climate change

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, April 2, 2023

Seventeen years ago California passed one of the nation’s first workplace heat stress rules. Since then California has been inundated with heat waves resulting from global warming. A new study, “Feeling the Heat: How California’s Workplace Heat Standards Can Inform Stronger Protections Nationwide,” finds that the state’s heat stress rule provides some protection, but that its coverage is limited, it is often unenforced, and that penalties are so modest that many employers simply ignore it. The study calls for expanding the rule to all California workers, increasing enforcement, and establishing a federal heat standard for all workers in the US.

The California rule requires employers to provide heat training, free drinking water, and shade to employees. It covers only outdoor workers, but the study identified heat-related cases in 463 different industries outside agriculture and construction, including janitorial services, home health care, museums, and newspaper publishers.

The study found that hundreds of businesses repeatedly violated the rule but avoided the usually higher fines meted out to repeat violators. UPS received 41 citations for violating the heat standard but was issued only one for a repeat violation.

Only Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington have similar workplace heat stress rules. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been working for years on a national heat stress standard but none has so far been issued. Rep, Judy Chu and Sen. Alex Padilla of California and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio have introduced legislation to accelerate development of such a standard.

By Collin Rees, Allie Rosenbluth, Valentina Stackl, et. al - Oil Change International, April 2023

This report examines the gas certification market, specifically one of the current industry leaders, Project Canary. We raise serious concerns about the integrity of gas certification and so-called “Responsibly Sourced Gas” (RSG). Our investigation, which included field observations of oil and gas wells in Colorado monitored by Project Canarya, exposed significant shortcomings in its operations and claims.

• Project Canary monitors consistently fail to detect pollution events: Earthworks’ trained oil and gas thermographers captured alarming evidence of Project Canary monitors failing to detect emissions in the field. The seven-month survey found that Continuous Emissions Monitors (CEMs)b failed to capture every significant pollution event detected with Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) cameras. Our observations suggest that the company is misrepresenting the capabilities of its technology – a concern echoed in the testimony we gathered from several industry experts – and the underlying data behind certified gas.
• Greenwashing: Project Canary’s marketing aggressively positions its certification services as a conduit to a ‘net zero’ emissions world. Its CEO has openly discussed fixing the gas industry’s “brand problem.” In doing so, the company appears to be aligning itself with gas industry lobbyists and pushing the concept of ‘net zero’ to new levels of incredulity, which risks sabotaging rather than serving global climate goals. The company is pushing a false narrative that methane gas is an energy source compatible with climate goals as long as it is certified as being produced below a certain methane threshold.
• Lack of Transparency: Despite claims of ‘radical transparency’ and third-party verification, there is limited access for regulators, academics, or the public to the data generated by the certification process. Given the evidence that monitoring may not be reliable, there is clear justification for greater scrutiny from regulators, scientists, and concerned citizens.
• Conflicts of Interest: Evidence suggests that a key Project Canary DIrector and Advisory Board Members have direct financial interests in the same gas companies it certifies.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, April 1, 2023

American unions increasingly recognize the threat of climate change to workers and their communities. Yet some unions continue to promote programs like Alaska’s Willow Project that violate the basic requirement of climate safety: that fossil fuel extraction and burning must be subject to a rapid, managed decline. Fortunately, they are not the only voices in the labor movement.

On March 21 retired members from over 30 international unions rallied, marched, and demonstrated for climate protection. They stated, “Science tells us we have to stop burning fossil fuels and cut emissions by 50% in the next seven years or face climate disasters far worse than we are already experiencing.” They called for a stop to “all new investment in fossil fuel expansion, including production, infrastructure, and exploration,” and for funds to be redirected to “projects that will build renewable energy infrastructure and meet the other needs of our communities, especially workers and their families who are negatively impacted either directly or indirectly by the transition away from fossil fuels.”[1] These union veterans may be aging, but if the labor movement is to have a future it had better listen to what they have to say.

Just days before, the Biden administration had announced approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project, the largest fossil fuel extraction project on federal lands in history. It is expected to produce five hundred and seventy-five million barrels of oil over the next thirty years. Burning that oil will result in the emission of about ten million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or some three hundred million tons over the life of the project.[2] The project will wipe out the emissions cuts provided by all renewable energy developments over the next decade, adding the equivalent of two million new gasoline cars to the roads.[3]

When the union climate protectors said to stop “all new investment in fossil fuel expansion,” there’s nothing that could have applied to more clearly than the Willow Project. And yet, other parts of the labor movement have been presenting labor as that project’s enthusiastic advocate.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, March 31, 2023

There is a through-line between the denial of sick days to railroad workers and residents of East Palestine fleeing their homes in the aftermath of a derailed freight train poisoning their town. The through-line is the rail industry’s drive for profit costing workers and communities their health and safety. The through-line is workers sounding the alarm, to no avail.

