outsourcing strategies are all eliminating fossil fuel jobs.
  • Fossil fuel workers are older than average; most will reach normal retirement age before 2050 (when Canada has committed to achieving a net-zero economy).
  • Most fossil fuel workers surveyed in the report acknowledge that employment in their industry will decline in coming decades. However, they are reasonably optimistic that pro-active planning and supports can manage that decline without mass displacement.
  • The strongest findings from surveys and interviews with fossil fuel workers include: very strong interest in early retirement programs as the most appealing transition program; and greater confidence in trade unions (rather than companies or governments) to negotiate and enforce binding commitments around employment transitions.

The paper concludes with 8 recommendations for strengthening employment transition programs in the future, tied to long-run emissions reduction policies, resource depletion, and technological change.

In short, an employment transition away from fossil fuel jobs is occurring, and occurring quickly. Regardless of the twists and turns of climate policy debates, that decline will continue, driven by deeper economic and technological factors. The choice for Canadians is not whether a shift away from fossil fuel work will occur, but how we will manage it.

The new report comes as Canadian politicians start another major debate over new oil and gas pipelines. Even building a new pipeline won’t reverse the long-run decline in fossil fuel jobs. To be sure, building a pipeline creates medium-term construction work – but no more than equivalent amounts spent on other energy investments (like wind and solar energy, transmission lines, energy retrofits of buildings, or public transit). And the historic decline in direct fossil fuel employment will continue anyway.

Please see the full report here: https://centreforfuturework.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Transitions-for-Fossil-Fuel-Workers.pdf.

The report’s findings and implications will be discussed further in a one-hour webinar, on Wednesday December 10 at 1:00 pm Eastern (10:00 am Pacific). In addition to the report co-authors, speakers at the webinar will include:

• • John Woodside, Ottawa Bureau Chief for Canada’s National Observer (moderator).
  • Jessica McCormick, President of the Newfoundland & Labrador Federation of Labour.
  • Megan Gordon, Manager of Equitable Transition for the Pembina Institute.

Registration for the webinar is free but essential, here.

The post Transition Away from Fossil Fuel Jobs is Already Occurring: Here’s How to Manage it Better appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Chairperson, distinguished delegates,

I am Teresa Bul, a Nigerian waste picker from Lagos State, speaking on behalf of WIEGO and the International Alliance of Waste Pickers.

The informal economy, where over 2 billion people earn a living, is not a barrier to social justice—it reflects policy failures to address poverty, exclusion, and lack of protection. Rather than forcing workers into rigid systems, policies must adapt to recognize and support us.

Recommendation 204 should be a road map to reduce risk, secure livelihoods, and ensure social protection and justice—not just productivity.

I urge the ILC to center formalization on:

• Job creation: with gender-sensitive policies that guarantee access to finance, workspace, and fair legal frameworks.
• Rights at work: ratify and implement Conventions 189 and 177, recognize informal workers in labor laws, and ensure a just transition for waste pickers.
• Social protection: make it accessible to all workers.
• Collective bargaining: remove barriers to our right to organize and negotiate.

Recognizing, protecting, and empowering informal economy workers is essential for a just world, as our work sustains the economy.

Theresa Bul
Association of Scraps and Waste Pickers of Lagos
IAWP Delegate at the #ILC2025

This position paper was developed for the 113th Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) to contribute to the General Discussion on innovative strategies for addressing informality and advancing transitions toward formal employment that supports decent work.

Grounded in the ILO’s Decent Work framework, WIEGO, HomeNet International, the International Alliance of Waste Pickers, IDWF, StreetNet International, and UTEP advocate for a rights-based approach to formalization. This approach prioritizes risk reduction, access to social protection, and economic policies fostering enabling environments for cooperatives and social and solidarity economy enterprises. It also calls for legal frameworks that secure labour rights and collective bargaining for all workers, including those in informal employment.

MUST READ AND RECORD YOUR VOICE READING THIS! Nets and WIEGO Position Paper Formalization June 2025Download Global-Position-Paper-on-Formalization-June-2025-FrenchDownload DEBE LEER Y GRABAR SU VOZ LEYENDO ESTO Redes y WIEGO Documento de posición Formalización Junio 2025Download

Join The Strategy Center for a Launch of our Statewide Organizing Work with the CA Black Power Network Help us build the collective power to advance statewide policy priorities as part of the California Black Power Network Thursday April 17 2025

Meeting 6:30-8PM

Refreshments 6-6:30PM

The Strategy and Soul

3546 W. Martin Luther King Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90008

• Gain an understanding of our collective goals and policy priorities at both local and statewide levels.
• Commit to staying engaged in the fight to improve the lived conditions of Black Californians.
• Learn what it takes to win on critical policy and issue areas.

RSVP by Tuesday April 15th, 2025 RSVP

The post Join The Strategy Center for a Launch of our Statewide Organizing Work with the CA Black Power Network first appeared on The Labor Community Strategy Center.