green unionism

By staff - The Local, July 22, 2022

For a non pay-walled version of the article, see the Red Green Labor version.

A worker operates machinery at a factory in Trezzano sul Naviglio, near Milan, Northern Italy, on June 25, 2021. Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP.

The man, 61, fell unconscious and hit his head while performing routine tasks, according to La Stampa news daily. Efforts by colleagues to revive him with a defibrillator were unsuccessful.

The official cause of death is currently being investigated by police, but with temperatures pushing 40 degrees Celsius in parts of the country, heat exhaustion is thought likely to be responsible.

Factory workers from the local area organised an eight-hour picket on Friday outside the Dana Graziano plant in Rivoli where the man worked.

Italy is in the midst of a scorching mid-July heatwave, and most factories do not have air conditioning systems.

The Fiom CGIL metal workers’ union say they have recently received multiple reports of factory temperatures reaching over 35 degrees Celsius in the Piedmont area. At the Mirafiori Fiat manufacturing plant in Turin, workers have reportedly recorded highs of 40 degrees.

A previous strike called by auto parts workers on Tuesday protested the “intense pace of work” workers are required to keep up in the “unbearable heat of these past few days”.

“There are many of our members who are reporting illnesses in the factory due to the intense heat of the last few weeks,” Edi Lazzi, Fiom CGIL’s Turin general secretary, told La Stampa.

Italy does not have a nationally unified labor code, but worker’s rights are enshrined in the constitution and touched on in various laws.

According to the site Lavori e diretti (work and rights), article 2087 of the Italian civil code requires employers to protect employees’ health and wellbeing.

National legislation does not require companies to keep the workplace within any particular temperature range, though workplace accident insurance institute Inail recommends in summer there should not be more than a seven degree difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures.

A 2015 Supreme Court case recognised the right of workers to stop working while retaining the right to pay in excessively cold conditions.

By Tahir Latif, Secretary - Greener Jobs Alliance, July 21, 2022

The GJA Secretary went to Farnborough to join campaigners and activists from the anti-aviation/pro-worker organisation Stay Grounded in a protest against the Corporate love-in that is the Farnborough air show. A photo shoot with a ‘pigs might fly’ theme, complete with masks, took place, before three of the group went to the show itself to continue the protest from within the heart of the beast.

It’s hard to understate the sense of irony and hypocrisy that permeates the atmosphere over Farnborough. The air show opens on the very day that the country is subject to a Red Alert for extreme weather, that temperature records (including the 40^o thresh-hold) are being broken, and thousands across Europe are suffering illness or death due to the conditions. By any objective measure those supporting a ‘yep, we need more of these here planes’ would surely be considered dangerous psychopaths.

As a trade union-oriented organisation, we have to recognise that a number of our constituent unions, and many members otherwise supportive of our campaigns for green jobs, feel a sense of job security bound up with the continuing success of the aviation industry. This exerts significant power over worker viewpoints, and union policy, in the context of an industry that – due entirely to strong union representation – treats them relatively well in comparison with those struggling in the gig economy.

One thing we should all be clear about is that the Corporate hob-nobbing at Farnborough, the multi-billion deals and contracts, have absolutely nothing in common with the interests of workers, let alone with the communities sweltering in the excessive heat. At Farnborough – and I know this from my years as an industry employee – workers are never mentioned at all, or if they are it is as annoying ‘overheads’ to be reduced as soon as automation allows. As for unions, they are even more bothersome because they insist on making those overheads so expensive, a barrier to corporate objectives and shareholder benefits.

By Chris Van Eyken, et, al - Transit Center, July 20, 2022

A national bus operator shortfall is wreaking havoc at transit agencies. In a February 2022 APTA (American Public Transportation Association) survey of 117 transit agencies of all sizes, 71% reported that they have either had to cut service or delay service increases because of worker shortfalls. In the same survey, more than nine in ten public transit agencies stated that they are having difficulty hiring new employees. And nearly two-thirds of transit agencies indicated that they are having difficulty retaining employees. 

Bus drivers are indispensable people that provide an essential service, but in most U.S. cities, their working conditions and compensation don’t recognize their value. TransitCenter’s new report, “Bus Operators in Crisis,” details the challenges American operators are facing, and offers solutions that transit agencies can take to solve issues locally. It also proposes steps that states and the federal government can take to support transit agencies in this effort.

A key cause of difficulties recruiting and retaining new workers is the steady deterioration of one of transit’s most essential jobs. The pay has not kept pace with the skyrocketing cost of living in cities across the country. At the same time, the job has become more difficult. Operator assaults have increased, rigid scheduling requirements make it difficult for junior operators with child or eldercare responsibilities, and a lack of access to restrooms on route and break rooms at depots exacts a health toll. The transit industry is losing these workers to delivery services and trucking companies, which often offer workers more flexibility and higher pay. 

