green unionism

By Jake Johnson - Common Dreams, January 11, 2024

The electric vehicle maker Tesla has reportedly informed workers at its California plant that it is hiking wages for factory employees across the United States, becoming the latest nonunion car manufacturer to boost worker pay following the United Auto Workers' historic strike and contract victories late last year.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that all of Tesla's production associates, material handlers, and quality inspectors will receive a "market adjustment pay increase" to start 2024, according to a flyer that company management posted at its Fremont, California plant—which employs more than 20,000 workers.

The document did not make clear the size of the raise, Bloomberg noted.

Tesla is run by billionaire Elon Musk, who has been vocally hostile toward organized labor for years—a stance that has drawn scrutiny and rebukes from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In a 2018 post on Twitter, a platform he now owns and rebranded as X, Musk wrote that there is "nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union."

"But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?" he added. The NLRB said the post constituted an unlawful threat against workers considering exercising their right to organize.

By Jang Su-ji - La Via Campesina, January 10, 2024

Peasants around the globe find themselves at the forefront of the intensifying climate crisis, grappling with scorching droughts, heatwaves, torrential downpours, typhoons, and hailstorms. The adverse impacts of climate change is escalating rapidly, posing a direct threat to agriculture and food production worldwide. The 8th International Conference of La Via Campesina, held in Bogotá, Colombia, in December, provided a space for its members – small-holder farmers from more than 80 countries – to highlight the ongoing crises in their territories.

Chilean beekeepers, who spoke during the meeting, explained how they were among those who bore the brunt of this crisis. Extreme droughts had ignited forest fires, wreaking havoc on their livelihoods. In Turkey, according to peasant accounts, agricultural production plummeted by 50-60% in 2023 due to climate change effects, and the government’s responses, such as investing in solar panels on farmland and promoting electric vehicles, faced criticism for their inadequacy and unintended consequences – as they often came up on greenfield and fertile lands. In Sri Lanka, floods and droughts regularly disrupt farming, exacerbated by the government’s sale of natural resources to multinational corporations, leading to deforestation and hindering tea cultivation. Cambodian peasants explained how they grapple with the fallout of repeated typhoons, floods, and severe droughts, causing a 30% decline in agricultural production and forcing rural youth to migrate, jeopardizing food security.

Senegalese peasants also shared about their challenges. Fisherfolk and farmers are losing jobs due to flooding, prompting calls for international prosecution of transnational corporations responsible for climate impacts. Guatemalan peasants recounted how they are combating water resource depletion and forest loss, promoting agroecological farming to respond to climate change. Paraguayan peasants, facing deforestation and fires, are also advocating for agroecology as a solution. Those who came from Niger shared their experiences of severe food crises due to temperature increases, drought, and flooding, emphasizing the need to reduce carbon emissions and produce locally accessible agricultural products.

In Palestine, the combination of war and occupation accelerated climate change, diminishing agricultural production and food sovereignty. Palestinian peasants confront the accelerated impact of climate change under Israeli occupation, with olive trees being cut down, water resources seized, and high water prices imposed.

The Korean peasants who spoke at the Conference urged global unity against capitalist forces and multinational corporations to address the social and environmental aspects of the climate crisis. They also reflected on the global impact of the climate crisis, highlighting unpredictable losses for farmers and advocating against agrochemicals. This found echo among the French peasants who also called for international solidarity, prioritizing agroecology, and exposing false solutions and colonialist land grabs. Brazilian peasants who spoke at the event decried transnational corporations exploiting land and people, emphasizing the importance of concrete proposals and alternative solutions.

Congolese peasants asserted that the fight against climate change was a collective struggle, emphasizing biodiversity conservation and ecological agriculture for healthy food and planet protection. Honduran peasants stressed the importance of supporting agroecology schools and international aid to combat climate change. Peasants in the Dominican Republic emphasized the need to mobilize against neoliberal policies, capitalism, and imperialism in both rural and urban areas, advocating for large-scale campaigns to shift to ecological agriculture and achieve food sovereignty.

These testimonies of peasants worldwide revealed a shared struggle against the escalating climate crisis. From South America to Asia and Africa, the call for sustainable alternatives, such as agroecology, and the denouncement of inadequate responses and corporate exploitation echoed a united plea for global action to safeguard the future of agriculture and food production.

By Alex Press and Maddock Thomas - Jacobin, January 7, 2024

Nearly one year ago, on the night of February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Videos of the smoke and fire released by the nearly two-mile-long train went viral, and residents in the community reported severe health effects.

