just transition

By Public Citizen - Common Dreams, October 2, 2023

Environmental, advocacy, consumer, and civil society groups, including Public Citizen, Labor Network for Sustainability, Greenpeace USA, Jobs with Justice, Sunrise Movement, Democratic Socialists of America, 350.org, Working Families Party, Evergreen Action, and Green New Deal Network, today announced plans for a national day of action on October 7, aimed at supporting striking auto workers and urging the Big Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—to meet the demands of 150,000 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW).

Participating groups will rally their supporters to advocate alongside UAW members for a fair contract that protects worker rights and prioritizes workers in the United States as the vehicle fleet transitions towards electric vehicles.

“The transition to EVs must not be a race to the bottom that exacerbates harm to workers and communities,” said Erika Thi Patterson, auto supply chain campaign director for Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “We need a just transition to EVs that protects our planet and people. That’s why 130+ groups representing millions of people are ready to partner with UAW in a national day of action to stand with auto workers. The implications of this strike could drastically raise standards across the auto industry and broader supply chain.”

The national day of action, planned for October 7, 2023, will mobilize members and grassroots activists to attend active picket lines where UAW members are on strike, and to join the UAW’s nationwide “community canvass,” where advocates will offer the public informational leaflets about why they support the auto workers in front of Big Three auto dealerships.

“Now is a decisive moment in whether the Green New Deal’s promise of creating millions of good-paying, union jobs will be fulfilled–or not.” said Sydney Ghazarian, a Labor Network for Sustainability organizer who has been coordinating UAW solidarity work. “UAW’s fight for an economically and socially just EV transition is our fight too.”

By Franklin Kimbimbi - European Trade Union Institute, October 2023

The importance of education in promoting sustainable development has been widely recognised by the international education community. Crucial to enabling individuals to confront new challenges, education thus plays a vital role in achieving sustainable development. It provides people with the necessary knowledge, values, and attitudes to address emerging and key sustainability development issues such as climate change, sustainable consumption and production, preservation of biodiversity or poverty reduction.

Sustainable development topics can be taught at all levels of education, from primary to adult education, whether formal, informal or non-formal. More and more trade union organisations across the world are incorporating sustainability education in their training offerings, thus playing an essential role in promoting sustainable development.

However, the fundamental question remains: how can trade unionists be trained to promote sustainable development? This guide aims to address this fundamental question.

Download a copy of this publication here (link).

By staff - California Labor for Climate Jobs, October 2023

Climate change is forcing a massive restructuring of our economy; a worker-led transition provides a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape our economy for working people and our communities while limiting climate dangers. Labor rights are a climate solution: we must increase workers’ voice on the job in all sectors through unionization, and invest in our public sector to build the democratic, clean, green economy we need. Massive investments in our infrastructure, agriculture and public sectors are moving us towards meeting California’s climate goals and can create a million new union jobs for pipefitters, carpenters, manufacturers, electricians, cable layers, public transit operators, agricultural workers and others. Expanding the public services our communities need to cope with extreme weather and climate disasters will create jobs for nurses, care workers, public sector workers and more, while providing new opportunities for workers who have been trapped in low-wage jobs.

A worker-led transition means fighting to support fossil-fuel dependent workers and communities, including wage and pension guarantees and retraining, rather than leaving it to the whims of the oil CEOs to dictate the terms of the transition. From West Virginia to Los Angeles, we have seen how unplanned closures and economic shifts have devastated workers and the communities where they live.

Transition is inevitable, but economic and racial justice are not. If labor takes the lead, we have a historic opportunity to grow the labor movement and create a cleaner, more equitable, and climate-safe economy that provides high-road, family-sustaining, union jobs.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, Summer 2023

Almost by definition Green New Deal projects simultaneously address climate protection, worker empowerment, and justice. This Commentary will look at Green New Deal projects and networks that emerged from discriminated-against communities and put issues of justice front and center.

