green unionism

By Mindy Isser - In These Times, August 17, 2022

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters kicked off its campaign, on August 1, for its next big contract with United Parcel Service in 2023 — but the Teamsters have some other UPS fights along the way.

Teamsters tell In These Times that workers are being pushed to the brink as temperatures around the country hit 100 degrees and higher, and myriad heatstroke stories abound. According to some UPS workers, management has so far turned a blind eye to the danger and even goaded workers for not being tough enough to handle the heat.

But as profits soar at UPS, workers are falling ill and even dying. On June 25, 24-year-old Esteban Chavez Jr., a UPS driver outside of Los Angeles, passed out in his truck while temperatures were the upper 90s; he could not be revived.

Workers say their trucks need air conditioning to do their jobs safely, but UPS is focused instead on installing truck surveillance cameras. The driver-facing cameras can record audio and video, making some workers feel they’re under constant watch for supposed safety reasons — while their true safety needs are going ignored.

According to Teamsters who spoke with In These Times, unless something changes, more workers are going to face negative health consequences from heat waves.

By Andrew Fisher - Open Democracy, August 17, 2022

When 62% of Conservative voters want energy run in the public sector, it’s fair to say the left has won the argument (75% of Labour voters agree, 68% of Lib Dems).

Yet public ownership is opposed passionately by the Conservative government, while the leader of the opposition has said he is “not in favour” of it – despite his election on a platform that committed to “bring rail, mail, water and energy into public ownership to end the great privatisation rip-off and save you money on your fares and bills”.

Public ownership is on the media’s radar, too. When Labour leader Keir Starmer announced his policy to freeze bills this week, he was asked why he wouldn’t also nationalise energy, replying that: “In a national emergency where people are struggling to pay their bills … the right choice is for every single penny to go to reducing those bills.”

But so long as energy remains privatised, every single penny won’t. Billions of pennies will keep going to shareholders instead.

The energy market was fractured under the mass privatisations of the Thatcher governments in the 1980s. It contains three sectors: producers or suppliers (those that produce energy), retailers (those that sell you energy), and distribution or transmission (the infrastructure that transports energy to your home).

It is important to bear this in mind when we’re talking about taking energy into public ownership. We need to be clear about what we want in public ownership and why.

By Kate Schimel - Yes Magazine, August 16, 2022

Environmental and labor activists have found success collaborating at the local and state levels. Now they have their eyes on federal policy.

During an unusual dry spell in the last days of 2021, the plains north of Denver caught fire. By Jan. 1, the Marshall Fire had destroyed more than 1,000 homes that would ordinarily be safely covered in snow. The fire also closed the Starbucks where Len Harris worked.

She and her co-workers, some of them displaced by the fire, had been arguing with management for months for more staffing, training, and protection from customer abuse. Now, the crisis was giving them an unexpected break.

“We all took a big breath,” she remembers. With the space of a week off, she and others came to a conclusion: “What we put up with is awful. This is ridiculous. We don’t need to work this much.”

Harris began to talk to her co-workers about forming a union. By spring, they had officially voted to become the first unionized Starbucks shop in Colorado.

Harris saw the vote as a moment of triumph both for worker protection and for climate action. 

“These working conditions are because [corporate leaders] want to make more money off of less people, because they want to make more money for shareholders, because they want to expand,” she says. She sees that push to expand, to make consumption easy and inexpensive, as the root of human-caused climate change. “So many capitalistic luxuries that are just cheap [and] faster produced have absolutely a terrible effect on the environment.”

Some climate organizers have been searching for a bridge between the labor and climate movements for years. The challenge, though, has been finding policies and approaches that satisfy both worker interests and climate’s urgency. 

That’s beginning to change. State legislatures, Congress, environmental organizations, and labor unions—including Service Employees International Union and United Steelworkers—have found powerful allies in each other.

By various - Alternative Information Development Center, August 15, 2022

On Wednesday, July 27^th, 2022, representatives of unions and social movements met in Johannesburg to discuss the country’s energy crisis. The representatives agreed to form a united front to resist privatisation of the power sector and to propose alternative ways to address both the immediate crisis and the longer-term challenges posed by the decarbonisation of South Africa’s energy system. What follows is a work-in-progress statement that captures the discussion and conclusions reached at the end of the meeting:

Statement of the United Front to Address Loadshedding:

We acknowledge the multiple economic and social problems associated with load-shedding (particularly for the working class and poor communities in both rural and urban areas). We agree with President Ramaphosa when he says government must take bold measures to address load-shedding as expeditiously and efficiently as possible. We agree that load-shedding is a national crisis that requires decisive action on the part of the government.

However, we believe that the proposals aimed at addressing load-shedding that have been put forward by government ministries, the private sector, consultancies and think tanks are unrealistic and are extremely unlikely to succeed. These proposals reflect the interests of the Independent Power Producer (IPPs) and their desire to secure subsidies as a means of securing guaranteed returns on investments and to grow their businesses at the expense of Eskom. Their needs also reflect the privatisation designs of the World Bank, the IMF, and the European Commission.

