A2. Green Unionism

Budgeting for a slow march to war when a “mad dash to net zero” is what we need to be safe

Photo by flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/

John Healey’s first budget nudged and nurdled but  certainly didn’t challenge 45 years of neoliberalism and chart the “new course” that Andy Burnham hinted at in September.

And, while there was a resounding statement about being “unshakably committed to net zero” the measures taken indicate a hollowing out of that commitment under the pressure to prepare for war. 

In particular, it showed a willingness to bend the knee to Trump’s demands on the North Sea, with headlines announcing that Healey will veto new offshore wind projects “if they will not lower bills” at the same time as Treasury tax calculations factored in income from the development of Rosebank. As there are about half a dozen other fields waiting in the wings for this decision, this looks like an attempt to defy geology, economics and safety to appease the White House and its local attack dogs.

In the rest of the budget that was clear from what was not said as much as what was. 

To end the upward pressure on energy pieces we need to end the war on Iran

The fact that the increases in energy bills that have already had a big impact on the cost of living – and are hovering over the future like a pyro-cumulonimbus cloud – has been caused by the US/Israeli attack on Iran was acknowledged. But this was taken as a given. Just one of those things that happens. Least of all was there any commitment by the UK government to oppose it, or step back from complicity in it; and “defensive” attacks on Iran will still be launched from Diego Garcia. 

As a result of the war, Fossil Fuel companies are making colossal windfall profits. Shell’s have nearly doubled and BPs have quadrupled. This enables them to invest in more marginal oil and gas extraction; because the increased prices everyone is paying for them makes that potentially profitable, though a sign that the industry doubts its own future is that it is not rushing to do that. Increased emissions if they do. Increased damage. The banks that finance them -and arms companies – are also quids in from this war. A 100% tax on war profiteering would act as a disincentive to all this while raising billions to invest in the transition. Silence on that. Free pass.

Breaking with neoliberalism requires putting social needs above profitability. The chancellor appears to be as relaxed about these companies getting ”filthy rich” from war profiteering as Peter Mandelson was; and he’s not proposing to increase their taxation even though there is majority support for it.

The proposed Energy Wealth Fund from current rates of taxation on Fossil Fuels is a gesture in this direction so minimal as to constitute deflection more than commitment.

Clean energy is the solution

The recognition by the chancellor that the renewable energy already installed in the UK has massively cut the impact of fossil fuel prices rises is vital – especially in the face of the Fossil Opposition in Reform and the Conservative Party – who argue (with a straight face) that an 83% increase in wholesale gas prices since this time last year means that we need to use more of it to bring bills down – and that investing much, much more in the most expensive possible source of electricity generation – nuclear power – will do the same. 

In 2020 gas set the price for electricity 90% of the time. It is now much more expensive, but sets it for just 60% of the time, and it’s coming down. That cuts bills. The chancellor’s stated ambition to “break the grip of gas on bills” is vital. But, how far do the measures in his budget rise to that challenge?

The decision to hold back on new renewable capacity that cannot easily be connected to the grid requires prioritising investment into grid upgrades to open up bottlenecks like the one between Scotland and England, which causes frustrating curtailment costs and unnecessary gas back up use. Without that investment, all this will do is slow up the growth of renewable capacity. 

Approving Jackdaw, Rosebank and, by implication, the other fields that are queuing up for approval, the government will lock us into expensive fossil fuel dependence, and the planet wrecking emissions that go with them, and the costs of that, for longer than we need to. The phrase that we will “rely on oil and gas for decades to come” is designed to fudge the key question of how much; and avert the obvious point that the less we have to use the better it will be. 

Bombs not Jobs

While the forced march of military expenditure increases is now being set at a slower pace than he was arguing for when he resigned as Defence Minister in the Summer – a 3.5% increase projected for 2035, not the 5% he saw as an imperative then – nevertheless, he’s still undermining security through climate action by diverting funds to war. And there remains the risk that the 10 year plan spending review will seek to step up the pace again. Meanwhile:

• £1 billion will be cut from the Warm Homes Fund “to help cover a shortfall in defence expenditure”. The WHF is set to provide loans of between £7500 and £35,000 for households to install solar panels, heat pumps and batteries; initially with £15 billion in funding and aiming to support 5 million households. Leaving aside GJA’s longstanding critique of this market led subsidy approach – which benefits those who can afford it, leads to work being done in penny packets by small firms which are not always competent or even honest, misses out on economies of scale and thereby gets a smaller bang for a buck – this cut will lead to over 330,000 households missing out. There’s also a threat that a further £4.7 billion will be “reallocated” from this scheme to pay for “Your First Home” scheme. That would cut a further 1.5 million households from benefitting from this. Higher bills, Higher emissions. A lower level of economic activity doing this work, so fewer jobs.
• The heat pump grant via the Boiler Upgrade Scheme will be cut by £800, leading to 100,000 fewer installations in the next 3 years. Again. Higher bills. Higher emissions, A lower level of economic activity. Fewer jobs.

Wider aspects of the transition are also being undermined.

• The continuing freeze on the fuel duty escalator will cost £4.3 billion by 2030. This continuing Fossil subsidy is presented as providing a relief for drivers but as Social Market Foundation Chief economist Gideon Salutin points out: “it does not work. Many savings are gobbled up by fuel retailers, who keep the price level and pocket the difference. Most of what’s left is taken by rich motorists who tend to drive more and own less fuel-efficient cars. Previous freezes have seen the richest tenth of earners save three times as much as the poorest tenth….  If government really wants to help hard-up drivers, it would support them into an EV, which are cheaper to operate than petrol cars, and support affordable transport services like buses and rail.”

• The welcome but minimal £100 million to cut the cost of public EV charging is 1/43rd of the fuel duty freeze cost. Charging 20% VAT on workplace charging will also slow the shift to EVs.
• There is to be no extension of the 0% VAT rating on “energy saving materials” including solar panels from next April – increasing costs, slowing the transition, increasing emissions, depressing jobs.
• At the same time, 10,000 “energy hungry” companies will get a 20-25% discount from next April, with back payments to cover this year comes with no conditional requirement to reduce energy or provide renewable on site supply.
• Data Centres difficult to connect to the grid that are considered “exceptionally strategic projects” will be allowed to generate their own power with gas or diesel generators even though the experience of the United States is that the surge in construction of gas-fired power plants to run AI data centres is “set to undo 15 years’ worth of greenhouse gas reductions from US electricity generation”.
• New planning powers will also be used to accelerate Data Centre grid connections; which begs the question, over what?
• Exempting brownfield development sites of <1.5 hectares from biodiversity net gain regulations is a bit like Donald Trump paving over the White House Rose Garden; but doing it again and again and again, all over the country.

Social Justice Measures?

• The £100 Council Tax rebate for households in bands A-D will do little to dent the impact of the sharp rise in the energy price cap; which is projected to be £470 above current levels by the middle of next year. This is in a context of household energy debt projected to total £7 billion by the end of the year. 
• The VAT relief on electricity bills worth £45 a year is already in place, so won’t dent this any further.
• The cut in the gas standard charge is a small but progressive measure that will benefit lower income households, also by about £45 a year, and marginally reduce the price differential between gas and electricity per unit from 3.3 to 3; because the loss of the standing charge will be covered by an increase in charges per unit. So, those who use the least will benefit the most, so this is a small nudge towards electrification away from gas for heating and cooking. The electricity standing charge remains in place until next year, but if the same method is employed to get rid of it, it would make the price imbalance between gas and electricity worse.
• This is a marginal, and typically market led, gesture when it has been established that installing solar panels with batteries could cut energy costs for the poorest households by two thirds.  But that would require a state led investment plan carried out as a social service, not a vehicle to generate business for micro firms, as it would not be affordable for the people who need it most, nor profitable for private companies to deliver. That is what a break with neoliberalism would actually look like.

