just transition

By Mutual Aid Disaster Relief - It's Going Down, November 10, 2017

Our current Mutual Aid Disaster Relief team in Puerto Rico has concentrated efforts mostly on HIV/AIDS prevention, safe water outreach/education, breastfeeding in disasters and also is addressing other health needs with our team of nurses, a lab chemist, lactation counselors and a medic.

We provided health education materials, triage, screening, and assisted 100 patients one of the first days we were here, based out of a little church 1/2 way up a mountain in a little community called Quebrada Prieta. This community lacks potable water: one woman was using the water from her pool to wash and clean, most are drinking from the river that drains from the rain forest. We were able to provide lab testing, exams, and assist a home bound, double amputee diabetic patient with a host of diabetes supplies.

Another day we were in Vega Baja, close to the ocean. We saw 89 patients in a pop-up clinic inside of a restaurant called El Right Field de Tommy. Since the storm, this restaurant has been providing free rice and beans every Tuesday to residents of this severely affected neighborhood. Yet another example of mutual aid in practice. Many of the folks seen had just got water back in their homes, but were unsure if it was safe to drink and some only had a steady drip coming out of the tap, insufficient for a day’s water needs. And yet others noted that some days the water worked and other days nothing came out of the taps. So we discussed ways to make water potable, such as boiling for 2 minutes if they have a gas stove or using a bleach + water recipe to make it safer to drink.

With so many people saving rainwater, we also talked about ways to safely store it and how to prevent mosquitoes. Very few in this community had generators. However we did do a home visit with a bedridden, oxygen dependent patient in which the generator was running outside of her bedroom windows. When we walked in we could smell it in her bedroom. We talked about the impact of carbon monoxide on her lungs and helped her husband move the generator to a safer spot, further away from his wife’s windows. We also got to do some more breastfeeding education as there were a lot of moms with babies and toddlers. Many of the moms were happily breastfeeding their babies. We were able to answer their questions and provide support and encouragement that they were doing the right thing.

Still another day, we saw 54 patients at a community Center in Los Naranjos, a community that saw flooding up to peoples necks during the storm. Most lost a lot, some lost everything, most have no potable water, none have electricity. All are helping each other: one woman had 70 people on her roof during the floods. The last 6 patients of the day were home bound. All of them are strong men women and kids. The oldest was 102 years old, the youngest was still in her moms belly!

There is a much wider context, including socioeconomic status and availability of resources that factor into health and food access. First, Puerto Rico had above 40% poverty before the storm; Unemployment was above 12%. Staying healthy and eating healthy costs more money, in the form of direct costs (for example: $4 for milk) and indirect costs (taking the day off work to care for a sick family member).

Second, going to the doctor or store implies that you have a car, which implies you are driving, which implies that your car didn’t flood or get blown to pieces in the storm. Then we must assume that you bought gas, which implies that you may have stood in line for 0 minutes to 2 hours (depending on the city, it’s short in the metro area), and all of this implies that you have money, which brings me to…

Returning to your job. Many people’s jobs are too damaged to even exist anymore or they cannot work the way they once did. For example, yesterday we saw a school that was destroyed, covered in mud, windows shattered to pieces, metal cables sticking out of cracked cement, no running water, bathroom walls crumbled. These children are not in school anymore. If their parents both used to work, someone now needs to stay home or adjust their schedule to take care of the kids during the work day or they can find someone else to care for their kids, which costs money. Their days are spent collecting water for washing and cleaning from the river; arriving early at the store or the water truck to stand in line for water that’s sold out within 20 minutes; cleaning up mud from every surface of their home; caring for sick or injured family and friends and neighbors; looking for accessible/cheap food; removing every piece of furniture that was submerged in water including the children’s mattresses which are now on the curb growing mold…. and the list goes on and on and on and on.

It’s not always possible to just go to the doctor. Sometimes the doctor is the one living the scenarios described above. Sometimes the traditional organizations tasked with assistance don’t have the people-power to maintain their services. Sometimes the closest store is miles away and the land you were living off is now a bare pile of sticks.

By Julia Conley - Common Dreams, November 9, 2017

A transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050—or even sooner—is not only possible, but would also cost less and create millions of new jobs, according to new research presented in Bonn, Germany on Thursday.

The German non-profit Energy Watch Group (EWG) teamed up with Finland's Lappeenranta University of Technology to present a study at the COP23 climate summit.

