Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS)

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, January 2023

LNS is working strategically in key states that are leading the national narrative on climate justice. This year, LNS and Jobs with Justice San Francisco launched California Labor for Climate Jobs, a coalition of labor unions calling for an equitable, worker- and union-led transition to a resilient economy with good jobs based on clean energy and expanded public and social services. The coalition won a $40M Displaced Oil and Gas Workers Fund in the California State Budget, and advocated for support for communities and public jobs that will be impacted as oil and gas phases out across the state.

LNS also participated as a member of the Los Angeles County and City Just Transition Task Force that released a Just Transition Strategy – a first-ever framework for supporting workers and communities impacted by oil drilling phase-out policies. Essential to making the transition just is the necessary support to transition workers’ skills into jobs of comparable, family sustaining compensation or retirement. The Just Transition Strategy was noted as core to LA City’s Green New Deal laws, and a test-case for Native Nations, environmental justice communities, and workers to begin to envision together an ecologically just and economically sustainable future.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, January 2023

In Jackson, Mississippi, our on-the ground organizer Joshua Dedmond is actively working on emergency response for water distribution and recovery from the extreme flooding that overwhelmed the city’s antiquated water filtration system. Our goal is to fortify the Justice for Jackson coalition in opposing the Governor’s push to privatize management of Jackson’s municipal water supply. Success for Jackson will mean strong democratic engagement and public accountability in overhauling the city’s utility infrastructure to ensure equitable access, distribution, and pricing of safe drinking water for all residents, as well as fair labor practices, wages, and good jobs for the community in rebuilding its water system for a sustainable future.

These climate change challenges are not unique to Jackson, Mississippi. Chronic underinvestment and systemic racism, and the compounding threats of sea level rise and flooding are endemic throughout the Gulf States, especially in BIPOC communities. For the coming year, LNS is planning a southern strategy to build more power and political leverage for frontline environmental justice organizing by engaging and enlisting impacted workers and their unions in demands for building climate resilient infrastructure and communities.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, January 2023

In 2022, the Labor Network for Sustainability helped build solidarity between environmentalists and Santa Ana, CA factory workers who stood up to their employer, Kingspan’s, so-called ‘green’ manufacturing processes that pollute indoor air and the local watershed. Kingspan factory workers are organizing to demand safe working conditions, including addressing unhealthy levels of PM2.5 pollution inside the workplace that they measured in collaboration with UC Irvine pollution scientist Dr. Shahir Masri. The workers also blew the whistle on Kingspan for misrepresenting its daily operations and water pollution clean-up efforts to the CalEPA. Also, in October 2021, a majority of Kingspan’s Santa Ana workers delivered a petition to managers demanding a fair process to decide whether to form a union.

The Labor Network for Sustainability hosted a Zoom teach-in with these workers, Dr. Shahir Masri, and environmental, community, and Labor allies to build solidarity and momentum for this campaign. Following the teach-in, 45 local and national environmental groups signed onto a letter demanding that the Green Building Community stop partnering with Kingspan until the international building materials company cleans up its act. This action was part of a larger campaign mounting pressure on Kingspan in what is truly a modern day David and Goliath story– one with true economic, environmental, and worker justice at its core.

For updates on this campaign, follow @CleanUpKingspan on Twitter.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, January 2023

LNS is empowering a rising generation of young workers to lead the labor-climate movement into the future. This fall, LNS convened an inaugural Young Workers Convergence that brought together nearly 100 young workers from 23 states (as well as DC and Canada) and more than 50 different worker and environmental organizations to participate in workshops, hear from our union comrades who have successfully built labor power in service of climate justice, share strategies across states and sectors, and build a collective vision for a climate justice movement led by and for workers. This event ignited an emergent network of young union, climate, and community organizers who are bringing new energy and focus to the climate justice movement. In the coming year, we will grow and support this critical cohort with training, strategy support, and regional convenings across the country.

Check out this Teen Vogue article Teen Vogue article to learn more about the Young Worker Organizing Project.

By Celina Barron, IBEW Local 11; Barbara James, Carpenters Local 1907; Emmett Doyle, Carpenters Local 68; and Amy Calandrella, IUOE Local 98 - Young Worker Convergence on Climate; Labor Network for Sustainability, December 23, 2022

By Faraz Rizvi, Matt Holmes, and Ted Franklin - Sunflower Alliance, November 22, 2022

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, October 30, 2022

Hundreds of thousands people marched and rallied October 1 in over 50 towns and cities across the UK on a National Day of Action protesting the soaring cost of living and inaction on the climate crisis. The actions were called by Enough is Enough, a 700,000 member campaign supported by the trade union movement and community groups including tenant unions and foodbanks. Its five demands are:

1. A real pay raise
2. Slash energy bills
3. End food poverty
4. Decent homes for all
5. Tax the rich

Climate campaigners brought London’s famed Westminster Bridge to a standstill. Don’t Pay UK encouraged householders to stop paying their bills if the government does not offer further support to families. 50,000 workers from four postal and railroad unions struck for wage increases to make up for inflation.

