United Steelworkers of America (USW)

By Alex Nieves - Politico, December 4, 2023

One of California’s most powerful unions is not loosening its grip on oil jobs.

Despite the Biden administration and California lawmakers pouring billions of dollars into new climate-friendly industries like electric vehicles, hydrogen and building electrification, a key player in state politics is still defending fossil fuel interests that provide thousands of well-paying jobs.

President Joe Biden’s investment in clean energy sectors through a pair of massive spending bills — which promise lucrative tax credits for projects that pay union wages — was supposed to speed up the labor transition away from oil and gas. That hasn’t happened in deep-blue California, home to the country’s most ambitious climate policies — and most influential labor unions.

“We believe we’re still going to be working in the oil and gas space for the foreseeable future,” said Chris Hannan, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, which represents nearly 500,000 members across dozens of local unions, from pipefitting to electrical work.

Unions’ longstanding — and well-founded — distrust of the renewable energy industry as a reliable source of labor-friendly jobs is slowing the “just transition” that Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders around the country have pushed.

With federal officials trying to get clean energy funding out as fast as possible ahead of the 2024 election, and California politicians cracking down on the fossil fuel industry, unions’ reluctance to relinquish fossil fuel jobs undermines Democrats’ aggressive climate targets, according to a lawmaker who serves both a union- and oil-rich area of the state.

While the union embrace of fossil fuels is unique to California — one of the few blue states with significant oil production — the struggle highlights a larger question over how states can quickly build massive amounts of clean energy infrastructure without undercutting labor.

By Web Admin - Sunflower Alliance, October 25, 2023

California Labor for Climate Jobs (CLCJ), a coalition of California unions, has released its state policy platform, the California Worker Climate Bill of Rights, calling on the state to support a “worker-led transition to a just and climate-safe economy.”

The bill of rights calls for:

• Protections from climate hazards
• Safety nets for impacted workers and communities
• Good jobs in the low-carbon economy
• A strong public sector — adaptive services for all.

Their vision also includes:

• Universal health care/the caring economy
• Reliable and accessible public transportation
• Expanded public education and job training.

By staff - California Labor for Climate Jobs, October 2023

Climate change is forcing a massive restructuring of our economy; a worker-led transition provides a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape our economy for working people and our communities while limiting climate dangers. Labor rights are a climate solution: we must increase workers’ voice on the job in all sectors through unionization, and invest in our public sector to build the democratic, clean, green economy we need. Massive investments in our infrastructure, agriculture and public sectors are moving us towards meeting California’s climate goals and can create a million new union jobs for pipefitters, carpenters, manufacturers, electricians, cable layers, public transit operators, agricultural workers and others. Expanding the public services our communities need to cope with extreme weather and climate disasters will create jobs for nurses, care workers, public sector workers and more, while providing new opportunities for workers who have been trapped in low-wage jobs.

A worker-led transition means fighting to support fossil-fuel dependent workers and communities, including wage and pension guarantees and retraining, rather than leaving it to the whims of the oil CEOs to dictate the terms of the transition. From West Virginia to Los Angeles, we have seen how unplanned closures and economic shifts have devastated workers and the communities where they live.

Transition is inevitable, but economic and racial justice are not. If labor takes the lead, we have a historic opportunity to grow the labor movement and create a cleaner, more equitable, and climate-safe economy that provides high-road, family-sustaining, union jobs.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, August 30, 2023

UPS Workers Win Heat Protections Faced with a threatened strike – including “practice picket lines” — by its 340,000 union employees, UPS has agreed to a contract that provides major gains in wages and working conditions for its Teamsters’ members. The contract includes elimination of a “two-tier” wage rate; significant wage increases, especially for the lowest paid workers; and combining part-time jobs to provide new full-time jobs.

