green unionism

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, July 2022

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The faculty and graduate worker union at Rutgers University has stepped out to oppose a plan to haul liquified fracked gas across southern New Jersey. The Star-Ledger has just published an op ed by two union leaders explaining why:

A proposal to transport liquified fracked gas on trains and in trucks through densely populated Camden, Philadelphia and southern New Jersey threatens enormous harm across the region. As Rutgers-Camden faculty, we stand with Camden residents and community groups in opposing this dangerous and potentially catastrophic proposal.

Our faculty and graduate worker union at Rutgers believes in “bargaining for the common good”; a labor strategy that builds community-union partnerships to achieve a more equitable and sustainable future. As this project demonstrates, our lives and well-being are deeply interconnected. We are stronger when we organize together with our partners against threats to our communities, our environment, and our collective future. We must work together to make our communities safer and more sustainable. Opposing the transport of LNG is one way to address these concerns, given the risks of the proposed plan and the carbon emissions associated with LNG.

The opinion piece was written by Jovanna Rosen, assistant professor of Public Policy at Rutgers-Camden and a member of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT Climate Justice Committee and Jim Brown, associate professor of English at Rutgers-Camden and president of the Camden Chapter of Rutgers-AAUP-AFT.

By Ted Franklin - Capital and Main, July 1, 2022

Recently, former President Obama launched a Netflix series celebrating national parks and their breathtaking views. One of the parks he zoomed in on was the 2.2 million acre Yellowstone National Park, describing it as a park that is “fundamental to our national identity.”

But underneath the beauty of Yellowstone lies an ugly history of union-busting and intimidation by government contractors of National Park Service workers, the ones who labor to keep the park beautiful — a legacy that Obama failed to curb as president and one that Joe Biden has yet to address as the current occupant of the White House.

“I never had anyone spit or threaten to beat me up until I tried to unionize at Yellowstone,” says former Yellowstone tour guide Ty Wheeler.

In February of 2020, Wheeler and six of his co-workers were fired when they attempted to organize a group of 80 tour guides at Yellowstone National Park employed by the giant contractor Delaware North. Workers were paid only $12 an hour plus tips with infrequent scheduling, leading some into poverty while trying to get by in an area known for its generally high prices and expensive housing. In addition, Yellowstone had begun reporting cases of COVID, and workers were concerned about what they claim was the lack of training and personal protective equipment.

However, when the workers attempted to unionize, they claim they were not only fired but kicked out of company housing in West Yellowstone, Montana, during the middle of a frigid Yellowstone winter. The next month, the workers filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which ruled in a settlement that all of the workers should be rehired and that organizing activities should not be prevented in the park.

But Delaware North broke the agreement and to this day has never rehired the workers, say the former employees, who are currently appealing to the NLRB about the failure to enforce the settlement.

Union organizers are citing their firings and forced eviction from company housing to help build momentum for Biden to take executive action and strip companies like Delaware North of federal contracts for violating the National Labor Relations Act, now that the PRO Act — which would penalize employers for violating workers’ rights, and force employers to disclose how much they spend on union busting — is stalled in the Senate. Similar rules, including the High Road policy, which would boost labor-friendly companies’ chances of winning federal contracts, and an order that federal contractors disclose two years of political donations, faltered during the Obama administration.

Union organizers are pushing Biden to call out Delaware North’s union-busting activity in the national park, just as he did recently with Kellogg’s and Amazon’s efforts to halt organizing efforts by their workers.

“Biden should get directly involved and do something about this,” says union organizer Wheeler. “These are our national parks, our national treasures, and these private contractors are treating them like company towns.”

By Kevin Bell - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, June 30, 2022

Ruling will restrict the federal government’s ability to address climate change

The Supreme Court issued a decision today in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that will hamstring the federal government’s ability to issue a wide range of regulations covering the environment, public health, climate change and the economy.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court held that the Clean Air Act’s grant of authority for EPA to implement the “best system of emission reductions” does not allow a nationwide system capping total carbon emissions to force a transition away from the use of fossil fuels. Its reasoning is, essentially, that the EPA cannot use this kind of system because it has never done it before. The court explicitly declined to determine what “system of emissions reductions” it would allow, leaving EPA, and every other agency in government, to guess what a reviewing court will or will not allow.

The ruling, in effect, smothers any attempt to use EPA’s existing statutory authorities to control carbon emissions or meaningfully slow climate change.