To tackle operator shortfalls, “Bus Operators in Crisis” makes the case that the transit industry must make driving a bus a good job, a job with dignity, a job that is respected, well compensated, and rewarding. Operators are the backbone of the transit industry, and deserve better pay, more flexibility, and safer working conditions. They also deserve paths for advancement within agencies, and the opportunity to have their voices heard. 

The report lays out eight recommendations for how agencies can improve job quality for operators. It also issues recommendations for how state governments can help alleviate the shortfall by increasing the labor pool, and how the USDOT and Secretary Buttigieg can use the power of the federal government to call greater attention to the crisis.

The necessary work of decreasing transportation emissions and closing transit access gaps simply isn’t going to be possible without operators to drive our nation’s buses. While the operator shortfall problem is multifaceted, many of the solutions are well within agency control. Agencies must begin taking steps now to develop a stable, healthy, and supported 21st-century workforce. “Bus Operators in Crisis” charts a path towards a prosperous and dignified future for these essential workers. 

Read the report (Link).

By Kenny Stancil - Common Dreams, July 20, 2022

Pressure from progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers bore fruit on Wednesday when the U.S. Postal Service announced that it would be making 40% of its new delivery vehicles electric, up from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's initial plan to electrify just 10% of the mail agency's aging fleet.

The news comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed in late April by a coalition of environmental organizations that accused the USPS of conducting an unlawfully shoddy analysis of the widely condemned plan's climate impacts. More than a dozen state attorney generals and the United Auto Workers (UAW) also sued to halt DeJoy's anti-green and anti-labor procurement scheme pending a comprehensive review of its ecological and public health consequences.

"Public pressure works, and today's announcement from the Postal Service is proof of that," Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club's Clean Transportation for All campaign, said in a statement. "The agency's original plan for a fleet of 90% fossil fuel trucks should have never been a consideration."

"Still, making only half of its delivery fleet electric does not go far enough to address climate change or improve air quality in neighborhoods across the nation," said García. "There is also no guarantee in today's announcement that union workers will be building these pollution-free vehicles."

"This is an opportunity to transform the postal fleet to be 100% union-built electric vehicles," she added. "We won't settle for anything less."

By NRDC - Grist, July 19, 2022

Last summer, the Pacific Northwest was hit by a once-in-a-millenium heat dome. While temperatures were higher than ever recorded, L.A.* was outside, working Washington’s blueberry harvest. (Fearing potential work repercussions, L.A. did not wish to be identified by her full name.) Soon, she was dehydrated, dizzy, and vomiting. Her minor son, who was also working in the field out in the heat, got a bloody nose and headache. When the harvest was moved to the middle of the night to avoid the most intense heat—”to protect the fruit, not the workers,” L.A. says—her friend cut herself badly laboring in the dark. 

Whether it’s heatwaves, wildfire smoke, or attempts to adapt that create new hazards, the climate crisis is exacerbating risks for America’s workers. From home health aides and school teachers to construction and farm workers, people across the country are now facing compounding challenges on the widening frontlines of the climate crisis. Yet federal protections for the workplace have not kept pace.

During California’s recent wildfires, shocking photos emerged of farmworkers harvesting grapes in California vineyards under an orange-tinged sky. That may be one of the most visible examples of people being forced to work in dangerous conditions, but it’s far from the only climate-related health risk employees regularly face. “The reality is that millions of workers—across our society—are being exposed to multiple environmental stressors all at once, including searing heat and toxic air pollution,” says Dr. Vijay Limaye, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 

For instance, Limaye explains that the formation of ground level ozone—air pollution formed in the atmosphere from building blocks including emissions from burning coal, oil, and gas—is intensified by hotter temperatures. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for setting exposure limits, but the agency’s models often don’t account for compounding circumstances or cumulative impacts. While the EPA sets some legal limits for ozone, for example, outdoor workers are frequently exposed to smog and extreme temperatures simultaneously. From a health risk perspective, “the sum is often greater than the parts,” Limaye says.

By staff - International Trade Union Confederation, July 18, 2022

The Ministerial Declaration of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) contains many key workers’ demands. But more ambition is needed to rescue the SDGs with a New Social Contract.

