green unionism

By Julian Vigo - The Ecologist, July 30, 2018

In the summer of 1930, the British economist John Maynard Keynes gave a lecture in Madrid entitled “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” in which he predicted that humans, a century later, would undertake a fifteen-hour work week.  

Today, the reality of work sharing is far from a reality, as is the  shorter work week. But there are many reasons we should set our sights on working fewer hours, not least of which is the environment. 

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, it is estimated that by 2030, as many as 800 million jobs worldwide could be lost to automation. The fallout from this will have a drastic effect on humans, comparable to the shift away from agricultural societies during the Industrial Revolution.

Environmental impact

In the US it is estimated that between 39 and 73 million jobs will  be automated. Computers and robots would comprise one-third of the total workforce. As other jobs stand to be created from AI, it's likely that only five percent of current occupations stand to be eliminated. 

If you are part of the one percent, the owner of these machines, you are in a great position economically. But if you are not, there could be a crisis looming that reaches far beyond the economy, and permeates the communal, the psychological, and the physical. 

The ecological impacts of labour are part of the larger equation here that must be taken into account. For instance, the commute of Americans to and from work is on average 52 minutes each day with over 80 percent of Americans commuting by automobile.

David Rosnick from the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington DC has devoted much of his career to the relationship between the work week and its ecological impact.

In 2006, along with Mark Weisbrot, Rosnick studied the effects of a shorter work week on the environment and the myths surrounding the economic potential for the American work week as opposed to the European work week. Their conclusion was that climate change can be mitigated through reduced work hours. 

By staff - Northern Plains Research Council and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1638, July 2018

In 2018, Northern Plains Research Council partnered with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local union 1638 to conduct a research study into the job creation potential of coal ash pond cleanup in Colstrip, Montana.

Because coal ash pond closure and associated groundwater remediation is only now becoming a priority for power plants, there are many unanswered questions about the size and nature of the workforce needed to do it right. This study aims to shed light on some of the cleanup work being done now around the country and what that might mean for the Colstrip workforce and community.

From the executive summary: Coal ash waste is polluting the groundwater in Colstrip, but cleaning it up could provide many jobs and other economic benefits while protecting community health.

This study was conducted to analyze the job-creation potential of cleaning up the groundwater in Colstrip, Montana, that has been severely contaminated from leaking impoundments meant to store the coal ash from the power plants (Colstrip Units 1, 2, 3 and 4). Unless remediated, this contamination poses a major threat to public health, livestock operations, and the environment for decades.

Communities benefit from coal ash pond cleanup but the positive impacts of cleanup can vary widely depending on the remediation approach followed. Certain strategies like excavating coal ash ponds and actively treating wastewater lead to more jobs, stabilized property values, and effective groundwater cleanup while others accomplish only the bare minimum for legal compliance.

This study demonstrates that, with the right cleanup strategies, job creation and environmental protection can go hand-in-hand, securing the future of the community as a whole.

Read the text (PDF).

By María Marta Travieso, Maria Prieto, Moustapha Kamal Gueye - Green European Journal, June 29, 2018

Climate and the future of work are two of the biggest challenges facing the world today and one cannot be tackled without the other. International institutions, in cooperation with governments, unions and employers, are pushing for a just transition that can shift the economy away from destructive forms of production while maintaining quality of life for all.

As we see the lives of many millions of people severely affected by extreme weather events, it is now accepted by most countries that human activity is causing the planet’s climate to change and that, therefore, it is in humanity’s interest to change its behaviour. A clear body of evidence demonstrates that human-induced climate change is well underway and that there are serious consequences of failure to limit the global temperature rise to at most 2° Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The ensuing environmental damage could prove irreversible and pose a threat to humanity itself.

If climate change is a consequence of human activity, then that activity is, for the most part, work or work-related. It is therefore no coincidence that climate change tends to be benchmarked against pre-industrial levels. And if work is the predominant cause of climate change, then inevitably it must be central to strategies to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to it.

An acknowledgement of shared responsibility was demonstrated through the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development with its associated 17 goals. In the declaration supporting the 2030 agenda, world leaders committed to “take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path.”