While the Green New Deal is often thought of as a program for climate and jobs, justice has been a central element from its very beginning. The initial Green New Deal resolution proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez included as a core aim to “promote justice and equity by preventing current and repairing historic oppression to frontline communities.” That included:

• providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all members of our society, with a focus on frontline communities, so they may be full and equal participants in Green New Deal projects;
• directing investments to spur economic development, as well as deepen and diversify industry in local and regional economies and build wealth and community ownership, prioritizing high-quality job creation and economic, social, and environmental benefits in frontline communities and deindustrialized communities that may otherwise struggle with the transition;
• ensuring democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline communities and workers to plan, implement and administer Green New Deal projects at the local level;
• obtaining the voluntary, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect them, honoring all treaties with Indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of all Indigenous peoples.[1]

While much of the Green New Deal program has been stymied at the national level, communities, cities, and states have been going ahead to develop their own Green New Deals – what I have called in this series of Commentaries the “Green New Deal from Below.” Typically they involve a strong emphasis on the justice objectives of the Green New Deal. For example:

• The Boston Green New Deal launched PowerCorps BOS, a green jobs program designed to serve “the dual purpose of creating job opportunities for our young adults” while “protecting our city from the ravages of climate change and enhancing quality of life for all residents.”
• The Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance requiring new buildings to be all-electric. Gloria Medina, executive director of SCOPE LA, said this ordinance is “about Black, Brown and Indigenous community members at the forefront. This is their win.” Chelsea Kirk, policy analyst at Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, said, “We think this is a super important, logical first step that allows us to make progress in our net-zero carbon goals as outlined in the Green New Deal.”
• The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition designed a participatory process called “Listen, Lead, Share” to write a climate, jobs and justice law “written by communities for communities.” The Illinois Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, described by one journalist as a “Green New Deal for Illinois,” includes a wide range of programs embodying Green New Deal justice programs. For example, it provided that the first fossil fuel plants to be shut down will be those nearest to low-income and marginalized communities; $80 million allocated for Clean Jobs Workforce Network Hubs run by local organizations in 13 of the state’s low-income communities to deliver outreach, recruitment, training, and placement for climate jobs; travel stipends, work clothes, tools, and/or childcare for training and incubator program participants; program to train people currently in prison and place them in clean energy jobs; and a Clean Energy Jobs and Justice Fund to pay for projects in low-income and marginalized communities.

While virtually all Green New Deal from Below-style programs include a strong social justice component, some of them have emerged from and primarily represent the demands of people of color and frontline communities. They are the subject of this Commentary.

By Oren Kadosh and LNS staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, September 30, 2023

Over July 21st and 22nd, the Labor Network for Sustainability hosted a two-day convening in Denver, Colorado entitled: “The State of Transition: Lessons from Colorado and Beyond!” LNS convened labor, climate, environmental justice, and social movement allies to broaden and deepen an understanding of existing just transition efforts and to gain insights on how we can better support labor-climate organizing on the ground. 

Native nations, women in construction, scientists, teachers, Black parents advocating for clean air, ski patrollers, and many others attendees from a range of unions, sectors, and communities came to share their experiences, learn from each other, and educate LNS on critical topics such as: how different types of labor are being affected by the transition; the legacy and continued struggle of Indigenous and frontline organizing for environmental justice; and how public funding to implement green projects is being organized for by unions and community organizations. Union workers and officials from locals representing many sectors of work in Colorado attended, including IBEW, SEIU, AFSCME, LIUNA, SMART-TD, and many more. 

During the convening, it became clear that Colorado workers and surrounding communities have made incredible strides toward a renewable energy economy and a just transition. But it was also clear that there is much left to do, both for transitioning fossil fuel workers, but especially for Indigenous and frontline environmental justice communities still being too often marginalized and their urgent needs delayed. Challenging but important truths were surfaced about the lack of inclusion and meaningful collaboration between the labor movement and the environmental justice movement. As the private sector is infused with billions in taxpayer dollars to boost the energy transition, one big takeaway from the convening has been that de-siloing our movement spaces, and meaningfully addressing the needs of all stakeholding communities, is absolutely critical to building the people power necessary to win the urgent change we need. 