On October 16, 140,000 people marched through Paris protesting the rising cost of living and government inaction against climate change. They demanded massive investment in climate action, higher wages, an emergency freeze on the prices of groceries, rent, and energy, and greater taxation of windfall profits of corporations. A leader of the action called on protesters to “not allow themselves to be divided by their skin color, their religion, political affiliation or indifference.” Some of the demonstrators wore yellow vests, the symbol of disruptive actions that started in 2018 by protesting against government climate protection policies. The recent demonstration dovetailed with a strike by refinery workers, an impending strike by transportation workers, and a call for a general strike by France’s largest trade unions.

By Larry Williams, Jr. - Labor Network for Sustainability, October 30, 2022

Dear friends,

We’re celebrating the recent defeat of US Senator Joe Manchin’s “Dirty Deal.” This was a proposal to undermine environmental reviews and fast-track fossil fuel projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Today, we’d like to lift up the board members of the Labor Network for Sustainability who fought tooth and nail to oppose this Dirty Deal. LNS Board Members Jennifer Krill and Edgar Franks recently joined an action in the Hart Senate Building in Washington DC, in which Jennifer was arrested in an act of civil disobedience to oppose the deal.

Jennifer Krill stated: “Prioritizing the climate crisis means prioritizing environmental justice. Legislation that leads to more drilling and mining is precisely the kind of political side-dealing that has set us back from meeting our urgent climate goals. We’re grateful that members of Congress have taken action to stop the exploitation of frontline communities and stand up to the fossil fuel and mining industries. Congress has sacrificed people for corporate profits for far too long.”

Edgar Franks stated: “We as a farmworker union want to stand on the side of environmental justice. We are one of the communities that are bearing the brunt of climate change and also some of the most disenfranchised politically. The Dirty Deal was filled with mechanisms that further widen the divide where we will continue to be sacrificed for profits to the fossil fuel industry. We look for the time where we will not have to pit environment over jobs. As unions we need to be present and demand real solutions that are led by affected communities.”

But of course, this victory does not belong to us. It belongs to the many environmental justice leaders from across the country who’ve taken a stand against the Dirty Deal. It belongs to the communities in the Gulf of Mexico and coastal Alaska and everywhere in between. And it belongs to you.

To every member of the Labor Network for Sustainability—thank you. Whether you signed a petition, emailed or called your Senator, marched in a rally, risked arrest, or donated to support the cause, this is your victory.

We know the fight’s not over. Manchin will stop at nothing to cater to the fossil fuel industry, and we expect him to try to force through a similar deal later this year. But in the meantime, we can celebrate this moment and take stock of all we hold dear.

Thanks for being part of this movement.

By Molly Rosbach - Sunflower Alliance, October 1, 2022

A new report from leaders of the global climate justice movement argues that “a broad vision of Just Transition with social justice at its core is critical, especially as fossil fuel companies and defenders of ‘business as usual’ are adopting the language of climate action and just transition to thwart real solutions.”

The report, From Crisis to Transformation: A Just Transition Primer, released by Grassroots Global Justice and the Transnational Institute, “explores the root causes of the climate crisis . . . and argues that we need transformative and anti-capitalist visions to bring us “from crisis to transformation.” The report lays out the big picture of those causes, starting from colonialism, capitalism, and the industrial revolution, and traces the development of the current crisis. It outlines key elements of a true just transition:

• Decolonization and restoration of indigenous sovereignty
• Reparations and restitution
• Ancestral and science-based solutions
• Agroecology, food sovereignty, and agrarian reform
• Recognition of rights to land, food, ecosystems, and territories
• Cooperatives, social, and public production
• Just distribution of reproductive labor
• Going beyond endless economic growth

And provides case studies of communities putting visions of Just Transition into practice today:
* The Green New Deal
* Cooperation Jackson and the Jackson Just Transition Plan
* Just Transition in North Africa
* Movement of People Affected by Dams

Authors of the report include Jaron Brown of Grassroots Global Justice, Katie Sandwell and Lyda Fernanda Forero of the Transnational Institute, and Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson.

The report was released in Arabic, Spanish, and English, with plans to add translations in Bahasa, French, and Portuguese.

Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ) “is an alliance of over 60 US-based grassroots organizing (GRO) groups of working and poor people and communities of color,” including the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Communities for a Better Environment, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Jobs with Justice, Cooperation Jackson and many more.

The Transnational Institute “is an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic, and sustainable planet.”

They “offer this primer as a contribution to the broader ecosystem of Just Transition frameworks and articulations. In particular, we honor the work of the Just Transition Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Climate Justice Alliance, Movement Generation, the Labor Network for Sustainability, and Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, among many others.”

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, October 1, 2022

For LNS’s inaugural Young Worker Convergence, we brought together nearly 100 young workers from 23 states (as well as DC and Canada) and more than 50 different worker and environmental organizations to participate in workshops, to hear from our union comrades who have successfully built labor power in service of climate justice, to share strategies across states and sectors, and to build a collective vision for a climate justice movement led by and for workers.

We know that there are thousands of other young workers who could not make it to the convergence who are ready to join us in building a stronger labor-climate movement, which is why we’re planning a multimedia zine project to commemorate the conference as well as provide a resource for other workers who want to fight for climate justice! Stay tuned for photos, facilitation materials, and other reflections from the Young Worker Convergence on Climate!

For more information: www.labor4sustainability.org/ywlp/ywlp-in-depth/young-worker-convergence/