Green Unionism Done Right in Richmond: A Brief Review of the "Roadmap to Contra Costa County Refinery Transition"

By That Green Union Guy - IWW Eco Union Caucus, July 30, 2025

The Contra Costa Refinery Transition Partnership (CCRTP) includes United Steelworkers District 12, United Steelworkers Local 5, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, UA Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 342, and the Contra Costa Central Labor Council, with support from the United Steelworkers International Union, the California Federation of Labor Unions, UC Berkeley Labor Center, and the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation. It is the culmination of several decades of organizing effort jointly conducted by many of these organizations, dating back to the mid 1990s (for some background, see the introduction and first chapter from the anthology, Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement.

The roadmap offers 31 practical and specific recommendations on how to provide a managed decline of the remaining four oil refineries in the Bay Area (three in Contra Costa County, specifically Martinez, Rodeo, and Richmond; and one in Solano County, specifically Benicia.)

These include both environmental justice demands, many of which include community input on refinery conversions as well as reparations for impacted communities. Simultaneously, the roadmap includes numerous demands union workers might make in contract negotiations, including provisions for making workers adversely affected by refinery transitions “whole”, including everything from early retirement without penalty, to right of transfer to other still operating facilities by the company, to paid retraining, with seniority rights being a determining factor in who gets first dibs. Indeed, this document reads as a joint contract negotiated by the workers and the community that can serve as a model for similar cases globally.

The 31 demands are as follows:

Refinery Transition Planning & Oversight

• Require Two Year Notification of a Refinery Closure/Idling/Downsizing & Require Quarterly
• Maintenance Planning with Impacted Labor Representatives
• Require Employers to Develop Workforce Transition Plans with Impacted Labor Unions Due Six Months Prior to Closure
• Establish a Contra Costa Refinery Transition Oversight Commission

Refinery Worker Safety Net & Transition

• Establish Financial Support for Worker Transition—State & Federal
• Establish Third Party-Certification for Refinery Workers
• Require Verification of Employment from Employers
• Explore Policy Mechanisms for Refinery Industry to Fund Worker & Community Safety Net
• Establish & Fund Transition Navigator/Peer-to-Peer Case Management Programs for Impacted Oil Refinery Workers
• Create a Bridge to Retirement Program for Impacted Refinery Workers
• Complete a Contra Costa Supply Chain Analysis
• Establish Statewide Severance Standards & Employee Protections
• Establish Incentives for Employers to Hire Impacted Refinery Workers
• Create an Outreach Program for Employers to Hire Impacted Oil Refinery Workers
• Complete a Statewide Study Assessing Long-Term Health Impacts of Refinery Workers

Land Use, Decommissioning & Clean-Up

• Initiate Land-Use Visioning Process Upon Notification of a Refinery Closure/Idling/Downsizing/ Conversion
• Establish Refinery Decommissioning/Clean-Up Standards
• Require Site-Specific Plans to Meet Refinery Decommissioning & Remediation Standards
• Secure Enforceable Financial Assurances for Environmental Remediation9.Require Labor Standards for Refinery Decommissioning & Clean-Up
• Promote Maximum Environmental Restoration of Refinery Lands Upon Closure
• Ensure Proper Remediation of Contaminated Soils

Refinery Community Support & Transition

• Establish Local Community Recovery & Transition Fund with State/Federal Support
• Improve & Update Contra Costa Community Warning System
• Prevent Displacement with Renter Protections, Housing Preservation, & New Homeowner Programs
• Complete a Detailed Contra Costa County Tax Impacts Analysis
• Pursue Establishment of a Federal Energy Transition Tax Remediation Fund

Just Transition Economic Development in Contra Costa County

• Adopt a Uniform Just Transition Standards Policy for Public Investments in Contra Costa
• Develop a Contra Costa County Just Transition Economic Development Plan
• Integrate Community-Centered Principles into Contra Costa County Economic Development
  Planning Processes
• Advocate for State/Federal Prioritization of Economic Development Investment in Contra Costa
• Advocate for Aligning & Embedding Just Transition Standards in All State & Federal Investments

As visionary as this document is, however, it isn’t the first instance of such an attempt. Three decades ago, in northwestern California, a one-time labor organizer turned radical environmentalist named Judi Bari authored a very similar (albeit far less detailed) proposal (with the help of several timber workers who chose to remain anonymous, because they were either not represented by a union or their union collaborated with the timber bosses), titled, But What About Jobs? 

For its time (1996), this was a very radical proposal. However, three decades later, such ideas have become mainstream as both (some) unions and environmental justice organizations have recognized that any hope for a better future for all depends upon their working together.

Those of us who are feeling demoralized over the rise of the far right and the oft repeated notion that the Overton Window has shifted far to the right can find some solace in the fact that it has also shifted to leftwards. (In fact, in many ways, what’s happening is that societal norms have shifted leftwards, and what was once mainstream conservative is now considered far right. Far from having a popular mandate, the far right used bullying, threats, and fear to induce subservience rather than manufactured consent through persuasion. The problem for the reactionaries is that authoritarianism is actually far less stable than manufactured consent in the long run).

Green unionism has slowly become mainstream, in spite of efforts by those threatened by it (namely extractive capitalists) to quash it. However, many workers dependent upon jobs in extractive industries, even those represented by unions, see environmentalists as “outsiders” (and to no small degree, until recently, many environmental organizations inadvertently reinforced that mindset by not making concerted efforts to cultivate relationships with potentially affected workers). Therefore, many previously attempted “just transition” frameworks and roadmaps (even very well crafted ones) have fallen upon deaf ears from the workers.

This study is different for the simple reason that workers—and not just any workers, but refinery workers employed in the very refineries potentially impacted as well as officials from the unions that represent them, helped craft it. That goes a long way in giving such a roadmap credibility among potentially adversely affected workers who’d otherwise be very skeptical and reticent.

This proposal both addresses very real cost of living, bread-and-butter concerns that workers (and front line communities) have while also providing a means for addressing climate emergency and capital blight.

On a macro-scale, this also offers a roadmap for defeating MAGA and Trumpism, because these reactionary forces thrive on sowing divisions and stoking prejudices that split the working class. More such specific proposals crafted by workers and environmental justice activists centered around similar facilities across the US and globally would definitely help build a more viable, transformative movement, comprising what Jeremy Brecher of Labor Network for Sustainability describes as “A Green New Deal from Below.”

If there is one shortcoming in the plan, it’s that it doesn’t quite go far enough. The document neither discusses collectivization of the refineries (either through nationalization or workers’ control) nor a Lucas Plan style repurposing of them by the workers themselves so there are limitations to it. Whether those limitations are due to such ideas being beyond the pale for the coalition that wrote the document, or due to the possibility that the organizers believe that offering them would be too much too soon isn’t clear. In these chaotic opening weeks of the Trump administration, its reactionary overreach paradoxically opens up opportunities to rethink societal norms in radical opposition to far right hubris. That said, this “roadmap” was largely crafted before all of that went down.

Regardless of all of these circumstances, it nevertheless represents a major step in the right direction, a model for just transition, and a crucial piece of the puzzle on how to extricate ourselves from the perils we currently find ourselves in.

Resources

• Plan Summary - California Contra Costa Refinery Transition Partnership Report and Policy Recommendations
• Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).
• Plan Review - Roadmap to Contra Costa County Refinery Transition

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.