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How the Green New Deal from Below Integrates Diverse Constituencies

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, February 2, 2024

Green New Deal initiatives at local, state, regional, and civil society levels around the country have drawn together diverse, sometimes isolated, or even conflicted constituencies around common programs for climate, jobs, and justice. How have they done so?

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Blueprint Issued for Chicago Green New Deal

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, September 30, 2023

On July 6, newly elected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s transition team provided the city plan for a “Chicago Green New Deal.” Mayor Johnson, a longtime Chicago teacher and union organizer, ran a social justice campaign stressing the disproportionate impacts polluting industry and changing climate have on communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. 

The environmental justice subcommittee of the mayor’s transition committee included 25 members from business, civic, social justice, and community-based organizations. Its recommendations focused on a Green New Deal for Chicago, a framework meant to serve “as guiding principles for our efforts to realize a cleaner, healthier, more just, and sustainable city.” Major goals include:

  • Ensure effective environmental justice oversight and responsiveness
  • Fully resource a new Department of Environment with a focus on environmental justice
  • Achieve a Green New Deal for water
  • Secure a just transition to an equitable, decarbonized Chicago
  • Guarantee utilities are provided in a fair, equitable and affordable manner with an investment emphasis on communities facing the greatest utility burden
  • Achieve a Green New Deal for schools 

The environmental justice recommendations also emphasized the need for job opportunities for communities in clean energy transition and other environmental efforts like accelerating lead service line replacement and electrification of buildings.

Jung Yoon, a co-chair of the environmental justice subcommittee and campaign director at Grassroots Collaborative, a coalition of community and labor organizations, said,

The framing is intentionally political and intentionally bold about using a frame of a Green New Deal to address environment and climate justice issues. I think there is a lot of excitement around how Chicago, as the third-largest city, can really pave the way to show what a Green New Deal in action can look like in our city so we can address current environmental and economic and racial disparities in a sustainable future.

Record Profits, Paltry Contracts Fire Up Chicago-Area Autoworkers to Strike

By Maia McDonald - In These Times, September 25, 2023

BOLINGBROOK, ILL. — Mary Greene, a second-generation General Motors worker who’s been at GM’s Chicago Parts Distribution Center since 2013, jumps up to cheer and dance with her ​“UAW — On Strike” sign as cars and freight trucks drive by. Greene tries to say, ​“Thank you!” or lift her hand in acknowledgment to every passing supporter who raises  fist or honks in solidarity.

This Sunday, on a winding stretch of Remington Blvd. opposite  quiet pond surrounded by factories and warehouses, a handful of members of United Auto Workers Local 2114 picketed. Workers at the Bolingbrook warehouse have been on strike since Friday after being among the more than 5,000 United Auto Workers members at 38 parts distribution centers tapped by UAW President Shawn Fain to walk off the job in the union’s fight for a new contract with better pay, increased retiree benefits and other demands.

The UAW’s ​“stand-up strike” strategy involves union leaders selecting small numbers of local unions to strike at a time, as opposed to calling for a nationwide strike as they work toward a new contract with ​“The Big Three” auto manufacturers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

Greene,  parts technician who also walked out alongside her coworkers in 2019 during the nationwide General Motors strike, when 46,000 GM autoworkers struck for over a month, says that this time around, she’s hoping for a better, quicker outcome.

Chicago Green New Deal Wins Smashing Victory

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

In a surprise victory, Brandon Johnson, formerly an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, has just won election as Chicago’s mayor. He ran in part on a program for a “Chicago Green New Deal” which includes:

Support a Just Transition

  • Protect frontline workers and community members
  •  Create a Just Transition Fund

Implement a Green New Deal for Air

  • Pass a Cumulative Impact Assessment Ordinance

Implement a Green New Deal for Water

  • Implement a fast, equitable, and just replacement of lead service lines
  • Improve stormwater management systems to prevent flooded streets

Implement a Green New Deal for Housing

  • Support a just transition for buildings to a clean energy future
  • Work with diverse stakeholders to pass a Clean and Healthy Buildings Ordinance

Implement a Green New Deal for Education

  • Retrofit school buildings to be green schools, rooted in equity
  • Make sure CPS curriculum addresses climate justice
  • Focus on students developing core skills from STEM to technical training that will power us through the clean energy transition

Green New Deal for Public Transportation

  • Create a comprehensive approach to electrification of the CTA
  • Prioritize interagency collaboration so city planning centers transit accessibility and increases ridership

Utility Justice

  • Center community input in the Com Ed franchise agreement, ensuring Chicagoans get the best deal possible
  • Protect low-income households from ComEd’s shutoffs
  • Explore municipalization of ComEd
  • Ensure our electrical supply is decarbonized by 2040

Educators Are Standing Up for Healthy Green Schools and a Livable Climate This Earth Week

By Todd E. Vachon and Ayesha T. Qazi-Lampert - Common Dreams, April 22, 2023

The pathway to a Green New Deal for Education runs through teachers, school leaders, students, and organized communities willing to embrace a bold vision for learning and a more sustainable future.