The chancellor sticks with the mantra that “growth” will solve all problems, without reflecting on the problem that expenditure on war preparation – leaving aside more profound objections to it – is one of the least effective ways of generating any; because the kit you buy with it won’t do anyone any good – just harm if it is used. Investing in any other sector of the economy – health, education, transport, social housing and infrastructure construction – generates actual benefits as well as the economic activity that goes with it. 

If you want a “growth sector” that will pull the rest of the economy into a healthier place, it’s the green sector; currently growing at 9% a year as the rest of the economy flatlines. So, if you want a healthier, livelier economy, green it! 

The “breathing space” the Chancellor has given the government, before its course is set by the pending 10 year plan, should be used to push them in the right direction, because there is no breathing space in the rate at which climate breakdown is accelerating.

The GJA’s model motion is a useful way to take up the debate about the policies we need in union and party branches, and student unions too. Feel free to adapt it to your circumstances.

By Paul Atkin

 

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The post Budgeting for a slow march to war when a “mad dash to net zero” is what we need to be safe first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

From Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy: “The day after we presented the CIW with the RFK Human Rights Award, Mum and I joined the group to protest outside a local Taco Bell.” “Mum left Immokalee even more determined to help the workers earn a decent living. Upon returning to Washington, Mum cold-called the CEO of McDonald’s. When he picked up the phone, she said, ‘Hi, this is Ethel Kennedy. Would you please give the tomato pickers another penny per pound?’ No deal. The CIW soon announced a boycott of McDonald’s, then Burger King.”

If you are a long-time ally of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, you may have met one of this country’s most tenacious human rights leaders without even knowing it.

Ethel Kennedy lived a life true to the tenets of her faith, defined by an unwavering commitment to justice that stretched across two centuries. From the movement to expand fundamental civil and human rights to all Americans in the 1960s — a turbulent decade that claimed the life of her husband, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — to the struggle to protect and preserve our country’s fragile democracy today, Mrs. Kennedy never shied away from joining in the fight to make the country, and the world, a kinder, more equal, more humane place.

Indeed, over two decades ago, Mrs. Kennedy joined the CIW in our fight against exploitation and abuse in the fields, when she awarded three CIW leaders — Lucas Benitez, Julia Gabriel, and Romeo Ramirez — the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for their groundbreaking efforts to end modern-day slavery and bring abusive farm bosses to justice. Mrs. Kennedy presented the award to the trio of CIW leaders at a gala ceremony in the US Senate, and then promptly joined us in the streets of DC at a protest outside a Taco Bell restaurant (right).

It would be the first of many, many times that Mrs. Kennedy joined us in the streets, from her 2006 visit to Immokalee to kick off the “RFK Memorial Poverty Tour: A Tour for Social and Economic Justice”, to her annual appearances with hundreds of farmworkers and their allies on marches along glamorous Worth Avenue in the heart of her winter home of Palm Beach, Florida, calling on Wendy’s — and her fellow Palm Beach resident, billionaire investor Nelson Peltz — to join the Fair Food Program.

But perhaps the greatest highlight of the past two decades of Mrs. Kennedy’s tireless solidarity came in 2012, outside Publix headquarters in Lakeland, Florida. In a heartfelt callback to her role in supporting Cesar Chavez’s historic hunger strike for farmworker rights in 1968, in which Mrs. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy joined Chavez for the breaking of his 25-day fast, Mrs. Kennedy joined dozens of farmworkers and their allies as they ended their own fast, calling on Publix to join the Fair Food Program in an emotional and unforgettable ceremony.

Tragically, Mrs. Kennedy passed away in 2024 at the age of 96. In a memorial attended by nearly every living US president and countless other senior political and movement leaders, the CIW’s Lucas Benitez, Greg Asbed, and Laura Germino had the opportunity to eulogize Mrs. Kennedy, speaking to her pivotal contributions to the CIW and the advancement of the Fair Food Program.

Lucas’s words on that sad yet joyful day are worth remembering one more time:

“My colleagues and I are here today from the land of swamps and hurricanes, in the company of so many distinguished champions of this great democracy, because Mrs. Kennedy knew it takes all of us, from farmworkers to Presidents, to defend the human rights she held so dear.  She was the rare person who cares not who you are, but what you do for democracy, freedom and equal rights.

I came alone as a teenager to what would become my beloved adopted county, looking for work in America’s tomato fields and citrus groves, after growing up in a one-room, dirt-floor shack along with my five siblings (a big family, but not quite as big as the Kennedys!…).  And 30 years ago, when we as farmworkers from Immokalee began our fight against forced labor, sexual harassment and assault, and wage theft in the fields, Mrs. Kennedy (together with her daughter Kerry) stood with us from the very start.  Ethel saw the promise in our early efforts to bring brutal farm bosses to justice when no one else did, awarding us the RFK Human Rights Award two decades ago, lifting us up from Immokalee’s dusty streets to celebrate our efforts in the hallowed halls of the US Senate, and she stuck with us ever since, as that early promise grew into transformative change.

She picketed with us is in the streets as we boycotted Taco Bell.  She visited us in the fields and in our homes, and brought her friends with her to Immokalee to join the fight, leaders like John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO, and Senator Bernie Sanders.  She used her powers of persuasion to convince McDonald’s executives to join our growing program for human rights.  And she led marches with us in her beloved Palm Beach not once, but many times. I would push her in her wheelchair along Worth Avenue, her straw hat shielding her from the sun, past jewelry stores and shops selling furs.  Her friends and neighbors would stop her and say “Ethel, what in the world are you doing?” And she would say, “Come along and march with us, for justice and freedom!” And many of them dropped whatever they were doing and did!  Who could say no to Ethel?

Thanks in large part to her decades of untiring support – it’s never about just showing up, it’s about sticking around – today, we can say that we have built the most effective human rights enforcement program in the US agricultural industry, the Fair Food Program, which has eliminated modern-day slavery and sexual violence in the fields, and has forged America’s strongest workplace heat protections against the ever-worsening climate crisis.  We are in 23 states and counting, and our partners include 14 of the world’s largest corporations.

Mrs. Kennedy, we thank you, and as we say in Mexico, a person only truly dies when they are no longer remembered by anyone, and you, Senora Ethel — a true force of nature — will never really leave us because you will always live on in our hearts and our memories, in Immokalee and anywhere a farmworker harvests the food that feeds our nation. (read more from the unforgettable memorial service here)

Now, Mrs. Kennedy’s daughter, Kerry Kennedy — herself a stalwart supporter of the cause for farmworker dignity — has penned a biography of her late, great mother. Entitled Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy, the book tells the story of Mrs. Kennedy’s remarkable journey through the eyes of her daughter. Jam-packed with firsthand accounts and exquisite storytelling, the book takes readers beyond the towering achievements of Mrs. Kennedy’s public life to reveal the woman behind the legacy — her humor and heart, her convictions and struggles, and the experiences that shaped a lifetime of fighting for justice. Today, we’d like to highlight one passage in particular, which recounts Mrs. Kennedy’s unwavering support for farmworkers’ rights and her unique contributions to the Campaign for Fair Food.

We are sharing that excerpt below, but be sure to buy the book, which is for sale at all major retailers and online. Here is one part of Ethel Kennedy’s story, as told by her daughter:

“In 2003, Mum presented the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a labor group based in Florida that was fighting for fair wages while exposing brutal and illegal conditions in the tomato fields. Along with his colleagues Greg Asbed, Laura Germino, and others, Lucas Benitez had emancipated over a thousand farmworkers from modern-day slavery… The CIW was also leading a nationwide boycott of Taco Bell, one of the major purchasers of Florida tomatoes. At the time, farmworkers received 32 cents for every bucket of tomatoes picked, a pittance that kept them in dire poverty. One of the CIW’s central demands was an additional penny for every pound, which could increase their earnings by $150 more per week. But the raise would be possible only if buyers like Taco Bell paid the growers a penny more per pound. They refused, and the boycott was on.