The results of the study, according to a forward written by EWG's president Hans-Josef Fell, show "that a 100% renewable electricity system is an effective and urgently needed climate protection measure. A global zero emission power system is feasible and more cost-effective than the existing system based on nuclear and fossil fuel energy."

To achieve the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting the warming of the earth to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the report argued that "we need a two-fold strategy: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions down to zero and to remove surplus carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A key aspect of this strategy should be a transition to an emission-free global economy, based on 100 percent renewable energy."

Moving to this system through the use of solar and wind power, combined with establishing energy storage systems, would bring the total cost of energy from more than 80 dollars to about 60 dollars per MWh.

Thirty-six million jobs would also be created by 2050 through the transition, compared with 19 million energy jobs in the current economy, according to the research.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle published Thursday, author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben agreed with the study's assertion that a complete shift from fossil fuels is necessary to avoid even more dangerous effects of global warming than those the planet is already experiencing.

"If we have any hope of preventing absolute civilization challenge and catastrophe, then we need to be bringing down carbon emissions with incredible rapidity, far faster than it can happen just via normal economic transition," McKibben said.

While entirely possible from an economic standpoint as the new research shows, the political feasibility of the transition is another story. "That depends entirely on whether we can build movements large enough to break the power of the fossil fuel industry that holds us where we are," said McKibben. "To go further what we need are many people in the streets demanding action and pushing governments to move much, much faster than they're currently contemplating."

By staff - Global Justice Ecology Project, November 10, 2017

This week’s Earth Watch guest on the Sojourner Truth Radio Show is Dezeray Lyn. Lyn has been involved in organizing and solidarity work rooted in intersectional struggle for social/climate/economic justice for 16 years.  She spent five months in occupied Palestine documenting and intervening in human rights abuse of Palestinians between 2015 and 2016. 

Among the topics discussed are relief efforts in Puerto Rico and the lack of resources available to effected people. Lyn’s interview begins at about the 37 minute mark below.

By Stephanie Basile - Labor Notes, November 7, 2017

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, as Puerto Rico faces government neglect, unions’ relief efforts have been critical.

Teachers and students across the island have cleared debris off the roads and delivered medical supplies. On the outskirts of San Juan, communications and transport workers cooked and distributed hot meals. Union volunteers on Isla Verde drove door to door with water and supplies. And these are just a handful of stories among hundreds.

On September 26, less than a week after the storm barreled through the island, Puerto Rico’s storied teachers union, the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR), sprang into action. FMPR teamed up with the island’s labor federation (CGT) to set up “brigades.” Teams of teachers, retirees, and students were dispatched to remove fallen trees, clear roads, and put up tents in roofless houses.

Such large-scale efforts require cross-union coordination. The teachers have worked hand in hand with other Puerto Rican unions through the CGT, and with mainland unions such as the New York State Nurses.

Members of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 501—the union of ground service and baggage handling workers at American Airlines in New York and San Juan—and Communications Workers (CWA) Local 3140, which represents American Airlines passenger service workers in Puerto Rico and Florida, teamed up to cook and distribute 400 meals of rice, beans, and chicken in the outskirts of San Juan.

They chose neighborhoods that hadn’t received much attention. “These were the forgotten areas,” said Local 3140 Vice President Georgina Felix. “Everybody’s focusing on San Juan and forgetting everywhere else.”

“Without labor down there right now, half the things that are getting done wouldn’t be getting done,” said Local 501 Executive Vice President Angelo Cucuzza. “Besides being a feel good story, it’s an important story.”

By Joseph Mathunjwa - Daily Mavrick, November 7, 2017

The global economy is facing numerous structural challenges. With the looming fourth economic revolution characterised by even more technological development and mechanisation, the future of productive labour is bleak. Most unskilled and semi-skilled workers are likely to lose their jobs. Even some skilled workers are not spared from this emerging catastrophe, as numerous job categories – such as brick-layers – are increasingly becoming redundant.

This points to the urgent need for planning, for conscious investment in job-rich, growth opportunities that enable economies to build productive capacity in labour intensive sectors. One way of achieving this is to strengthen wage led growth, which, in turn, stimulates aggregate demand through enlarged household incomes. Without a dramatic increase in the wages of mine workers, farm workers and all employed people in our country, we will never be able to deal with South Africa’s most urgent problems: inequality, mass unemployment and poverty.