Sometimes lethal heat conditions have been a central issue for UPS workers. UPS has promised to equip all new package cars with air-conditioning and to install fans on older package cars. Section 14 of the contract states: 

All vans, pushbacks, fuel trucks, package cars, shifting units, and 24-foot box vans after January 2024 shall be equipped with A/C. Single fans will be installed in all package cars within 30 days of ratification and a second fan will be installed no later than June 1, 2024. Air-conditioned package cars will first be allocated to Zone 1 which is the hottest area of the country. All model year 2023 and beyond package cars and vans will be delivered with factory-installed heat shields and air induction vents for the package compartment. Within 18 months of ratification, all package cars will be retrofitted with heat shields and air induction vents. A Package Car Heat Committee will be established within 10 days of ratification for the purpose of studying methods of venting and insulating the package compartment. A decision must be made by October, 2024 or the issue will be submitted to the grievance procedure. The company will replace at least 28,000 package cars and vans during the life of the contract. 

The contract was overwhelmingly ratified by UPS union members on August 22.

By Tom Conway - CounterPunch, July 17, 2023

The heat index soared to 111 degrees in Houston, Texas, but the real-feel temperature climbed even higher than that inside the heavy personal protective equipment (PPE) that John Hayes and his colleagues at Ecoservices wear on the job.

Sweat poured from the workers clad in full-body hazardous materials suits, heavy gloves, splash hoods, and steel-toed boots as they sampled and processed chemicals from huge metal containers under a searing sun.

Fortunately, as members of the United Steelworkers (USW), these workers negotiated a policy requiring the chemical treatment company to provide shade, cool-down periods, and other measures to protect them during sweltering days.

But unless all Americans have commonsense safeguards like these, workers across the country will continue to get sick and die during ever-worsening heat waves.

The USW, other unions, and advocacy groups are calling on the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to speedily enact a national standard specifying the minimum steps all employers need to take to safeguard workers from unprecedented and deadly bouts of heat.

Because of union advocacy, OSHA already has national standards that protect workers from falls, trench collapses, asbestos exposure, infectious diseases, injuries from equipment, and many other workplace hazards. It’s way past time to also protect workers from the heat waves that are growing more severe, lasting longer, and claiming more lives each year.

“Heat affects everybody. It doesn’t care about age,” observed Hayes, president of USW Local 227’s Ecoservices unit, who helped to negotiate the heat-related protections for about 70 workers in treatment services, maintenance, logistics, and other departments.

“There’s so many things they can come up with,” he said of OSHA officials.

The policy the union negotiated with Ecoservices requires low-cost, sensible measures like water, electrolytes, modified work schedules, tents and fans, and the authority to stop work when conditions become unhealthy and unsafe.

“If you start to feel dizzy or lightheaded, take your timeout,” Hayes reminds coworkers. “Don’t worry about it.”

In 2021, OSHA initiated efforts “to consider a heat-specific workplace rule.” In the meantime, states and local governments are free to make their own rules, let workers fend for themselves, or even put workers at greater risk.

By Ariel Pinchot, et. al. - Blue Green Alliance, June 2023

As one of the most important metals for modern life, aluminum is all around us. From our bridges and high-rise buildings to our smartphones and kitchen appliances, this highly durable, lightweight, and conductive material is essential. It’s also a key ingredient for achieving our climate, jobs, and national security goals. As a primary component of solar panels, power lines, electric vehicles (EVs), and other clean technologies, aluminum is a building block of our clean energy solutions. At the same time, producing aluminum requires a tremendous amount of energy, and globally, the sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As the world produces increasing amounts of this material for the clean energy economy, we must simultaneously decrease the emissions from its production in order to achieve global climate targets.

In the United States, our growing need for aluminum already far surpasses the dwindling output from our domestic primary production. As a result, much of the aluminum we use comes from abroad, including from countries where aluminum production is much more emissions-intensive. Increasing our aluminum procurements from highly-polluting overseas producers will only push our climate justice goals further out of reach. What we need to advance these goals is a secure, domestically produced supply of clean aluminum made with high-road labor standards.