The day after we presented the CIW with the RFK Human Rights Award, Mum and I joined the group to protest outside a local Taco Bell. Mum hated having to boycott her favorite fast-food joint. “I love Taco Bell,” Mum said. “I called Taco Bell, but they wouldn’t cooperate, so I couldn’t eat there, and it really upset me.” Two years later, the company agreed to pay more for their produce, and Mum was again able to enjoy their supreme burritos.

But she was not finished helping the Florida farmworkers. In 2005, Mum invited the head of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest trade union federation, and others to join her on a fact-finding tour of filthy, inhumane conditions in Immokalee. The rundown town, surrounded by tomato fields carved out of the swamps, was just 39 miles inland from the wealthy enclave of Naples, Florida, but a world apart. Mum and her guests got a firsthand look at the rotting trailers where the tomato pickers lived three and four to a room. They saw the workers line up for buses, hoping to be chosen by the bosses to spend 12-hour days picking tomatoes. Nearly all the women reported being sexually assaulted by the bosses, often forced to have sex in exchange for the privilege of being hired.

Mum left Immokalee even more determined to help the workers earn a decent living. Upon returning to Washington, Mum cold-called the CEO of McDonald’s. When he picked up the phone, she said, “Hi, this is Ethel Kennedy. Would you please give the tomato pickers another penny per pound?” No deal. The CIW soon announced a boycott of McDonald’s, then Burger King.

*Both Burger King and McDonald’s eventually came around and agreed to participate in the Fair Food Program. The boycott of Wendy’s… continues to this day.”

We truly hope you find the time to read “Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy”, you will be so very glad you did. We here at the CIW have always been honored to have known Mrs. Kennedy, but now, having read this exquisitely written love letter from her daughter Kerry, we miss her, and her indefatigable love of life, even more.

On October 28, the Bank of Canada increased its policy interest rate by one-quarter percentage point, to 2.5%. Commercial banks increased their lending rates in tandem, with their prime mortgage rates rising to 4.7% (and higher than that for credit cards and most other loans). Higher rates will slow down a national economy already staggering from the effects of the Canada-U.S. trade war and other shocks.

The Bank blamed a surge in inflation resulting from the latest global oil price shock, the result of U.S. President Donald Trump’s war in the Persian Gulf. Oil prices have stayed high for 8 months (despite Trump’s repeated promises the war would end soon). Given Canada’s policy of domestic petroleum prices to the world roller-coaster, this has caused dramatic increases in domestic gasoline, diesel, and fuel oil prices. The longer oil prices stay high, the greater will be the pass-through of higher energy costs into other parts of the economy. Some of this pass-through is already visible (in higher air fares, delivery charges, etc.). More is likely in coming months, as businesses in other industries pass on their own higher energy bills to customers through higher prices for everything from food to housing to services.

With the hike in interest rates (the first since 2023), Canadians will now pay twice for the current oil shock: first at the pumps, and now through higher interest rates. The Bank admits that Canada’s economy has excess capacity and too much unemployment, but it is lifting rates anyway. The real economy needs lower rates. But monetary policy is going the other way, to fight an external price shock that has no relation to domestic employment, growth, or production costs.

The Centre for Future Work’s False Profits research project has documented how much Canadians needlessly pay because of Trump’s war: $3 billion extra on gasoline alone in the second quarter of 2026, a toll which grows each week. Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels, and our policy (dating back to the 1980s) of mirroring the global oil roller coaster in our own petroleum prices (even for petroleum produced, refined, and consumed in Canada) are now the biggest threats to affordability and the cost of living in Canada.

The Bank of Canada expects the pass-through of oil prices into broader inflation will intensify in coming months (the same thing occurred in 2022-23, following the oil price shock resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). But the Bank’s only answer is to throw more Canadians out of work to offset inflation caused by global chaos and oil industry greed. This is deeply wrong.

Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford appeared on CTV News Channel to discuss the rate hike, its causes, and the inadequacy of current monetary policy (which fights any and all inflation, no matter what its causes, with contractionary rate hikes).

He argued that we need a broader understanding of the causes of inflation (which cannot always be blamed on ‘excess demand’) and a broader toolkit of responses. Preventing price shocks in the first place is vital. To that end, rethinking petroleum prices (the biggest culprit in recent inflation) is essential. Electricity prices in most parts of Canada have been very stable through the multiple economic disruptions of recent years, because they are regulated by provincial authorities on the basis of cost of production (rather than speculative futures markets). As a country which produces far more petroleum than it uses, Canada has the capacity to manage petroleum prices more stably and fairly.

The post Bank of Canada Drives Rates Higher, When Canada Needs Lower appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

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The post Latest Newsletter first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Jessica “Jess” Blane (they/them/she) is the Organizing Director at Climate Justice Alliance and is a bold community organizer, abolitionist, facilitator, orator, and writer. Born and raised in the mighty Midwest, they are a proud alum of Kentucky State University.

Jess’ passion for organizing is carried out as a core organizer for Indy10 Black Lives Matter, Queering Indy, and co-founder the Circle City Community Bail Fund, a recognized formation of the National Bail Fund Network. Their political home is with Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), which provides leadership development, political education in the Black radical tradition, accountability and care, and capacity building for Black organizers. Jess has led local, statewide, and regional initiatives in corporate accountability, policy reform, resource reallocation to support a Guaranteed Basic Income, transformative and restorative processes and justice, and conflict transformation. As CJA’s Organizing Director, Jess enthusiastically leads the Organizing Team in connecting members to resources and strategies that expand, strengthen, and sustain their work. In Jess’ role, they oversee the strategies and implementation of programming, member and member space development, local site fights and campaign support, and building the capacity to prepare members for climate crisis and disaster.

Jess labors to remind people of their past, discern with people their present, and strategize within community their future power.

The post November 2026 LNS Spotlight: Jessica Blane first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

By Joshua Dedmond, LNS Executive Director

Connecting labor rights, environmental justice, and direct action to build a regenerative future for workers and communities.

During NYC Climate Week 2026, the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) brought worker power to the center of global climate discussions. From high-impact roundtable convenings to direct actions on Wall Street, LNS helped to advance a bold multi-movement strategy to challenge corporate extraction, deepen labor and environmental justice partnerships, and fight for a truly Just Transition.

Aligning Mass Movements Roundtable

Location & Partners: Hosted at The Tishman Center at The New School alongside The Chisholm Legacy Project, US Climate Action Network (USCAN), Just Transition Alliance (JTA), Taproot Earth, and Flint Rising.

Strategic Focus: Scaling up cross-movement coordination to protect democratic institutions and build a regenerative economy.

Launched in 2024, the Aligning Mass Movements initiative centers labor and environmental justice at the core of our broader movement ecosystem. Participants discussed actionable ways a unified Just Transition framework can resist corporate exploitation, protect democratic space, and build a regenerative economy controlled by workers and frontline communities.

Climate Critical Townhall

LNS leaders joined movement allies at a vibrant town hall hosted by Climate Critical. The panel shared crucial strategies for sustaining movement leadership, organizing effectively across diverse sectors, and safeguarding activists on the frontlines of high-pressure climate campaigns.

Wall Street Direct Action: Mining Accountability in Brazil

Action Leadership: LNS Board Chair Jen Krill, Earthworks and frontline allies.

Demands: Supply chain justice, indigenous rights protection, and strict corporate accountability.

Earthworks quickly convened a protest against Sigma Lithium’s destructive mining practices in Brazil. Organizers highlighted the severe environmental and human costs of unvetted mineral extraction, making it clear that a true clean energy transition cannot replicate extractive capitalism—it must uphold high labor standards and respect frontline and indigenous rights.