This year’s HLPF focused on “building back better” from Covid-19, while moving towards the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Although the Sustainable Development Goal on Inclusive Growth, Productive Employment and Decent Work (SDG 8) was not reviewed at this edition of the Forum, trade unions welcome that the centrality of its targets has been reflected by governments in the HLPF Ministerial Declaration, supporting key workers’ demands for a new social contract centred on SDG 8:

• Governments highlight the “urgent need to create conditions for decent work for all, protect labour rights of all workers and achieve universal social protection”, as well as the need to “ensure just transitions that promote sustainable development and eradication of poverty, and the creation of decent work” with direct reference to the role of the UN Global Accelerator for Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions, as requested by the ITUC.
• Trade unions particularly welcome governments recognition of the role of social dialogue in designing policies to guarantee equal access for women to decent work and quality jobs in all sectors and at all levels, including through “ensuring equal pay for work of equal value, (…) ensuring the safety of all women in the world of work, and promoting the right to organise and bargain collectively”. The Declaration also identifies "improved wages, working conditions and social protection” as key to recognising and rewarding women’s disproportionate share of care and domestic work, and calls for gender-responsive social protection policies and care services.
• Trade unions welcome the objective to adopt education and lifelong learning strategies and budgets that ensure gender equality and prioritise skills development and decent employment of young people.

While trade unions are pleased with these important recommendations, they are concerned that the declaration does not reflect the urgency needed to rise to the challenge of achieving the 2030 Agenda.

As the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated: “We are far from powerless. (…) We have the knowledge, the science, the technology and the financial resources to reverse the trajectory.”

Halfway to 2030, trade unions believe in the world’s ability and responsibility to change course.

Trade unions therefore urge governments to come together and build a New Social Contract centred on SDG 8 putting in place job creation plans, labour rights, universal social protection, minimum statutory living wages with collective bargaining, equality and inclusion.

The time to rescue the SDGs is now.

By Sean Sweeney - New Labor Forum, July 18, 2022

How can the world end energy poverty in the Global South and simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change? In 2021, 860 million people had no access to electricity. [1] Today, a third of all humanity lacks access to reliable power. Roughly 2.6 billion people heat their homes with polluting fuels and technologies, and using traditional stoves fueled by charcoal, coal, crop waste, dung, kerosene, and wood.[2] The majority of families in the Global South are today able to turn on an electric light—and therefore have “access to electricity” for at least some hours in the day—but for many that is as far as it goes. For other basic needs, dirty and perhaps life-threatening energy continues to be the norm.

The urgency of providing energy to the great numbers of people in the Global South who lack it runs headlong into the necessity to divert climate disaster by reducing worldwide carbon emissions. It is this challenge that sits at he center of current debates on “sustainable development.” For some years, the standard answer from the climate policy world has been the following: the Global South is well positioned to “leapfrog” the phase of centralized energy and jump feet first into the transition to modern renewables, in the same way as mobile phones have proliferated in the developing world without first having to install traditional land-line infrastructure.[3] Whereas large nuclear, coal, and gas-fired power stations and hydroelectric dams take years to build, by comparison wind, solar, and battery technologies are small, easy to install, and, the argument goes, increasingly affordable. Rural communities without electricity can set up stand-alone “micro-grids,” so there is no need for traditional transmission and distribution grids which are expensive and inefficient. The Global South—which refers broadly to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and the developing countries in Asia—is blessed with so much sun and wind, there is no reason why energy poverty cannot be consigned to history relatively quickly.[4]

That is the good news. The bad news is that it is not happening, and there are few signs that it will.

By various - ClaraP Tipping Point Videos, July 18, 2022

By Sean Sweeney - New Labor Forum, July 18, 2022

How can the world end energy poverty in the Global South and simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change? In 2021, 860 million people had no access to electricity. [1] Today, a third of all humanity lacks access to reliable power. Roughly 2.6 billion people heat their homes with polluting fuels and technologies, and using traditional stoves fueled by charcoal, coal, crop waste, dung, kerosene, and wood.2 The majority of families in the Global South are today able to turn on an electric light—and therefore have “access to electricity” for at least some hours in the day—but for many that is as far as it goes. For other basic needs, dirty and perhaps life-threatening energy continues to be the norm.

The urgency of providing energy to the great numbers of people in the Global South who lack it runs headlong into the necessity to divert climate disaster by reducing worldwide carbon emissions. It is this challenge that sits at he center of current debates on “sustainable development.” For some years, the standard answer from the climate policy world has been the following: the Global South is well positioned to “leapfrog” the phase of centralized energy and jump feet first into the transition to modern renewables, in the same way as mobile phones have proliferated in the developing world without first having to install traditional land-line infrastructure.3 Whereas large nuclear, coaland gas-fired power stations and hydroelectric dams take years to build, by comparison wind, solar, and battery technologies are small, easy to install, and, the argument goes, increasingly affordable. Rural communities without electricity can set up stand-alone “micro- grids,” so there is no need for traditional transmission and distribution grids which are expensive and inefficient. The Global South—which refers broadly to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and the developing countries in Asia—is blessed with so much sun and wind, there is no reason why energy poverty cannot be consigned to history relatively quickly.4

That is the good news. The bad news is that it is not happening, and there are few signs that it will.