Instead of applying the Constitution, the Court relied on a relatively new conservative judicial theory called the “major questions doctrine.” The “major questions doctrine” holds that courts should not defer to agency statutory interpretations that concern questions of “vast economic or political significance.” However, in reality, this nebulous doctrine allows the judicial branch of government to usurp the power of the legislative and executive branches of government by allowing judges to insert themselves into any issue they find important economically or politically. It also further undermines 40 –years of precedent known as “Chevron Deference” which calls on judges to accept reasonable interpretations of a statute by an administrative agency.

By Paul Atkin - Greener Jobs Alliance, June 30, 2022

As revealed in this Oxfam Report, the poorest 50% and middle 40% of the global population have a minimal or declining carbon footprint. The top 10%, and even more the top 1%, already have carbon footprints that are unviable and are increasing so fast that they will have bust us through the 1.5C limit on their own by 2030.

The top 10% are people who are on more than £125,000 a year. Most of them live in the Global North, but are a minority even here. The working class in the Global North, is overwhelmingly in the middle 40%.

The strategy of the ruling class in the Global North is primarily to sustain their own wealth and power. 

• Some of them are in denial about climate change as a result.
• Even those that recognise reality can only envisage a green transition which prioritises their own consumption standards by keeping the bottom 50% impoverished. Carbon offsetting by keeping the global majority in their place.
• Hence the failure to transfer investment to the Global South and the prospect that the 350 carbon bombs identified by the Guardian will be dropped; because it is profitable to do so.
• This underlines the paradox of the debate about “stranded assets”, as assets are only stranded if there is a viable transition. If there isn’t, they stay profitable until everything collapses around us; which will always be the stronger motivation for companies operating on quarterly profit returns. The notion that Fossil Fuel capital will be more motivated by social responsibility than profits runs counter not only to the record of its counterparts in the tobacco and asbestos industries, but also its own record in covering up its own research on the climate impacts of its operations from the 1950s onwards. They knew. They covered it up. Now that we know, they greenwash instead.
• As they recognise that climate breakdown will create social and political crises on an unimaginable scale, from waves of climate refugees to possible war in the Arctic, they are prioritising military spending over solving the problem. The US government is spending 14 times as much on its armed forces as it planned to do on domestic climate measures – and then didn’t agree to. They have committed $40 billion to stoke the war in Ukraine rather than seek a peace deal; while climate transition funding for the Global South is reluctantly dispensed through an eye dropper.

What that means is an immediate future dominated, not by win-win global cooperation to solve our problems and build a sustainable society, but by wars and crises that make doing so ever more difficult. Campaigning against these is an urgent priority for anyone committed to Just Transition. 

By D'Arcy Briggs - Spring, July 7, 2022

The battery supply chain is growing fast, fuelled by the increasing demand for electric vehicles (EV), and with that the creation of new jobs. In Europe alone, employment related to the EV industry is estimated to increase by 500,000 to 850,000 by 2030. The auto industry has a relatively high level of unionized workers, but the number decreases along the supply chain, where workers’ rights violations, as well as forced and child labour, increase.

Every region makes up different parts of the battery supply chain. There is a lithium triangle in Latin America, most mining is done in Africa, Asia Pacific is seeing new battery investments and there is booming investment in electric vehicles in North America and Europe.

By staff - Green Workers Alliance, June 30, 2022

“We can’t rely on Washington to lead the way...Workers, consumers, and everyday citizens must lead the transition away from fossil fuels.”

Washington D.C. - In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, Green Workers Alliance, a worker-power organization made of current and aspiring renewable energy workers, released the following statement:

Today’s outrageous decision in West Virginia v. EPA is the culmination of a long-running campaign by the fossil fuel industry and investor-owned utilities to take away the government’s abilities to regulate their dangerous emissions. The utility industry wants to keep us hooked on fossil fuels so they can rake in huge profits while emitting harmful and deadly pollution at the expense of the people, the planet, and workers. But we won’t let the far-right majority of the Supreme Court dictate our future. We are taking the fight directly to utility companies to force them to use more renewable energy and help create millions of good, green jobs.

“The West Virginia v. EPA decision will increase pollution and utility costs, making people sicker while lining the pockets of greedy politicians and corporations. We can’t rely on Washington to save us from climate change and we are running out of time. Now more than ever, we need to organize the people who can lead the transition away from fossil fuels: renewable energy workers,” said Matthew Mayers, Executive Director of Green Workers Alliance. “This is a tragic day for our communities and for the environment, but we have a plan to hold Big Utilities accountable.”

“Right now, people are being laid off from solar and wind jobs because projects are delayed or canceled. Many are going back to oil and gas jobs. Instead of weakening our ability to clean up our energy production, we need utilities to step in and buy more renewable energy so these projects get back on track. But with this new case and similar ones to possibly come forward, renewable energy workers may be even more displaced,” said Crystal McCoy, a heavy equipment operator on renewable energy projects and Green Workers Alliance member.