Movement for Black Lives: The Black Hive 5th Anniversary

Event Focus: Celebration of 5 years of Black-led climate organizing and global solidarity.

Host: Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) / The Black Hive.

To wrap up NYC Climate Week, LNS stood in solidarity at the 5th anniversary celebration of The Black Hive, the climate and environmental justice arm of M4BL. The all-day showcase featured inspiring art installations, political education sessions, and presentations celebrating Black-led environmental justice victories worldwide.

The post LNS On the Ground: Power, Solidarity & Action at NYC Climate Week 2026 first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Heavy equipment cutting fireline around the Gifford Fire, CA, August 2025. Photo by Los Padres National Forest. Photo credit: Public Domain

A recent opinion piece co-authored by Edgar Franks, LNS board member and political director for the farmworkers union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, says:

“Someone has to pay for disaster recovery, and for future climate harms. That burden should not fall on workers, families, and overburdened communities. It should fall on the Big Oil corporations that knowingly created this mess and continue to profit from pollution and war.”

Franks points out that more than 70,000 people were evacuated as wildfires engulfed Spokane WA, reducing entire neighborhoods to ash. Hundreds lost their homes. Damage is expected to exceed $1 billion, the most expensive wildfires in Washington’s history. The damage wouldn’t be nearly so destructive without the dry, hot conditions fueled by climate change.

“When fires, floods, and heatwaves strike, the costs fall disproportionately on taxpayers, workers, small businesses, and vulnerable communities. Meanwhile the major fossil fuel corporations most responsible for the emissions warming our planet get off scot-free.

“Workers bear the impacts in ways that don’t often make the headlines. Firefighters, heavy equipment operators, and foresters risk their lives, with long-term health consequences from exposure to carcinogens.

“And as climate disasters strain state and municipal budgets, public sector workers — teachers, transit operators, service workers — face wage suppression, shrinking benefits, and hiring freezes. We are in the era of climate change where unions and communities alike are being forced to absorb the costs of a crisis they didn’t create.”

Next year the state of Washington will be considering climate “superfund” legislation that would require the largest fossil fuel corporations to pay their fair share for climate damages caused by their historical greenhouse gas emissions.

Rebuilding Spokane, retrofitting homes, schools and community centers for clean air and cooling, hardening the grid, and other resilience measures will all require skilled labor. Franks says, “The sooner polluters pay, the sooner local workers can get to work protecting communities.”

Read the full article: https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/workers-and-communities-shouldnt-foot-bill-big-oils-mess

The post LNS Board Member Says: “Make Polluters Pay” for Climate Damage first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

The Labor Network for Sustainability has joined a broad coalition of national organizations including Climate Justice Alliance, GreenLatinos, Indigenous Environmental Network, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and Western Environmental Law Center to oppose a “dangerous deregulatory permitting reform” proposal, disingenuously titled the ‘Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act’, currently being negotiated in Congress.

LNS executive director Joshua Dedmond said,

“People power is worker power — for too long, labor has been pitted by politicians and corporations against the very people protecting the long-term future of our communities and neighborhoods, like those working to ensure we have clean air, safe water, and healthy neighborhoods, as if we are not all united in a commitment to better futures.”

According to the coalition,

“The Bipartisan Affordability and Jobs Act is not about affordability or jobs — it’s about sacrificing our time and energy, our health, our families’ health, and our current and future generations’ ability to live in a stable economy and healthy environment — just to line the pockets of the super-rich and fast-track dangerous, polluting projects we don’t want.

“The package would further limit communities’ ability to protect themselves from harmful projects by completely gutting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act, among other bedrock environmental laws.”

The coalition also laid out key ways to protecting workers and communities in the permitting process:

“Communities have already shared practical and evidence-based policy solutions for building clean energy while safeguarding our rights, health, environment, and democratic participation, including:

1. Investing in federal agency capacity through funding and training to build expertise on clean energy development and community engagement;
2. Embedding early and meaningful community engagement into permitting processes;
3. Establishing robust environmental and public health analysis that includes cumulative impacts;
4. Addressing transmission barriers acceleration directly rather than weakening environmental review; and
5. Increasing transparency via publicly accessible information on permitting status, project details, environmental and public health impacts.”

The post A Call to Halt “Dangerously Deregulatory Permitting Reform” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Man with drill screwdriver installs panels at a solar power plant. Photo credit: Andrii, Adobe Stock.

The pioneering Illinois Climate and Equitable Jobs Act put access to climate jobs front and center in its program for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045 and a net-zero-carbon state economy by 2050. That is now creating a pathway into good jobs for individuals and communities that have been marginalized in the Illinois economy.

The Climate Works Pre-Apprenticeship Program, funded by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, prepares Illinoisians for “careers in the lucrative clean-energy industry.” It prepares participants for jobs in these fields by providing skills training to be successful in registered union apprenticeship programs in clean-energy construction and building trades.

“Whether you are looking for your first job, returning to the workforce, or anywhere in between, this free pre-apprenticeship program will teach you the skills you need to enter a new industry while providing you with a training stipend.

“HIRE360’s program provides support every step of the way so that you can successfully begin a new career in the clean-energy trades. This includes case management to help you navigate the process and overcome barriers, test prep based on actual apprenticeship tests, career resources to help you choose a trade, and networking opportunities and resources to help you start a new career.”

For more information: https://hire360partners.org/climateworks/?source=Career+Pathways

The post In Illinois, Climate Protection Means a Pathway to Union Jobs first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Part of AWS’s us-west-2 availability zone, showing three datacenters with a fourth under construction. Photo credit: Tedder, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In a recent article on “Construction’s Data Center Gamble,” Mark Erlich, retired head of the New England Carpenters Union, cautioned that for construction unions, megaprojects like hyperscale datacenters “hold as much risk as opportunity.” Such megaprojects draw unionized workers away from smaller-scale, more conventional projects, opening the door for nonunion contractors.

Erlich points out that “All projects, even megaprojects, eventually come to an end, and the rising level of opposition to these projects may hasten quicker-than-anticipated endings.”

“Rather than seeing the data center boom as a panacea for the ills that have troubled the industry, buildings trades unions need to continue to compete aggressively for the standard sorts of projects that make up the bread-and-butter of construction work, while also seeking to grow their ranks and regain market share from non-union contractors.”

There’s no way to know the future of the hyperscale datacenter boom, but there are straws in the wind that are putting it into question. According to data published in the Financial Times at least 47 major data center projects have been delayed, withdrawn, or blocked so far this year. More than 1,000 communities across the United States now have restrictions on artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The post Betting on the Datacenter Boom? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

This summer was the hottest on record in the US. Yet worker heat standards proposed by the Biden administration are stalled, few states have more than token standards, and some state legislatures have even forbidden their towns and counties from passing their own heat protections.

An unusual strategy for worker heat protection comes from the “Fair Food Program” of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which represents thousands of workers in the tomato growing region in south-west Florida. Through years of boycotts, hunger strikes, and protests the Coalition pressured food retailers with brand-name reputations to agree to a code of conduct and pay a small premium to buy exclusively from farms that comply. The code now covers 14 major food retailers, including Walmart, McDonald’s, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s.

The Fair Food Program code of conduct, which covers tens of thousands of workers, requires participating growers to provide shade, cool drinking water, paid rest breaks, heat illness training for workers and supervisors, and the ability for workers to seek medical attention without fear of retaliation. These are many of the same life-saving heat protection requirements that federal and state governments have refused to enact. This summer, the Fair Food Program added another requirement: access to electrolytes on participating farms year-round.

Other workers around the country, such as members of the immigrant-led WeCount in South Florida, dairy farm workers in Vermont, and construction workers in Minnesota, are now developing codes of conduct with heat protections and “market-based enforcement” like the Fair Food Program.