The Earth is burning, and our schools are crumbling. Investments in healthy, sustainable, green schools can help solve both problems.

As a result of human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, generated primarily by the combustion of fossil fuels, the global climate is now about 1°C (nearly 2°F) warmer than the historical climate in which modern civilization emerged. Every amount of GHG emitted into the atmosphere worsens the global climate crisis, leading to real and increasingly measurable risks to human and ecosystem health, to the economy, and to global security. Predominantly Black and Brown communities and economically disadvantaged communities are at the frontlines of the impacts of the crisis.

At the same time, our nation’s public schools are drastically in need of improvements. According to the Aspen Institute, there are nearly 100,000 public schools in the U.S. They are, on average, 50 years old and emit 78 million metric tons of CO2 per year at an energy cost of about $8 billion annually. Investments in school infrastructure and climate mitigation, including the replacement of outdated and ineffective heating and cooling systems, improvements to ventilation and insulation, the installation of rooftop solar, and the remediation of asbestos, lead, and mold will not only improve the school environment for students and staff, but will also address historical injustices along the lines of race and class. These investments will also contribute to stabilizing the Earth’s climate.

That's why this Earth Week (April 17-22), students, educators, parents, school staff, and community members around the U.S. are taking action to demand healthy, green schools now.

Victory Against Polluter Points Way to Clean, Green, and Fully Funded Schools

By Lauren Bianchi - Labor Notes, January 31, 2023

For two years, teachers and staff in my workplace, George Washington High School, helped lead a community campaign to stop a hazardous industrial metal shredder, General Iron, from moving a few blocks from our school.

Repeating a historic pattern, city officials facilitated General Iron’s planned move from the wealthy and white Lincoln Park neighborhood where it had operated for decades to the working-class, majority Latino Southeast Side.

Our campaign won a major victory when we pressured Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Department of Public Health into denying the final operating permit for General Iron. It took years of mobilizing, street protest, and a month-long hunger strike to force the mayor to do the right thing.

The experience of Chicago Teachers Union members in the #StopGeneralIron campaign highlights the power of union members when we stand shoulder to shoulder with environmental justice activists to demand safe living and working conditions.

Transforming Transportation–from Below

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, July 2022

People are acting at the local and state level to create jobs, reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and equalize transportation by expanding and electrifying public transit, electrifying cars and trucks, and making it safe to walk and bike. It’s a crucial part of building the Green New Deal from Below.

More than a quarter of greenhouse gases [GHGs) emitted in the US come from transportation – more than from electricity or any other source.[1] Pollution from vehicles causes a significant excess in disease and death in poor communities. Lack of transportation helps keep people in poor communities poor.

Proposals for a Green New Deal include many ways to reduce the climate, health, and inequality effects of a GHG-intensive transportation system. “Transit Oriented Development” (TOD), “smart growth,” and other forms of metropolitan planning reduce climate-and-health threatening emissions while providing more equal access to transportation. Switching from private vehicles to public transit reduces GHG emissions by more than half and substantially reduces the pollution that causes asthma and other devastating health effects in poor communities. Changing from fossil fuel to electric vehicles also greatly reduces emissions. Expanded public transit fights poverty and inequality by providing improved access to good jobs. And expansion of transit itself almost always creates a substantial number of good, often union jobs. Every $1 billion invested in public transit creates more than 50,000 jobs.[2]

Plans for a Green New Deal generally include substantial federal resources to help transform our transportation system.[3] The 2021 “bipartisan” Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided $20 billion over the next five years for transit projects. But meanwhile, efforts at the community, local, and state level have already started creating jobs reducing transportation pollution – models of what we have called a Green New Deal from Below.[4]

These Green New Deal from Below programs are often characterized by multiple objectives – for example, protecting the global climate, improving local health, providing jobs, and countering inequality. And they often pursue concrete ways to realize multiple goals, such as “transit-oriented development” that builds housing near transit to simultaneously shift travel from cars to public transit and to expand access to jobs and urban amenities for people in low-income communities.

Railroad Work Is Getting More and More Dangerous. These Workers Want To Change That

By Kari Lydersen - In These Times, October 10, 2015; image by Jon Flanders

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’s.