Equally important, the actions proposed by the government will impede South Africa’s transition to a low-carbon energy system and expose the country to a state of energy dependency. South Africa has no wind industry and its solar industry is negligible. There is currently no means to produce lithium-ion batteries. South Africa will surrender energy decision-making to multinational companies that produce these technologies.

We believe that it is foolish to entertain the idea that the private sector and market liberalisation can provide a workable alternative to load-shedding. The solution to load shedding and the achievement of a just energy transition in the coming decades depends on a well-resourced national public utility.

By staff - Solutionary Rail, September 12, 2022

US Railroad Strike: What's at Stake, How We Got Here & Why NOW is the time for Solidarity (w/RWU) from Backbone Campaign on Vimeo.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, August 8, 2022

The fossil fuel industry, the Republican Party, conservative fossil-fuel Democrats, and right-wing ideologues combined to block the climate, labor, and social justice programs of the Green New Deal and Build Back Better resulting in compromise legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Passage of the IRA, despite its drawbacks and limitations, is the most significant climate legislation ever passed into law. It could represent a huge opportunity for the labor-climate movement to shape the significant federal subsidies provided for non-fossil energy development, manufacturing, and for consumers. It will create an estimated 1 to 1.5 million jobs. It includes very modest funding to address pollution in frontline communities.

But the power of the fossil fuel industry and its allies was still enough to gut important parts of a program for climate, jobs and justice – and to add provisions that promote injustice and climate change. The legislation includes only one-quarter of the investment necessary to meet the Paris climate goals and prevent the worst consequences of global warming. It allows much of its funding to be squandered on unproven technologies that claim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but whose primary effect may simply be to permit the continued burning of fossil fuels – and enrich their promoters. 

It allows increased drilling for fossil fuels, especially on federal lands. It allows drilling and pipeline construction that will continue to see areas like the Gulf Coast and Appalachia turned into de facto “sacrifice zones” where expanded fossil fuel infrastructure will devastate the environment – and the people. It does not guarantee that the jobs it creates will be good union jobs. It makes no “just transition” provisions for workers and communities whose livelihoods may be threatened by the transition to a climate-safe economy. 

The Inflation Reduction Act can provide the basis for an unprecedented people’s mobilization for climate, labor, and justice. That is what it will take to provide a sustainable future for our environment and a fairer economy.

By staff - Green Workers Alliance, August 8, 2022

Green Workers Alliance Praises Clean Energy Provisions of Reconciliation Bill, Opposes Fossil Fuel Concessions

“This bill is just a first step - and we will continue by taking the fight directly to utility companies to force them to use more renewable energy and help create millions of good, green jobs.”

Washington D.C. - In response to the Senate passing the climate and tax package now known as the Inflation Reduction Act, the Green Workers Alliance, an organization made of renewable energy workers, released the following statement:

The reconciliation bill which includes $260 billion in funding for renewable energy projects is a significant victory for people and the planet as we transition to an economy based on renewable energy. The bill is also a welcome boost for more than 400,000 renewable energy workers, many of whom have been laid off due to supply chain issues. The tax credits and other financial incentives will help kick-start renewables projects across the nation and put people back to work, and the labor provisions incentivizing prevailing wages and apprenticeships will help ensure these projects create good, middle-class jobs.

But while much of the bill is a noteworthy achievement given the current political landscape, we strongly oppose the provisions greenlighting more fossil fuel projects in protected natural lands and offshore and speeding up approval of pipeline projects. Continued investment in fossil fuel projects not only contributes to climate change, but also causes serious harm to local communities, especially people of color. We will continue to stand with front-line communities and fight for a renewable energy future, one that is free from the corruption and pollution of the fossil fuel industry.

The concessions in this bill are just another example of the long-running campaign by the fossil fuel industry and investor-owned utilities to continue pumping out fossil fuels, raking in huge profits while emitting harmful and deadly pollution at the expense of the people, the planet, and workers. Utilities emit 25 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. This bill is just a first step - and we will continue by taking the fight directly to utility companies to force them to use more renewable energy and help create millions of good, green jobs.

Together, renewable energy workers, front-line communities, and citizens everywhere can take on corporate power and win a just, green economy.

Green Workers Alliance is an organization made of renewable energy workers demanding more and better jobs in the field and a just transition off fossil fuels.

By Mick Lynch - Doble Down News, August 4, 2022

By Paul Atkin - Greener Jobs Alliance, August 4, 2022

TSSA calls for public transport fares to be slashed – let’s all do the same!

In a sharply worded blog on the TSSA web site, General Secretary Manuel Cortes notes that we have to deal with

two crises running in parallel – the climate … heating up at an unprecedented rate leading to increased extreme weather disasters and …an ever-deepening Tory cost of living crisis, inflation and costs are up, but wages are stagnant

and calls for a sharp cut in public transport fares to reduce costs, fossil fuel use and pollution.