Source: US workers facing deadly heat borrow from tomato pickers to win key protections | Extreme heat | The Guardian

The post Beating the Heat first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

According to the U.N.’s just-released annual “Emissions Gap Report,” the Group of 20 industrialized nations have reduced climate-destroying emission in 2025, “with the United States of America being the major exception.” The report said that “recent policy changes” in America will lead to 0.9 gigatons of additional emissions by 2030, equivalent to the yearly total of Japan. The U.S. was tied with Russia as the G20 countries with the most per capita emissions of carbon dioxide and other planet-warning gases. The report warns that the planet is on track for upwards of 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 degrees Celsius) of warming this century, which would cause catastrophic impacts, such as massive sea level rise and the mass extinction of plants and animals.

Source: Emissions Gap Report Identifies U.S. as Outlier Among G20 Nations – The New York Times

Another new report, the 2026 “State of the Climate Report,” found that global sea level, global ocean heat content, worldwide glacier thickness, the mass of the Greenland ice sheet, and the atmospheric concentration of each of the three most common greenhouse gases are at record extremes. The report notes that in May of this year, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide breached 428 parts per million, which is about 50% higher than pre-industrial levels of the gas.

Researchers tracked 16 “planetary vital signs” in their analysis. Click image for larger version. Credit: Ripple et al. 2026, doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biag125

The rate of global warming is accelerating, according to the report, and has roughly doubled from about 0.19°C (0.34°F) per decade from 1970-2010 to about 0.36°C (0.65°F) per decade from 2010 to present day.

The report’s authors warn that accelerating warming trends raise the risk of parts of Earth’s climate system breaching so-called tipping points, or marks at which the affected processes are so destabilized that they cannot return to pre-climate change conditions.

Source: 2026 State of the Climate

A pair of studies in the journal Nature Health find that severe heat killed more than 50,000 people in European cities and towns this summer. That is three times as many people as would have died had humankind not warmed the planet by burning oil, gas and coal, the researchers said. Their estimates suggest that this summer’s intense heat was Europe’s deadliest by far this century. Clair Barnes, lead author of both studies, said “That mortality has been pushed substantially higher by the human-caused warming, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels.”

Source: Heat Waves Killed an Estimated 50,000 in European Cities, a Likely Record – The New York Times

The post In Case You Haven’t Heard… first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Oct. 28th, 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact

Milagros R. Elia

Program Manager, Climate and Clean Energy Advocacy

Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

milagros@envirn.org

914.455.1165

Nurses Condemn EPA Methane Rule Rollback

[Washington, D.C.]- On Oct. 27th, 2026, the U.S. EPA announced its proposal to rollback the landmark 2024 Methane Rule, removing requirements for oil and gas companies to monitor and detect leaks at both new and existing operations. The 2024 Methane Rule was developed with significant input from community leaders and advocates, the oil and gas industry, investors, health experts, and members of Congress. 

Methane pollution from oil and gas operations is released alongside other dangerous pollutants, such as smog-causing volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can worsen asthma and respiratory disease, and known carcinogens, such as benzene and toluene. 

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, which can contribute to premature births and premature deaths. Ground-level ozone contributes to asthma attacks and aggravates other chronic lung diseases and pre-existing heart problems. 

In response to this latest EPA proposed rollback, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments’ Executive Director Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN issued the following statement:

“Rolling back the 2024 methane rule would compromise all of us. As nurses, many of our patients are in the estimated 17.3 million people and 3.9 million children across the country who live within half a mile of an oil and gas facility. Living near oil and gas wells is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, impaired lung function, asthmatic attacks, preterm birth and childhood leukemia. The commonsense approach required by the 2024 EPA methane rule was estimated to avoid up to 700 premature deaths and 73,000 childhood asthma attacks each year.

“The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) strongly condemns the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rollback of this health protective rule. Weakening methane safeguards undermines efforts to protect vulnerable populations, and  reverses efforts to reduce harmful emissions that accelerate climate change. ANHE calls on the EPA to abandon this proposal and ensure strong, enforceable methane standards are in place that hold polluters accountable.”

###

The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments is the only national nursing organization focused solely on the intersection of health and the environment. The mission of the Alliance is to support nurses in promoting planetary health and equity globally by educating and leading the nursing profession, advancing research, incorporating planet-safe practice, and influencing policy.

http://enviRN.org

 

The post Nurses Condemn EPA Methane Rule Rollback appeared first on ANHE.

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

Listen to the audio version >>

This commentary presents an overview of the elements that are necessary for a Green New Deal 2.0 in the era of the Polycrisis.

The Green New Deal 2.0, like earlier Green New Deals, is a project to abolish the extraction and burning of fossil fuels while rapidly expanding equality, justice, and wellbeing. To do that it will have to learn from the earlier Green New Deals but also develop far beyond them. It will be aided in doing so by the radical reduction in the cost of fossil free energy and the ways in which energy is used – the Greentech Revolution. But the Green New Deal 2.0 will also have to function within – and help transform – the period of global disorder that has come to be known as the Polycrisis.

To succeed, the Green New Deal 2.0 will need to be multi-level: local, state, regional, national, and global. From the start it needs to be global in its perspective and to transcend national borders in many of its actions. But it will initially have to be built from the bottom up, community by community, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Eventually it will need to control and wield the power of national governments.

The Green New Deal 2.0 won’t happen all at once; it will have to develop over time. In the U.S. the Green New Deal 2.0 may start with an Emergency Green New Deal addressing the catastrophe now being experienced by the American people and its impending intensification. This catastrophe includes the crises of food, housing, energy, health, public safety, climate, inequality, democracy, and the rule of law – a veritable American Polycrisis. In some ways it resembles the “Yeltsin Era” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union when systems from employment to food to healthcare to housing to the rule of law broke down; male life expectancy at birth fell by six years just between 1990 and 1994.

There is little likelihood of immediate federal solutions to this catastrophe – indeed, those currently in control of the federal government are taking extreme measures to exacerbate it. Addressing it requires people organizing themselves from below to implement an Emergency Green New Deal that will put people to work doing the things are that are necessary to ensure survival and wellbeing in the face of the American Polycrisis.

Achieving the goals of the Green New Deal 2.0 – abolishing fossil fuel extraction and burning while rapidly reducing inequality, injustice, and deprivation – will require simultaneous action at many levels from local communities to global institutions. It will constitute an era of social reconstruction.

Realizing the objectives of the Green New Deal 2.0 –while a gigantic leap forward for humanity – will not in itself be sufficient to put human life on a secure basis that makes possible a good life for all. The Green New Deal 2.0 must make part of its project laying the groundwork for what we might dub the Green New Deal 3.0.

Elements of the Green New Deal 2.0

Photo taken at the 2017 DC Climate March on April 29, 2017. #RESIST. Credit: Mark Dixon from Pittsburgh, PA, Wikipedia Commons, CC By 2.0

Here are some of the ways in which the Green New Deal 2.0 can incorporate but go far beyond previous Green New Deals:

The Greentech Revolution Protecting the climate by replacing fossil fuels with fossil free energy was the central pillar of the original U.S. Green New Deal. Since then, climate catastrophe has truly arrived. But the global Greentech Revolution has created a new basis for moving to fossil-free communities, countries, and world. The Green New Deal 2.0 will accelerate the timetable for the transition to climate safety, while utilizing it as the pivot for other transformations.