CHICAGO—Railroad workers from around the country and Chicago residents stood on an overpass on a recent bright September Sunday, watching a seemingly endless line of black tanker cars pass on the railroad tracks below. The train was likely carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale in North Dakota, judging by the red hazard placards on the cars and widely documented trends in crude oil shipment.

Chicagoans have become increasingly worried about oil trains carrying the highly explosive Bakken crude through the city, a major transport hub on the way to East Coast refineries. A conference hosted by the progressive labor group Railroad Workers United in Chicago Sept. 19 brought together railroad workers and local residents and train buffs to discuss how railroad workers’ safety and labor rights issues dovetail with safety and environmental concerns for the larger public.

Oil trains are a perfect example, speakers and participants at the conference noted. Just look at the July 6, 2013 disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, when a parked oil train dislodged and plowed into the town, killing 47 and causing massive destruction and ecological devastation.

The train was operated by a single crew member, engineer Thomas Harding, who now faces the possibility of life in prison, with trial starting in November.

While prosecutors and the now-defunct Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway have blamed Harding and several other railroad employees for the disaster, labor unions and other advocates say such tragedies are bound to happen more often if railroads are allowed to operate trains with single-man-crews and otherwise make staffing and management decisions driven by the bottom line rather than the needs and rights of railroad employees plus public safety.

This weekend, October 11-12, there will be rallies in Lac-Mégantic and Chicago, demanding freedom for Harding and railroad traffic conductor Richard Labrie, accountability from railroads and government regulators including bans on one-man-crews and a continued ban on shipping crude oil through Lac-Mégantic. A flier for the Chicago rally, held at noon on October 12 outside the Canadian consulate at 180 N. Stetson Drive, calls on “environmentalists, neighborhood organizations, railroad workers, steel workers, firemen, all unions and all justice-loving people” to support Harding and Labrie and demand strict safety regulations from the federal government.

Oil “Bomb” Train, Lac-Megantic Solidarity Protest

The following protest took place on October 12, 2015 at the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago, at Randolph and Stetson, 1 block east of the NE corner of the Randolph and Michigan and was endorsed by Railroad Workers United following #RailCon15

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’s.

No Oil Bomb Trains in Lac-Mégantic, Chicagoland or Anytown. Keep the explosive oil in the soil and out of our towns!

The coalition of groups endorsing this action are determined to send the message that we stand with the railroad workers in their efforts to keep our communities safe from the inherent dangers of these volatile oil trains, and that the railroad and oil corporations involved in the tragedy of July 6th, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic are the principal offenders. Specifically, we demand:

  • 1. More than one man crews for all freight trains, especially the High Hazard Flammable Trains, such as the Bakken oil trains. In light of fatigue and emergency situations, a single man crew is insufficient for handling all possible dangerous scenarios.
  • 2. No oil should be transported through Lac-Mégantic by rail until all the tracks in the town have been repaired and passed inspections. The people of Lac-Mégantic have been adamant about this and their demands should not be ignored.
  • 3. We agree with the victims and residents of Lac-Mégantic when they call for the Canadian government to stop scapegoating Mr. Harding, the engineer of the train involved in the Lac-Megantic disaster. The residents are asking for further investigations, and that the blame for the accident climb up the chain of command and throughout the entire unsafe infrastructure of the railroad and oil corporations.
  • More information can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/events/920554121361635/
  • Endorsed by: Chicagoland Oil By Rail, Pilsen Alliance, McKinley Park Progressive Alliance, Chicago Greens, Frack Free Illinois, Near West Citizens for Peace and Justice, 350Kishwaukee, Forest City 350, Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice, Railroad Workers United, Fox Valley Citizen's For Peace And Justice

Help IWW General Headquarters Recycle!

Official IWW Bulletin - October 2, 2014

Chicago does not provide a public recycling scheme, but we can recycle for about $400 per year, working with a non-profit environmental education organization. Help General Headquarters "recycle as feasible," as our constitution suggests for all IWW shops. Click here to donate!

ecology.iww.org editor's note: this is true in many large cities. Curbside recycling pick-up was more or less invented by the Ecology Center in Berkeley, California, in the early 1980s (by a group that included some of the founders of the Bay Area chapter of Earth First!, and who helped Earth First! and IWW organizer Judi Bari organize IWW Local #1 in Mendocino County. They later organized Redwood Summer together. Coincidental with that, the curbside recyler drivers joined the IWW and became one of the first unionzed curbside reclycing pick-up crews in the world. That shop is still organized under an IWW contract to this date.

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