Since unemployment is the greatest determinant of poverty and income inequality, we can expect these, too, to worsen. Already, in 2015, 30.4-million people, that is, 55.5% of the population live on less than R441 per month, or less than R15 per day. The fact that 10% of South Africa’s population earn around 60% of all income, points to South Africa’s widening inequality. Even more alarming is that the richest 10% of the population own at least 90–95% of all assets. 

With these terrible statistics in mind, it becomes redundant to repeat what we have been saying as a trade union for a long time, namely, SA urgently requires the redistribution of wealth.

When the millions of working people in our country can afford what the few take for granted – a television set, a washing machine, dining room table, etc – we create the conditions for developing the economies of scale that can sustain local industries from the intense competition coming from a globalised economy. In this way, we will be able to make in-roads into the almost 10 million people who are out of work, out of income and out of dignity.

The importance of the climate jobs work the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) has been leading is that it identifies where the jobs can be created. As AIDC’s latest research – One Million Climate Jobs – Moving South Africa forward on a low-carbon, wage-led and sustainable path – makes clear, there are potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs in championing low carbon development, as the complimentary strategy to a wage-led development path.

The AIDC’s solidarity with AMCU (the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union) is greatly appreciated. It is a solidarity based on a shared approach and conviction of the urgent need to confront the numerous challenges facing our economy, the people whose needs the economy is supposed to meet and the sustainability of human life on a planet heating to unsustainable levels.

However, AMCU is a trade union representing mine workers and construction workers. These workers are embedded in the very industrial processes that are at the centre of contributing to global warming and other environmental problems. It is inescapable that, if we are going to move decisively to a low carbon less polluting economy, it is going to be at the cost of coal mining, coal fired energy plants, coal to liquid gas, etc. Unless jobs are offered to our members in clean industries, they would never voluntarily agree to the shutting down of mining and energy industries. It would be like asking them to commit suicide.

By Nick Mullins - The Thoutghtful Coal Miner, November 6, 2017

Trump won the vote in Appalachia because people are tired of being looked down upon. Considering the work of powerful industry interests, a century’s worth of negative stereotyping, and culturally insensitive protests against coal—a source of people’s pride, heritage, and income—it’s not difficult to understand how. 

My family has lived in Appalachia for nine generations, and we have worked hard all our lives without asking for a great deal. We were never drawn to extravagance, nor did we need to keep up with the Joneses. Simplicity and family were the means to much of our happiness. As long as we had a decent home, food, and the time to watch our children grow up with a good moral compass, we were fulfilled. “It’s not your needs that get you into trouble—it’s your wants,” my grandfather would often say.

But this lack of complication has been the subject of ridicule by many outside our communities. Among a national and now international audience, Appalachia has been viewed as a degenerate region without sophistication. The dehumanization of its people has allowed for the exploitation of its vast energy and timber reserves, and putting Appalachians down has often been a means of lifting others up: “I may not be rich, but at least I’m not a hillbilly.” These forces have made maintaining our dignity a constant struggle.

Exploitative economic systems have ensured that there is no change to our status quo. Low property taxes have appeased out-of-state land-holding companies while keeping our public education system in a near constant budget crisis. What money extractive industries do contribute is spent funding state-certified curriculums on the benefits of coal. Our children are fed an industry narrative that dignity, sacrifice, and the patriotic duty of mining are inextricably tied all while downplaying a century’s worth of labor struggles for basic human rights. These issues, compounded by an existing need to appease common core initiatives and standardized testing goals, have limited teachers’ abilities to instruct on critical thinking.

By co-opting Appalachian values, the coal industry has elbowed itself to the center of our region’s cultural identity. Shannon Bell, a sociologist at the University of Kentucky, has studied the many ways coal industry associations have adapted Appalachian culture in appealing to its people. She found that the industry has used pro-coal media campaigns such as Friends of Coal to manipulate the region into believing that support for the industry, despite its destructive nature, is the accepted cultural norm.

Meanwhile, media misrepresentations have fueled negative stereotypes held by urban populations. In many ways, this has put us on the defensive, pushing Appalachians to seek out and attack the shortcomings of our city counterparts. Rural people have long seen urbanism in contrast to their own values, fixating on stereotypes of city dwellers and suburbanites as being selfish and lacking common sense. Many also associate academia and liberalism with urbanism, an association exploited by media organizations, like Fox News, that politically oppose government regulation and environmentalism.