Green Jobs The original U.S. Green New Deal resolution noted a “4-decade trend of wage stagnation, deindustrialization, and antilabor policies.” It proposed to use climate mobilization as a vehicle to transform the world of work through high-quality union jobs, worker rights, labor standards, and a “job guarantee” that would ensure a job for every worker who wants one doing the work that is necessary to protect the climate and create a more just society. Since then, inequality has exploded and artificial intelligence (AI) threatens to eliminate millions of jobs and turn millions of others into excruciating daily oppression. The Green New Deal 2.0 will expand the jobs programs proposed by the Green New Deal, ensure that there are good jobs for those affected by AI, and empower workers to organize and act collectively on the job.

Affordability Rising prices for the necessities of life are a crucial concern for working people today. The Green New Deal 2.0 will address this from the start by replacing fossil fuels with far cheaper fossil-free energy, reducing the price of everything that uses energy – that is to say, everything. It will also make massive investment in energy-conserving housing, food production, and other necessities of life that will both protect the climate and reduce the cost of living. It will tax the rich to reduce inequality and provide resources for the 99%.

Human Needs The Green New Deal specifically addressed the unmet needs for housing, education, healthcare, and other necessities of life as part of the transition to a climate-safe society. Recent bills in Congress have proposed Green New Deals for housing and education. The Trump administration has devastated all aspects of our already inadequate social provision and is taking aim at what’s left. The Green New Deal 2.0 will establish new systems of social provision that empower local communities while providing the resources necessary to meet individual and social needs.

Justice and Equity The original Green New Deal resolution proposed to use its programs to “promote justice and equity by preventing current and repairing historic oppression” of “indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.” Today the further degradation of all these groups is being actively promoted by the Trump administration and its supporters in all spheres of life. The Green New Deal 2.0 will use resources, policies, democratic processes, and law to reverse both historic and new forms of injustice and inequality.     

Democratization The original U.S. Green New Deal was defeated in large part by the inordinate wealth and power of the fossil fuel industry and its power base within both Republican and Democratic parties. Since then, the Trump administration and the forces of plutocracy have further degraded our democracy and empowered the billionaire class. The initial U.S. Green New Deal resolution called for “ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal.” The Green New Deal 2.0 will rebuild democracy from the bottom up. That includes establishing democratic institutions at the grassroots and establishing genuine political equality for all people. It will also extend democracy within workplaces and the economy. Donald Trump has greatly expanded the role of government in the economy for the worst of purposes, to enrich kleptocrats and war contractors. The Green New Deal 2.0 will utilize that expansion of powers to provide planning and investment to serve the common good.

Constraining Corporations and Technologies The original New Deal of the Great Depression aimed to control the anti-social behavior of “malefactors of great wealth.” The startling growth of hyperscale data centers controlled by a handful of tech billionaires has forced new attention to the need to constrain corporations and their technology. To realize its objectives, the Green New Deal 2.0 will have to go far beyond previous green new deals in halting the anti-social behavior of today’s malefactors of great wealth, the corporations they control, and the destructive technologies they are seeking to impose. It will need to implement the “precautionary principle” that forbids introduction of new technologies until they are proven safe. More broadly, it will need to make the actions of private economic entities accountable to the public and those they affect.

Global Cooperation Neither the climate nor the economy can be fixed at a purely local or national level. The growing chaos of the global Polycrisis with its breakdown of international cooperation has led to a collapse of climate protection, proliferating warfare, economic chaos, and an inability of any nation to provide security and wellbeing for its people. The Green New Deal 2.0 will treat a worldwide Green New Deal as a common project of the world’s people and will make cooperation among movements and nations a primary part of its local and national programs. It will promote mutually managed international trade in the interest of protecting the climate and the world’s people rather than either economic nationalism or unconstrained globalization.

Laying the Groundwork for the Green New Deal 3.0

The Green New Deal 2.0 will not solve all the world’s problems; that will require more fundamental forms of change, including a changed relationship between humans and nature and new ways of guiding human society as a whole. Part of its objective, therefore, must be to lay the groundwork for further change – the Green New Deal 3.0. While the parameters of that change can be seen only hazily from the vantage point of today, we can aim to ensure that the Green New Deal 2.0 opens rather than closes the way to a peaceful, just, and climate safe world order.

The elements of the Green New Deal 2.0 will rapidly improve the lives of workers, communities, and ordinary Americans. The Greentech Revolution will not only retard climate devastation, it will reduce pollution and reverse soaring energy costs. Putting millions of people to work addressing human and environmental needs will not only provide quality employment but rapidly expand provision of food, housing, medical care, public safety, and other necessities of life. Rebuilding democracy from the bottom up will offer protection against the aggressions of authoritarian government and promote our ability to control our common life.

By itself the Green New Deal 2.0 won’t quell the global Polycrisis. But working with other forces it can begin to constrain Polycrisis dynamics while also starting to transcend them. The rapid reduction in burning fossil fuels and the transition to fossil free energy can slow and eventually reverse the destruction of the earth’s climate. The reduction in inequity and injustice, the meeting of social needs, the provision of full employment, and the constraining of corporate power all address the inequality promoted by rightwing policies and the Polycrisis. The drive for international cooperation can help begin to bring warmaking, war crimes, nihilistic geopolitics, and global plunder under control. Cooperation of diverse forces can begin to bring together “patchworks” of order and justice that can constrain the Polycrisis and develop toward an alternative world order.

The Green New Deal project has been promoted by a wide array of social forces. It has brought together people operating inside political systems with social movements organizing outside of them. It has used both the institutions of representative democracy and the direct-action power of the people to implement its objectives. The Green New Deal 2.0 will draw on comparable sources of power – but on a more continuous and more extensive scale.

(The next commentaries in this series will delineate the American Polycrisis and the Emergency Green New Deal.)  

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The post What Is the Green New Deal 2.0? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

The post Transit Labor Roundtable first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Harm reduction services and nonprofit supportive housing play a vital role in addressing the overlapping crises of opioid overdose, mental health, and homelessness that are causing so much hardship in many parts of Canada. These services have been widely debated and researched, but this discourse often overlooks the workforce that provides these services, whose skills and knowledge are often taken for granted.

During the summer of 2026, a research team based at the University of British Columbia’s School of Social Work undertook a study involving 30 online and in-person interviews with frontline workers and managers working in harm reduction and supportive housing in Vancouver’s downtown eastside (DTES). The interviews explored the knowledge and skills of harm reduction workers, and what changes they would recommend to strengthen this work. The findings documentd the wide array of finely-honed skills, knowledge and practices used by these workers, as they endeavour to provide dignity and care for those facing the challenges of homelessness, mental illness and addiction.

The findings of this innovative research are contained in a new report, ‘Do More for Less and Get Blamed for It’: What Harm Reduction Workers Bring to their Jobs and their Community, by Donna Baines, Oliver Hsueh and Denise Cheung. Their research confirms that the workers providing these frontline services bring a rich and multi-dimensional set of skills, both formal and informal, to their jobs. Investing in those workers, including through expanded training, improved safety and working conditions, and adequate compensation and benefits, must be an essential aspect of future efforts to improve these services and better help the populations they serve.

The post New Research Documents Vital Skills of Harm Reduction Workers appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt and erratic trade policies have caused substantial disruptions around the world. But no countries have been more exposed to the twists and turns of his policies than Canada and Mexico: America’s neighbours and largest trading partners.

The three-country trade agreement, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) that Trump himself negotiated and implemented in 2020 has not held back his unilateral and illegal actions.

For labour and equality advocates, Trump’s actions create a quandary: they oppose his policies (which have hurt workers in the U.S., as well as other countries), but without seeming to endorse the pre-Trump status quo as the ideal model. After all, the CUSMA (and the 1994 NAFTA, before it) imposed a very one-sided, corporate-friendly set of rules on the continental economy. The previous trade deals guaranteed freedom of movement and special protections for investors and multinational corporations, while curtailing the ability of national and sub-national governments to limit the economic, environmental, and social fallout of corporate decisions.