This devastating decision from a far-right Supreme Court that is out of step with the majority of the American public makes clear Washington will not lead the way on the transition to a green economy. Workers, consumers, and everyday citizens must shift our attention to Big Utility companies and demand they dramatically increase their renewable energy use and set higher labor standards for their renewable energy contractors. Labor, community, and environmental groups must coordinate pressure and hold utilities accountable in the fight for climate justice. With power from the grassroots, we will fight corporate greed and build a power sector that is good for the environment, workers, and utility customers.

By Bridget Huber, Nancy Averett and Teresa Cotsirilos - Food & Environment Reporting Network, June 29, 2022

Last June, as a record-breaking heatwave baked Oregon’s Willamette Valley, Sebastian Francisco Perez was moving irrigation lines at a large plant nursery in 104 degree Fahrenheit heat. When he didn’t appear at the end of his shift, his co-workers went looking for him, and found him collapsed between rows of trees. Investigators from the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division determined that Perez died of heat-related hyperthermia and dehydration. 

They also found that Perez had not been provided with basic information about how to protect himself from the heat. It wasn’t the farm’s first brush with regulators; it had previously been cited for failing to provide water and toilets to its workers. Later, in a closed conference with Oregon OSHA, an Ernst Nursery & Farms official blamed Perez for his own death, claiming that employees should “be accountable for how they push their bodies.”

This year, in a move to avert similar deaths — and force employers to take responsibility for protecting workers during hot weather — Oregon adopted the most stringent heat protections for outdoor workers in the country. The rule kicks in when temperatures reach 80 degrees F and requires employers to provide cool water, rest breaks and shade, as well as to make plans for how to acclimatize workers to heat, prevent heat illness and seek help in case of an emergency. 

The new standard has been praised by advocates, but industry is already pushing back. On June 15, the day the rule took effect, a coalition of Oregon business groups representing more than 1,000 companies filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the heat standard and another new rule governing workers’ exposure to wildfire smoke, arguing that they are unconstitutional. But the rules stand for now, making Oregon the third state to enact such standards for outdoor workers, after California and Washington. 

In the rest of the country, as climate change drives increasingly brutal heat waves, farmworkers lack protection. How they fare will largely depend on whether their employers voluntarily decide to provide the access to water, shade, and rest breaks that are critical when working in extreme heat. There are currently no nationwide regulations that spell out what employers must do to protect workers from heat and, while efforts to draft a federal rule recently began, it will likely be years before the standards are in place.

By Lara Skinner, Auburn Bell, Marina Zhavoronkova, Matt Schlobohm, Laura Fortman, et. al. - Cornell ILR Worker Institute, June 29, 2022

By Jonathan Porritt, Suzanne Jeffery, Katrine Williams, and Ian Ralls - Greater Manchester Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, June 29, 2022

By Roger Silverman - Facts for Working People, June 28, 2022

A new mood is sweeping Britain. The magnificent TUC march last week marked the re-entry of the working class back to the forefront of British history. A wave of protest has begun, with strikes of railways, airport ground staff, communications workers, nurses, GPs, even barristers…

Britain is ruled by a regime which drunkenly staggers from one hollow theatrical gesture to the next – “getting Brexit done” (at punitive cost), tearing up the Northern Ireland protocol, blocking all legal routes to asylum, deporting migrants to Rwanda, scrapping the Human Rights Act … and now hoping to smash a resurgent trade union resistance and tame the work force.

An all-out class war is on the cards. Legislation is in the pipeline allowing the wholesale use of agency workers – scabs – to break strikes – something that even Thatcher had never dared. Johnson and his faction of the ruling class are consciously plotting an all-out confrontation. A general strike is in the air – a deliberate provocation, just as in 1926.

It’s a fatal miscalculation. Then the ruling class could mobilise a mass strikebreaking force of jolly jingoistic volunteers to wave the flag and keep Britannia moving. Where will they find such an army now? Then they could recruit from a pool of professionals, middle class and youth. Today the “middle class” – previously privileged strata, but now squeezed by the monopolies or driven into opposition – are now among the most militant strikers. And the youth are overwhelmingly in rebellion.

While Johnson & Co. are desperately gambling on whipping up commuter resentment, a clear 58% today – almost two-thirds – support the RMT strike.

The working class is regathering its forces. It may be diminished in industrial concentration, but it is regaining cohesion. Society is becoming not less but MORE proletarianised.