As a result, the efforts of progressive organizations working in Appalachia are sometimes taken as downward-looking elitism. It doesn’t help that many progressives and environmentalists have done a terrible job of communicating with local communities, both in their actions and presentation. When outside activist organizations expect Appalachians to simply accept their protests, marches, street theatre puppets, and public civil disobedience as avenues to their logic, they foster tensions that manifest in bumper stickers like: “lib·er·al / lib(-ə)-rel / noun ¹Someone so open minded that their brains have fallen out.”

The Confederate flags, Trump signs, and pro-coal stickers I see displayed throughout Appalachia are not as much the result of deep-rooted racism and bigotry as many would like to believe. They are often symbols of defense against a world that views us as lesser people. They are symbols given to us by politicians and corporations that have learned to speak our language, and they throw gasoline on the fiery dissent many feel toward longstanding urban ridicule.

There is no easy fix for the situation in Appalachia. Poverty causes intense suffering with all of the symptoms you would expect. Health outcomes are plagued by a lack of access to health care, food deserts, and the environmental pollution created by decades of coal and natural gas extraction and processing. Overprescription of pain medications has led to a drug abuse epidemic that has spread to younger generations suffering from a loss of hope. Recent media attention on these issues stemming from Donald Trump’s election has fed into the national stereotyping of the region, keeping Appalachia in a vicious cycle of self-destruction.

If there is any hope for Appalachia, it is in eliminating the sources of the problem, not just treating its symptoms. We must address the communication barriers that exacerbate feelings of resentment and increase political and cultural divides. Perhaps then we can work toward ending corporate influence over our local culture, economics, and political systems so that we, ourselves, can really begin to shape a better future for our region.

Sarita Gupta interviewed by Dimitri L - Real News Network, November 1, 2017

Dimitri L.: This is Dimitri Lascaris for the Real News in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are at the Labor Convergence on Climate organized by the Labor Network for Sustainability. I'm here today with Sarita Gupta, the executive director of Jobs with Justice. Thank you for joining us.

Sarita Gupta: Thank you. It's great to be here with you.

Dimitri L.: I'd like to talk about the mission of your organization, and particularly how we can get organized labor leading the transition that we need to undergo in order to solve the climate crisis currently confronting us.

Sarita Gupta: Great question. I think that it is essential for working people and unions to be at the table and shaping the future of our economy, in particular in the context of this transition that we're in the midst of. There's so much crisis playing out for working people right now, and I often frame it as there's three storylines that are playing out in the American public and for working people. One is of economic hardship and the inability of people to ... Frankly, people are working harder than ever and can't make ends meet. Then you have the story of the climate crisis that we're in, as we hear more and more about the impacts of hurricanes, most recently Harvey and Irma, and so much more. The third is this. Who do we blame for all of this? More often than not, around the economy, the blaming plays out in the form of racism and xenophobia, and so this othering plays out.

I think it is so essential for the labor movement and for working people to actually understand at the end of the day that these stories are incomplete stories, because they don't ever actually get at why are we in the situation that we're in. Who is truly to blame, and how do we build enough power to shift the direction that we're going in around the climate crisis and the future of our economy?

We are investing time and energy into figuring out how to work and build a grassroots base at the local level of labor leaders and trade union activists, who together want to do the kind of broad-based education and organizing, and really strategically looking at their industries and figuring out how to shape the future of their industries in ways that allow working people to be in the driver's seat of what their sectors look like. There's many examples of really tremendous work that's happening, everything from waste workers out in California who are doing this to examples of healthcare workers who are really working hard to help their members, help healthcare workers, understand that there will be a bigger need for their services as we have more environmental health impacts of the climate crisis. How can they be part of pushing for the kinds of solutions that we need?

There's multiple examples like that that are out there, and I think we want to be a part of helping seed those examples to both solve for the climate crisis and to solve for the issue of working people actually having the ability to come together and negotiate not only over their wages but conditions and overall well-being right now, that we really need bargaining power. We have to be clear about who holds that power and how we as working people really take the reins of shaping the future of those industries.