Revitalizing clean aluminum manufacturing in the U.S. will not only cut a major source of climate pollution, reduce worker and fenceline community exposure to airborne pollutants, and secure a reliable supply of an essential material for clean energy—it will also create good jobs for hard-hit workers and communities, while supporting the current workforce and retaining existing jobs. This report lays out a set of targeted recommendations for getting there. After assessing the state of the domestic industry, we outline the employment, climate, and community benefits of revitalizing clean aluminum manufacturing and present a set of policy solutions that can help create and sustain a strong, clean aluminum industry.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Virginia Parks, Robert Zardeneta, Norman Rogers, and Tracy Scott - The Climate Center, May 24, 2023

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, May 16, 2023

After a bruising three-year fight, workers at school bus manufacturer Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Georgia, voted May 12 to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 697.

“It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with 1,400 people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry,” said Maria Somma, organizing director with the USW.

“It’s not a single important win. It’s an example of what’s possible—workers wanting to organize and us being able to take advantage of a time and a policy that allowed them to clear a path to do so.”

The vote was 697 to 435 with 80 percent turnout. At two factories and a warehouse near Macon, the workers build school buses and an array of specialty buses.

Blue Bird is the second-largest bus manufacturer in the country, after Daimler Truck’s Thomas Built Buses. The Auto Workers represent workers at a Thomas Built facility in North Carolina.

The main issues in Georgia were pay and safety. Workers began organizing in earnest at the height of the pandemic in 2020 after Blue Bird workers reached out to a Steelworker organizer following a union win at a tire factory in nearby Macon. They overcame a fierce anti-union campaign in a right-to-work state where only 4.4 percent of workers are union members.

But Somma adds that workers tapped into local union networks. “People think the South is non-union, but we have a lot of members in middle Georgia,” she said.

The Steelworkers represent thousands of members in the state—at BASF, which makes chemicals used in plastics, detergent, and paper manufacturing, Anchor Glass, and the paper giant Graphic Packaging International.

By Tracy Scott - Newsweek, May 3, 2023

When John Bayer got the call that the Marathon Martinez oil refinery was shutting down, he was sound asleep after his graveyard shift at the facility, where he worked a union job as a health, safety and emergency response resource. For John, the phone call did more than wake him up after a night of hard work. As an employee at the Marathon refinery for nearly two decades and as the sole provider for his wife and two kids, it shook the foundation of his life and career.

John was just one of nearly 350 workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 5, the union I lead, who lost their jobs when the Marathon refinery shut down in October 2020. John's story echoes that of thousands of oil and other workers across the country who are facing an uncertain future amid the changing energy landscape.

To be clear: In California and across the country, working people support addressing climate change and transitioning to renewable energy. But when refineries like the former Marathon facility shut down without a clear plan in place that involves unions from the outset, workers and the community inevitably get left behind.

In order to guarantee that California has an economy that works for everybody, impacted workers must be at the center of planning for the ongoing transition to clean energy, and they must have access to union jobs that guarantee financial security, strong protections, and good benefits.

By Virginia Parks, PhD and Ian Baran - UC Labor Center, April 26, 2023

On October 30, 2020, the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County, California, was permanently shut down and 345 unionized workers laid off. We surveyed (n=140) and interviewed (n=21) these refinery workers to document their post-layoff employment experiences. The findings in this report focus on these workers’ post-layoff job search, employment status, wages, and financial security. The Marathon refinery’s closure sheds light on the employment and economic impacts of climate change policies and a shrinking fossil fuel industry on fossil fuel workers in the region and more broadly.

In the aftermath of the refinery shutdown, workers were relatively successful in gaining post-layoff employment but at the cost of lower wages and worse working conditions. At the time of the survey, 74% of former Marathon workers (excluding retirees) had found new jobs. Nearly one in five (19%) were not employed but actively searching for work; 4% were not employed but not looking for a job; and the remaining 2% were temporarily laid off from their current job. Using standard labor statistics measures, the post-layoff unemployment rate among Marathon workers was 22.5% and the employment rate was 77.5%. If workers who have stopped actively searching for work were included, the post-layoff unemployment rate was higher at 26%.