By Jean Lambert - Green European Journal, June 21, 2018

Green politics is about building a socially, environmentally, and economically just and sustainable future for everybody on the planet. This vision might be obvious, but the journey to get there is less so. At its core, green political thinking sees humanity as not just existing economically, and getting our economies on the right track is therefore a central challenge. As part of that, we need to understand work and its possible futures.

Economics is, of course, vitally important, and Greens must ensure our economic analysis is robust, evidence-based, and looking to the future. But economics must be seen in context, and human beings exist socially and ecologically as well as economically. Work has the capacity to provide economic security for us as individuals and our families and yet can equally be dysfunctional and exploitative, especially for those in precarious employment or on low pay.  Greens should work to support its positive economic function at personal and societal level, but also for it to add maximum social usefulness while respecting environmental limits.

Economic, social and environmental dimensions are all relevant for a full understanding of work, its value, and its future. Much work is primarily important in terms of social usefulness rather than economically – for example, care work. Unpaid work is a special case needing greater attention. Unpaid work takes place on a huge scale, especially by women, but is not economic in the narrow sense of being undertaken for a wage. Yet it is of immense value to the well-being of society. Without unpaid work our current societies and economies would probably cease to function. A better understanding and valuing of unpaid work is long overdue.

The environmental dimension of work is no less important, although often less visible or easily lost sight of. The environmental impacts of economic and industrial activities are becoming more widely understood. This has led to increased acceptance of the transformative potential of the green agenda for the economy and work. Those seeking to delay, dilute, or frustrate the green agenda’s potential to transform the economy should be reminded that there are no jobs on a dead planet. Faced with the broad trends of reduction in working time, persistent inequalities, automation, Greens also need to go further and put forward a vision centred around green industry, just transition, democracy at work, and education.

By Samantha M. Harvey - Earth Island Journal, Summer 2018; image by Brooke Anderson

There is a right way to do ‘just transition.’”

The statement echoes through the humid halls of the historic Stringer Grand Lodge Masonic Temple in Jackson, Mississippi, on an unseasonably scorching day in late February, 2018. Mingling with the ghosts of Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 150 labor leaders, environmental justice activists, philanthropists, and national environmental organization staffers move from one side of the room to the other – far right for “strongly agree,” and far left for “strongly disagree.”

The group has come together to find alignment around the concept of just transition, so laughter erupts at the almost 50-50 split. But the mood soon settles. With the backdrop of a president who has filled his cabinet with oil executives, brutishly dismissed climate change, and denounced the Paris Accord, it’s hard to shake off what’s happening outside for too long: Puerto Ricans are fleeing the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria with no end in sight, #MeToo is a household term, and activists are railing against the assault on unions in the historic Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME. Those in the temple are steeped in these threats and more. But they also understand that while climate change, racism, patriarchy, and plutocracy are terrifying, they are not impenetrable, and dismantling one may lead to the unraveling of others.

Global activists share this systemic view, and around the world, locally based, integrated models are being built to support people working and living together in community. This decarbonized vision connects jobs and environment rather than pitting them against one another; breaks down patriarchy and systems of oppression; honors caring, culture, and community leadership; and reshuffles the paradigm that hails profit as the sole pinnacle of goodness. They call it “buen vivir” (good living) in South America, “commons” and “degrowth” in Europe, “agroecology,” “ecofeminisms,” and “rights of Mother Earth” in Indigenous communities, and in the United States, incorporating principles of all these concepts, “just transition.”

After much debate across the temple, a woman raises her hand from a spot dead center between the two poles. “Just transition will look different in different places, because it’s place-based,” she says. “But the principles behind it have to be the same. So there is a right way, but the right way is many ways.” She doesn’t mention that some “right ways” are more “right” than others. All seem to agree just transition fundamentally requires a shift off of fossil fuels, and in a radically climate-changing world, nothing could be more urgent. But grassroots movements also demand economic, racial, and gender justice underpin that shift. In fact, they assert decarbonizing simply cannot happen exclusive of justice.

By Alyssa Battistoni - In These Times, June 20, 2018

The argument about a universal basic income (UBI) versus a job guarantee (JG) has become one of the liveliest and most contentious debates on the Left. Each has been touted as a solution to all ills: the way to decrease depression, close the racial wealth gap, recognize historically undervalued forms of work, transform the economy, save the planet.