Dimitri L.: Based on some numbers I've seen, you've got quite a challenge, because for example I understand that something on the order of 32% of the members of the UAW actually support Donald Trump, who has claimed, whether he believes it or not is another matter, but he claims that the climate crisis is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I would imagine that there is an educational task line before you that's rather challenging. Why do you think that this significant portion of the labor movement is attracted to the rhetoric of Donald Trump, and how can you most effectively counteract that rhetoric?

Sarita Gupta: I think what I'm learning through our work locally is that often we try to engage people with lots of facts, and I think that's true around the issue of climate. We get into the science, and we get into the numbers. When you do that, you lose people in that debate and discussion, versus really having a hearts and minds strategy. The issues of the climate crisis are actually impacting everybody. How do we start the conversation from the ways in which people are now experiencing the climate crisis?

For example, with Hurricane Irma happening in Florida, our local coalition in central Florida did worker surveys to get a sense of what were workers experiencing, especially low-wage workers, around being able to take time off to prepare for the hurricanes. Were they expected to work during the hurricanes? Were they retaliated against if they didn't show up at work because of flooding, and whatnot? Because these are the important stories to uncover about how workers are truly being impacted by this crisis, and then how do we solve for those impacts and bring people into the conversation of what is a sustainable economy that works for both people and the planet in the future.

That requires creating the spaces for people to share from their own experience and then translate into what is really happening, and then what solutions we fight for. That's actually how I think we deal with the issue of so many union members who are swayed by what Trump has to say. We have to fundamentally help people understand that this is bigger. Frankly, in some ways this is bigger than politics. It's really about what the future holds. What's the restructuring of the economy going to look like? How do we ensure working people are actually respected and can live with dignity? How do we hold onto our humanity through these changes? We have to get people at their values proposition versus politics and the issue. That doesn't connect to who they are at heart.

Dimitri L.: Thank you very much for joining us today, Sarita. I know you want to go back to the panelists, and we really appreciate the time you've taken to speak with us.

Sarita Gupta: Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Dimitri L.: Thank you. This is Dimitri Lascaris for the Real News.

By staff - IBEW 569, November 3, 2017

Whether a utility, municipal program, CCA or another provider or program, providers and subcontractors shall:

1. Energy Identification: Inform customers of the percentage of renewable, greenhouse-gas-free electricity offered. Power may be labeled as “clean” or “green” if it comes from renewable energy generated from solar, wind, geothermal and other eligible renewable energy resources in California and defined by California law in the Public Utilities Code as Category 1.

2. Exclude RECs: Provide renewable energy from actual renewable sources customers can trust while creating union jobs in the community for local workers. Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) undermine these goals. There is no guarantee power content that includes voluntary RECs is clean or green therefore it must not be marketed as “clean” or “green” so as not to mislead the public.

3. Communication to Consumers: Send at least three written notices to potential customers, and each notice will include a description of the percentage of the power mix that comes from California solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro-electric or other state certified green power sources.

4. Creating Union Jobs: Procure power from union-generated sources; employ unionized customer service representatives; sign Project Labor Agreements on each Power Generation Project; sign Project Labor Agreements on Energy Efficiency Projects/Programs; agree in writing to neutrality in the event employees or subcontractor employees wish to unionize.

5. Community Benefits: Sign Community Benefits Agreements to include local projects and local hiring and prioritizing projects, programs and actions to reduce emissions in disadvantaged communities that rank in the top 25 percent of CalEnviroScreen’s ranking for San Diego region communities.

6. Local Project Build-Out: Emphasize development of new renewable resources from proven developers in San Diego and adjacent counties and strictly limit the use of non-renewable energy sources that are recognized under the California RPS to the amount permitted as “Qualified Renewable Resource.”

7. Energy Efficiency: Develop a resource plan that integrates supply-side resources with programs that will help customers reduce their energy costs through improved energy efficiency and other demand-side measures. As part of this integrated resource plan, actively pursue, promote and ultimately administer a variety of customer energy efficiency programs that can cost-effectively displace supply-side resources.

8. Workforce Impacts: Determine if the program will 1) result in negative impacts for employees of the incumbent utility (including layoffs, work hour reductions, etc.) and 2) if the wages, fringe benefits and job protections are similar to those offered by the utility to employees in comparable job classifications.

By Gordon Lafer - Labor Notes, November 1, 2017

After Harvey, Irma, and Maria, many thousands of homes have been lost and lives wrecked. People in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico need decent paying jobs while they try to put their lives back together, and the one industry that will be booming is construction.