Former Marathon workers find themselves in jobs that pay $12 per hour less than their Marathon jobs, a 24% cut in pay. The median hourly wage at Marathon was $50, compared to a post-layoff median of $38. A striking level of wage inequality defines the post-layoff wages of former refinery workers. At Marathon, hourly pay ranged between $30 to $68. The current range extends as low as $14 per hour to a high of $69. Workers reported benefits packages comparable to their pre-layoff Marathon benefits.

Workers found jobs in a range of sectors. The single most common sector of re-employment was oil and gas, where 28% of former Marathon workers found post-layoff jobs but at wages 26% lower than at Marathon. These lower rates of pay stem from loss of seniority and non-union employment. The utility sector (electrical power, natural gas, wastewater management) was the second most common sector of re-employment. Workers reported that utility jobs were a good fit for their skills, reputed as “good jobs,” and highly sought after. The median hourly utility wage was $41. The third most common re-employment sector was chemical treatment. Less than half (43%) of all post-layoff jobs were unionized.

Overall, workers reported worse working conditions at their post-layoff jobs, even in higher wage jobs. Workers described hazardous worksites, heavy workloads, work speed-up, increased job responsibilities, and few opportunities for advancement. Above all, workers cited poor safety practices and increased worksite hazards as the most significant and alarming characteristics of degraded working conditions.

Workers had difficulty finding jobs that matched their skills when searching for work. They emphasized two primary frustrations: 1) employers’ lack of knowledge about refinery work and refinery workers’ skills and 2) workers’ inability to prove their skill or experience through certifications or a verification process.

Nearly all workers (91%) would consider job training. Approximately half (49%) said they would enroll in a job training program, 42% responded “maybe,” and 9% said they would not. Workers aged 40 to 49 reported the greatest willingness to enroll in training followed by workers aged 30 to 39. Hesitation was highest among workers over the age of 50. Workers’ most prevalent concerns about training were cost, needing to earn while training, and training program length. Many workers were apprehensive about the efficacy of training. Workers were uniformly uninterested in going back to school to earn degrees.

Workers reported increasing financial insecurity after the layoff. A full third of all workers described that they were “falling behind financially” a year following the layoff compared to only 3% before the layoff. Nearly one-third of all workers took early withdrawals from their retirement accounts to make ends meet following layoff. Most re-employed workers did not move to find jobs, likely associated with the high rate of home ownership among Marathon workers (81%). Many expressed deep anxieties about their long-term ability to make mortgage payments.

Laid-off workers are highly motivated to put their skills and experience to use in new jobs, in new sectors. They require coordinated assistance to transition successfully into new jobs and for the region to retain them. Our research findings identify four critical types of assistance that workers need most. First, third-party skill certification would facilitate more efficient and accurate skill matching between jobs and workers in the labor market. Certification would help workers communicate, and verify, their skills to new employers. Certification would aid employers who are unfamiliar with the refinery sector make better decisions about assessing their workforce needs in relation to the skills of former refinery workers.

Second, workers require targeted job search assistance that focuses on a broad scope of strategies, including effective job search techniques, resume and online profile preparation, and career counseling. Both workers and job counselors require an up-to-date and nuanced assessment of jobs and industries to which refinery skills transfer.

Third, a fair and equitable transition for workers out of the fossil fuel sector depends upon a robust economic development strategy that generates new jobs comparable in quality to the jobs these workers are leaving behind. Successful transition requires both transition assistance and high-road job growth. One without the other will leave workers, and the region, behind.

Lastly, regional economic development strategies aimed at reducing fossil fuel dependency must account for the adverse financial impact these strategies will have on workers and their families. Loss of income will invariably result. A just transition for working Californians needs to include financial support, in the form of cash assistance or wage replacement, to cover losses in wage income.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).