It is possible to both oppose Trump’s tariffs, but also oppose the corporate-oriented trade arrangements which he now ignores. And it is possible to envision a continental economy that supports development, living standards, and sustainability in all parts of North America, rejecting the false worker-versus-worker ideology which Trump has weaponized in his trade war.

To that end, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford recently participated in a tri-national project to develop a proposal for North American trade and cooperation that prioritizes living standards, labour and human rights, environmental protection, and income equality. The project was hosted by an initiative called Game Changers, based at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst. The Game Changers network assembled progressive proposals in numerous policy areas in advance of the coming U.S. mid-term elections, with the goal of showing Americans (and others) that there are workable, hopeful alternatives to the increasing authoritarianism of Trump and his compliant MAGA base.

Stanford joined Thea Lee, Hector de la Cueva, Luis Ranger, and Jasper Andrée in developing a proposal titled ‘Democratizing North American Trade.’ The proposal is described more fully in:

A two-page policy brief which summarizes its main features.

A full 25-page paper including a critique of both Trump’s tariffs and the previous CUSMA deal, and a summary of six priority features of a more democratic approach to continental trade.

A two-minute shareable video dramatizing the major themes.

A one-hour webinar where the authors describe the paper and discuss how to advance these ideas in the current political and economic crisis.

Readers are invited to share any of these materials throughout your own networks. We are grateful to the Game Changers network for the opportunity to participate in this tri-national project, showing that a better North American economy is indeed possible.

The post A Tri-National Vision for a North American Economy that Works for Workers appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

National Emergency Briefing Film – What about the workers?

Photo by Ashley Gorringe on Unsplash

Review by Mick Holder

I attended a showing of the campaign film National Emergency Briefing in St John’s Church, Leytonstone recently. Whilst I have issues with its focus on parliamentary action and failure to address work and trade unions I’d still recommend everyone tries to attend a showing, even if you have no knowledge or plenty. It presents a very honest but equally bleak picture and the campaign around the showing of the film locally is to try and get more action on the issue of climate change, which is no bad thing.

In case you don’t know already, the film is based on an event held in Westminster Central Hall last year where experts gave their stark opinion on how far we’re in the shit already climate wise and what the future looks like. At the time we said to them their focus missed out work, workers, the role of unions etc. and we were told they were too far down the line to change, although we were welcome to join in from the floor. They subsequently haven’t picked up on the issue in the film and today’s event wouldn’t have said anything about that if I hadn’t said my piece towards the end – FBU, wildfires and floods, Unite bus workers strike over impossibly hot cab conditions etc. 

And maybe that’s where we are. Showing this film seems to have momentum so perhaps it’s down to us to attend and do our usual “What about the workers?” call. And a warning – celebrities are involved!

Today’s screening was attended by 200+, mainly a mix of people in their thirties upwards and it was reported there have been 4,000 screenings nationally so far. It is not currently available to watch online, deliberately trying to create events involving local communities rather than individuals watching in isolation at home or on their phones. Today’s session was kinda TU Ed style, watch film, break into small groups, report back etc. although I felt the activities were too touchy feely and not enough get active, and too reliant on parliament alone.

The campaign would benefit from a bit of history, not just Greenpeace and FoE but the trade union led Lucas Plan of the 70s calling for a move away from manufacturing for war to making renewable energy sources to end our reliance on fossil fuels, the 1972 book The Limits To Growth which warned us all of the problems we might face if we don’t act and which is still relevant now. I’m sure you can think of more examples. And details of how governments have used growth and de-regulation as an excuse not to act or to act in a way that weakens or removes worker and environmental protections (Grenfell, WHO air standards, many other exposure limits, shitty water etc.). And how global industry spends billions of their profits on making sure governments’ and regulators don’t do what they all know they really should all in the pursuit of profit.

Maybe the film wants to avoid the blame game. I don’t. We should call these fuckers out for what they truly are and ensure they are held to account. We also need to show the personal side of what their actions or inactions mean to us, our families and friends and people around the world, many who will probably suffer far more than we will, at least in the near future.

I think the film is being made available to local groups for free and would encourage people to consider this. Just make sure there’s someone on the panel who knows their stuff about work, trade unions and a bit of analysis too.

A further contribution we can make at any local showings is to complement the focus on lobbying MPs with organising – set up a local campaigning network where none exists, help coordinate existing groups where they do. To create a just transition we need organised forces pushing for it on the ground, as well as pressuring MPs to make the right decisions.

The Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union group has produced an excellent 13 minute version specifically to be shown in union branches. GJA strongly urges all supporters to get this shown in their union branch, to coincide with the COP in November if possible, but any time soon if not. A link to this is here.

We also have this draft motion that could help focus discussion. 

The individual sections of the National emergency briefing are available here

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The post National Emergency Briefing Film – What about the workers? first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

Ever since Canada’s negotiators ended talks for a new trade agreement with the U.S., President Donald Trump’s insults and threats to America’s northern neighbour have become more aggressive, and bizarre, than ever. He has renamed a Great Lake, imposed new 50% tariffs on further Canadian-made products, compared us unfavourably to North Korea, threatened still more tariffs because we use a different dollar, and posted AI images insulting our Prime Minister.

Underneath all of the trolling lurks a more sinister strategy: Trump wants to convince Canadians that we will pay an enormous economic price for resisting his demands, to the point that Canada’s viability as a nation will be jeopardized. In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford dissects five of Trump’s most far-fetched lies – and argues Canada’s economic resilience in the past 18 months has already disproved Trump’s claim that we cannot exist without him.

Lies the President Told You by Jim Stanford

Donald Trump can’t tolerate being trumped. What’s left of his influence – with voters, with other countries, with increasingly restive Republicans – depends on a cultivated image of dominance. No matter what you think of his policies, don’t get in his way, or you will face retribution.

There’s no other way to understand Trump’s desperate and seemingly unhinged response to Canada’s decision to end fruitless trade talks. If a band of polite Canadians can stand up to his extortion, what sort of resistance might be inspired among others harmed by his policies?

So Trump has unleashed a northward torrent of abuse – ranging from the economic (imposing still more tariffs), to the ridiculous (renaming Lake Ontario), to the disturbing (an AI image showing him threatening a supine Mark Carney with a hockey stick).

Comedian Jon Stewart summed up Trump’s strategy as trying to “troll [Canada] into submission.”

Amidst all the nonsense, Trump and his lieutenants are rolling out new justifications for targeting Canada. Like his initial excuses when he launched the trade war last year (fentanyl smuggling, military underspending, Canadian content rules), they’re all unfounded. Here’s a handy guide for debunking his latest doozies:

The trade deficit with Canada is $90 billion: Trump’s numerical claims about the Canada-U.S. trade imbalance have always been imaginary. Last year he threw out several invented numbers, ranging as high as $200 billion. This week he claimed $90 billion.

The true deficit for 2025, based on official U.S. government data, was $27 billion. That consisted of a $55 billion deficit on merchandise, partly offset by a $28 billion U.S. surplus on services. (Yes, Donald, services count.)

That’s just 3% of the massive two-way $900 billion bilateral flow. America’s trade with Canada is far more balanced than with the rest of the world – adding to the mystery of why Canada is suddenly Public Enemy Number One.

The deficit constitutes a subsidy to Canada: Whatever its size, Trump claims a trade deficit is equivalent to a subsidy. In reality, a trade deficit simply means one country buys more from another country, than it sells to that country.

When you spend $200 at the grocery store, it’s not a “subsidy.” You’ve bought things you need. America needs what it buys from Canada; our exports are better or cheaper than from other sources.

Any actual subsidy goes the other way. Other countries (including Canada) supply the U.S. with trillions of dollars of capital each year. That’s what allows the U.S. to run a perpetual trade deficit, every year for the last fifty.