For decades, the railroad industry has been increasing profits by raising prices and cutting labor costs, resulting in degraded safety standards and short-staffing. This, and the pursuit of short-term profit, are at the heart of why 45,000 rail workers have lost their jobs since 2015, why rail industry lobbyists have spent millions to undermine safety regulations, why the industry has delayed the electrification of railroads, and why a “100% preventable” rail disaster in East Palestine has caused residents to flee, animals to die, and at least 1.1 million gallons of water and 15,000 pounds of soil to become contaminated. To those who own the railroads, all of this has been a great success: CEOs at five of the largest railroad conglomerates have made $200 million over the last 3 years. After all, the point of private industry is profit.

Private interests must be prevented from dictating the future of rail– critical infrastructure that serves as a backbone for the economy, communities, and a climate-safe future. To that end, the Labor Network for Sustainability supports Railroad Workers United’s demand to nationalize the railroads.

Alongside necessary public investments, public ownership of rail will allow us to transform our rail system into one that truly serves the common good. Untethered from the market, we can electrify and expand rail, institute fairer working conditions, and engage communities throughout the process so that equity, sustainability, and justice are at the forefront.

The latest Synthesis Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly stated that the choices we make in the next decade will impact us now and for the next thousand years. Now is the time for bold decisions. Without public and democratic ownership of rail, many of those crucial decisions will not be made by us– they will be made by a wealthy few.

To our partners and allies who value democracy, workers rights, and climate justice– join us in demanding that rail becomes a public good!

By staff - Trades Union Congress, March 30, 2023

Commenting on the publication today (Thursday) of the government’s updated strategy to reach the UK’s targets for net zero emissions, TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said:

“This century, the nations that lead the way in getting to net zero will be the most successful in delivering good jobs for everyone. But this strategy falls a long way short of the ambition needed to seize this opportunity for Britain.

“Investment in clean energy, green tech and new ways of delivering energy-intensive products is still far too low. And workers lack the guarantees that existing jobs will be protected, and new green jobs will be good, unionised jobs.

“Reaching net zero is a collective enterprise of the whole nation. If we approach it that way – including a genuine voice for working people – we can create a much more prosperous future for everyone. But this looks like a strategy influenced more by Conservative Party friends and donors than the interests of working people in the UK.”

On the government’s ‘energy security plan’, also published today, Paul added:

“These piecemeal measures don’t add up to a national plan on the scale needed. Not for our net zero target, nor for protecting jobs and industry.

“Conservative ministers can’t even get their act together on the low-hanging fruit. The home improvements scheme to reduce energy use and cut bills covers less than a tenth of the social housing that needs it. And there is no reassurance for energy-intensive industries that cannot cope with spiking energy prices.

“The overall approach is fundamentally flawed because it leaves families at the mercy of the same energy firms that have been ripping them off. The British public should own our future green energy supply. That’s how we can make sure that our energy is secure and affordable for all.”

By Autumn Guillotte, Erica Hammond, Mike Roles, and Aislinn Hanley - Labor Vision RI, March 28, 2023

By Tahir Latif - Greener Jobs Alliance, March 27, 2023

This piece provides a summary of the latest IPCC synthesis report based on their sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

Given that even the relatively short ‘summary for policy makers’ is not an easy read, here we attempt to draw out the basic information about where we currently are. None of these points will surprise anyone but having them to hand in this way will we hope be useful. Note that this piece deals only with section A of the report, covering the current state of the climate. A further blog will cover parts B and C, which are about modelling to project likely scenarios for the long and short-term respectively.

By Lynn Fries and Robert Pollin - The Analysis News, March 27, 2023

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, March 23, 2023

Climate protection will create jobs for workers and economic development for communities. But as fossil fuel facilities are closed down there will also be some jobs lost and some communities will lose taxes and other economic benefits. This Commentary recounts what communities around the country are doing “on the ground” to protect workers and local economies from collateral damage from the transition to climate-safe energy. The next Commentary describes what states are doing to include such protections in their climate and energy programs.