The rail disaster triggered an outcry: Why did this happen, and what can any of us do about it? Soon, there were articles detailing the alarming state into which the country’s railroads have fallen: accidents are up, and oversight is hard to come by. Plus, there is a severe squeeze on rail workers, many of whom lack sick days of any kind and are effectively always on call.

Railroad Workers United (RWU), a caucus of rank-and-file workers spanning all thirteen national rail unions, recently released a video offering one answer to the rotten state of US rail. “Putting America Back on Track: The Case for Public Rail Ownership” opens in East Palestine, with a resident of the area showing the viewer photos he took the night of the Norfolk Southern derailment. The video goes on to make the case for public ownership of rail, which has been a focus for RWU over the past year.

As Ross Grooters, RWU cochair and a union locomotive engineer, told Jacobin, the workers came out with the demand amid their ugly contract fight in 2022, which ended with Joe Biden intervening to quash a potential rail strike.

“It became really clear between the contract negotiations and the fact that the railroad companies are making obscene amounts of money operating the railroads purely for the purpose of extracting wealth from what should be critical infrastructure, that the only way for rail to work would be outside the for-profit model that it exists in currently,” said Grooters.

So RWU passed a resolution endorsing the campaign. The case has been articulated by RWU members in several publications, from Jacobin to In These Times to FreightWaves, but with the release of RWU’s film, I wanted to hear more about the models under debate, so I called up Maddock Thomas, who is writing a policy paper on public rail ownership for RWU. We spoke about the current structure of rail ownership, alternative public models, and which country has the most functional rail system. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

By Harvey Smith and Steve Zeltser - Labor Video, January 9, 2024

By Union Jake, Paul Prescod, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, January 4, 2024

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, January 3, 2024

The appeal of the Green New Deal lies in its drawing together the varied needs of diverse constituencies into a common program that realizes them all. Here’s how that works at the sub-national level.

By Union Jake, Barry Eidlin, Paul Prescod, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, January 3, 2024

By Melissa Jones, Jim Bartridge, and Lorelei Walker - California Energy Commission, January 2024

Assembly Bill 525 (AB 525, Chiu, Chapter 231, Statutes of 2021) directs the California Energy Commission (CEC) to complete and submit a strategic plan for offshore wind development in federal waters off the California coast to the Natural Resources Agency and the relevant fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature.

This strategic plan is the last of four work products the CEC is directed to prepare by AB 525. The strategic plan consists of three volumes: Volume I is an overview report, Volume II is the main report, and Volume III contains the technical appendices.

In preparing the strategic plan, the CEC coordinated with federal, state, and local agencies and a wide variety of stakeholders. As required by AB 525, this strategic plan identifies suitable sea space to accommodate the offshore wind planning goals, includes a discussion of economic and workforce development and port space and infrastructure, and assesses transmission investments, upgrades, and associated costs. In addition, this strategic plan discusses the permitting processes for offshore wind facilities and identifies potential impacts on coastal resources, fisheries, Native American and Indigenous peoples, national defense, and underserved communities. The plan also includes a discussion of strategies that could address those potential impacts such as avoidance, minimization, monitoring, mitigation, and adaptive management.

For more details, see: AB 525 Reports: Offshore Renewable Energy

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Melissa Jones, Jim Bartridge, and Lorelei Walker - California Energy Commission, January 2024

Assembly Bill 525 (AB 525, Chiu, Chapter 231, Statutes of 2021) directs the California Energy Commission (CEC) to complete and submit a strategic plan for offshore wind development in federal waters off the California coast to the Natural Resources Agency and the relevant fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature.

This strategic plan is the last of four work products the CEC is directed to prepare by AB 525. The strategic plan consists of three volumes: Volume I is an overview report, Volume II is the main report, and Volume III contains the technical appendices.

In preparing the strategic plan, the CEC coordinated with federal, state, and local agencies and a wide variety of stakeholders. As required by AB 525, this strategic plan identifies suitable sea space to accommodate the offshore wind planning goals, includes a discussion of economic and workforce development and port space and infrastructure, and assesses transmission investments, upgrades, and associated costs. In addition, this strategic plan discusses the permitting processes for offshore wind facilities and identifies potential impacts on coastal resources, fisheries, Native American and Indigenous peoples, national defense, and underserved communities. The plan also includes a discussion of strategies that could address those potential impacts such as avoidance, minimization, monitoring, mitigation, and adaptive management.

For more details, see: AB 525 Reports: Offshore Renewable Energy

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).