The U.S. would save money by cutting off trade with Canada: Canada is the largest market for U.S. exports, $426 billion worth in 2025 alone. Ending that would cause massive recession in the U.S., not just Canada.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face doesn’t make you feel better. It doesn’t save money, either.

Canada cheats at trade with its dollar: One of Trump’s most bizarre recent posts claimed that Canada’s dollar (presently worth about 72 cents U.S.) is used to rip off America. He pledged to stop this, without specifying how.

Yes, our currency has the same name. But that hardly means it should be worth the same. 25 other countries also have “dollars”. Are they cheating, too?

Exchange rates are determined by capital flows, investor expectations, comparative inflation, and many other factors. By boosting inflation and destabilizing investor confidence with his enormous deficits, Trump’s policies might indeed drive down America’s dollar. Then he can stop blaming Canada.

Canada can’t survive without the U.S.: This is Trump’s biggest, and most dangerous, lie. And getting us to believe it is central to his intimidation strategy.

Despite reduced U.S.-bound exports, Canada’s economy has continued growing. Two-thirds of those lost merchandise exports have been offset by new exports to other countries. And almost 80% of our GDP is produced and consumed right here, by Canadians, for Canadians. Trump can’t touch that.

Yes, it will be a bumpy ride to disentangle our economy from overreliance on what is now a failed democracy next door. But as the 10th largest economy in the world, with a wealth of natural and human resources, and a stronger capacity to solve problems together, we will most definitely survive without Trump’s America.

The post Debunking Five of Donald Trump’s Big Lies About Canada appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Farmworker leaders from the CIW (Nely Rodriguez, speaking, and Lupe Gonzalo, to her immediate left)  join plant nursery workers with WeCount! at a press conference on the Planting Justice initiative earlier this year.

Sixteen years ago, the Fair Food Program ushered in a new day for farmworkers in the United States, replacing generations of poverty and powerlessness with a groundbreaking system built to guarantee fundamental human rights in the fields.  The Program’s unique standards include protections against wage theft, sexual harassment, retaliation, modern-day slavery, and — as of just over two years ago — protections the Washington Post called “America’s strongest workplace heat rules“. Today, the Presidential Medal-winning FFP has become a beacon of hope far beyond the fields where it began, demonstrating to workers around the world that even the most deeply rooted abuses can be overcome when workers themselves are empowered to monitor and enforce their own rights.

In recent years, workers and human rights advocates from industries across the U.S. and around the world have traveled to CIW’s headquarters in Immokalee to learn firsthand about the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model based on the Fair Food Program — and explore how they can adapt that model to confront abuses in their own workplaces. Among them have been members of WeCount!, a worker-based human rights organization from Homestead, Florida, whose members have long marched alongside the CIW in the Campaign for Fair Food and participated in multiple worker-to-worker exchanges in Immokalee, learning directly from workers on FFP farms how worker-led monitoring and binding market commitments have transformed life in the fields.

Over the past several years, that longstanding solidarity has grown into a deeper collaboration between WeCount!, the CIW, and the Fair Food Standards Council to adapt the lessons of the FFP to another corner of Florida agriculture: the sprawling plant nursery industry. As that partnership has developed, nursery workers have taken the lead in shaping Planting Justice — Sembrando Justicia — a new WSR initiative designed to put workers themselves at the center of monitoring and enforcing their rights, backed by the same binding commitments from the corporations with the power to change conditions on the ground as are found in the FFP. Today, workers are calling on Costa Farms, one of the nation’s largest growers of houseplants, to become the initiative’s first corporate partner.

A powerful new feature article from Grist shines a national spotlight on the latest chapter in that collaboration — and on an industry where the beautiful plants lining floors in Home Depot, Lowe’s, Whole Foods, Walmart and Costco stores across America can conceal a far harsher reality for the workers who grow them. Nursery workers describe extreme heat, inadequate access to clean water, a lack of shade and rest breaks, pesticide exposure, and other dangerous conditions, even as traditional avenues for securing protections have narrowed. But the story is also one of exciting possibility: Drawing on years of organizing and the proven lessons of the Fair Food Program, workers are building a path to safeguarding their dignity in the workplace.

Check out excerpts from Grist’s powerful feature below, and click here to read the full article.

America’s houseplants come at a steep price for greenhouse workers The people who grow houseplants aren’t often thought of as agricultural workers, but they face many of the same hardships — especially in extreme heat.

…Since 2021, WeCount has been advocating on behalf of outdoor workers who lack meaningful protections from extreme heat. Based in South Florida, WeCount previously campaigned for a municipal heat standard in Miami-Dade County, where deaths from heat exposure are estimated to spike by 60% (opens in new tab) during extremely hot periods. But those efforts were cut short in 2024, when industry groups complained(opens in new tab) and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis passed a law preempting local governments from enacting their own heat standards. (DeSantis said such regulations could cause “a lot of problems.”(opens in new tab)

Planting Justice, WeCount’s new campaign to protect outdoor workers across the South, aims to bring corporations like Costa Farms to the table and create consumer awareness around where their plants come from — and the human cost of growing them.

This model of mobilizing for stronger workplace protections is known as worker-driven social responsibility. WeCount’s campaign is heavily inspired by the Fair Food Program, which farmworkers have successfully used for years to boost their labor conditions and is considered the highest standard of labor protections for farmworkers in the U.S. The Fair Food Program, launched in 2011 by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, has proven effective as a framework for workers to continually surface and address their needs. For example, while access to drinking water is one of the core tenets of the program, this year, workers won the right to electrolyte beverages or supplements year round.

CIW staff provide an on-the-clock, worker-to-worker education session as part of the FFP, on Rancho Durazno

“We know that every year this crisis is getting worse,” said Londoño, referring to how summer temperatures climb year to year, driven by human-caused climate change. “But increasingly, legislative avenues are more and more limited.”

Heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather(opens in new tab). In the U.S., official counts of deaths from extreme heat exposure vastly underreport the scope of the problem(opens in new tab), as a two-year investigation by Boston University and NPR recently demonstrated. For years, labor advocates and community groups have pushed for the creation of a federal heat standard — a set of guidelines that would apply to employers across the country designed to reduce workers’ risk of heat illness. While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — or OSHA,  the nation’s workplace regulator — seemed to be making progress toward such a rule under the Biden administration, those efforts have since stalled out. Meanwhile, agricultural workers, a category that includes plant nursery workers who handle the greenery directly, are excluded from federal collective bargaining protections under the National Labor Relations Act. And yet, agricultural workers are also more than 35 times more likely(opens in new tab) to die from heat-related complaints than workers in other industries.

The goal of the Planting Justice campaign is for Costa Farms to sign onto a code of conduct developed by workers. The agreement outlines relatively straightforward demands: educating workers and supervisors on the signs of heat illness; providing access to shade, water, and rest breaks; and creating systems for monitoring and responding to heat stress.

Organizers believe the agreement would help directly address issues that workers themselves see on the job. For example, while Costa Farms reports that the company provides access to hydration stations on very hot days, workers industry-wide have reported water with a strong chemical smell, as well as seeing mold in water coolers, said Londoño.

Alejandro Gonzalez, a plant nursery worker originally from Guatemala, told a Florida rally that the summer days have topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit on occasion. “They don’t give us cold or clean water,” Gonzalez said emphatically, in Spanish. “They don’t provide any breaks or shade.”

Eighty-six percent of nursery workers who responded to a survey by WeCount(opens in new tab) reported dangerous incidents on the job, stemming from heat illness, pesticide exposure, and workplace accidents. Over two-thirds reported being entirely denied breaks and days off. The visa conditions of many houseplant workers — dependent on H2-A or other visas, or entirely undocumented — leave them with few rights to recourse, often entirely dependent on their employers for housing, and unable to rely on much of federal labor law for support should they speak out.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates about new WSR initiatives!