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, September 30, 2023

The federal government is launching a series of Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to help communities impacted by recent or impending closing of fossil fuel facilities.

RRTs are intended to work with energy communities who have experienced a recent or approaching fossil fuel facility closure to address worker and community needs using existing federal resources. RRT members work with community members to identify economic transformation and revitalization goals, figure out ways to pursue those goals, and make the connections between programs across the federal family and up and down levels of government. RRTs aim to understand the needs of communities and work to make sure barriers to meeting those needs are smoothed over.

The RRT program was initiated by the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization. There are four existing RRTs in Wyoming, the Four Corners, the Illinois Basin and Eastern Kentucky. “Each region has a unique set of challenges the RRTs aim to address, including workforce training, economic diversification, reclamation of legacy energy assets, broadband access, infrastructure improvements and more.” So far RRT locations have been chosen by identifying the regions with the highest loss of coal assets and with inadequate financial and local community resources to address those losses. 

If your community or region is interested in being considered for an RRT, contact contact@energycommunities.gov.

For more: https://energycommunities.gov/technical-assistance/rapid-response-teams/

By Carolyn Fortuna - Clean Technica, September 30, 2023

Instead of joining a debate with 7 Republican candidates vying for the position of party presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump decided to visit a non-union auto parts plant in Michigan. During the stop, Trump excoriated the Biden administration for its push toward transportation electrification. The language Trump used during his Detroit stop was part of a broader goal to divide a self-identified pro-union advocate in President Joe Biden from an automotive workforce that is in turmoil.

The campaign rally was concurrent with the ongoing UAW strike, in which concerns over wage loss, diminishing benefits, and the length of workweek have led to an impasse between Detroit automakers and their workers. Moreover, the UAW feels the billions of dollars in tax incentives and loans sprinkled on automakers to retool their factories for EVs was flawed, as the incentive had not stipulated that automakers with a union-only workforce would benefit.

Trump sought to use the campaign stop to appeal to white working class voters in a critical swing state. The UAW malaise has been positioned by both parties as a gauge for potential votes, and the strike is having its effects on automakers — Ford halted production on its CATL project this week.

The language Trump used during his Detroit area stop is indicative of his powerful and quite scary persuasive capacity. Let’s zoom in on how he described EVs and his personal commitment to autoworkers. We’ll deconstruct facts, fantasy, and the ever-so-difficult gray areas that auto manufacturers are facing as they open a door to a new era of innovation – and the costs thereof.

By Teddy Ostrow and Ruby Walsh - The Upsurge, September 29, 2023

For a transcript of this podcast, visit this page.

By Kristoffer Tigue - Inside Climate News, September 29, 2023

The United Auto Workers union expanded its strike Friday, bringing the number of employees who walked off the job to demand higher wages and better benefits from Detroit’s Big Three carmakers to 25,000. Republicans vying for the White House next year are using the moment as an opportunity to rail against President Joe Biden’s climate policies.

“Yesterday, Joe Biden came to Michigan to pose for photos at the picket line. But it’s his policies that sent Michigan autoworkers to the unemployment line,” former President Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner, told a crowd of non-unionized autoworkers in Michigan on Wednesday. “He’s selling you out to China, he’s selling you out to the environmental extremists and the radical left.” 

That message was parroted later that evening by his rivals at the second GOP presidential debate, which Trump skipped.

“It’s not climate change we need to worry about,” said North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. “It’s the Biden climate policies.”

“One of the signature accomplishments of our administration was in just a few short years we achieved energy independence,” former Vice President Mike Pence added. “But on day one, Joe Biden declared a war on energy.”

As much of the world pivots at an unprecedented speed toward cleaner sources of transportation and energy to mitigate the worsening climate crisis, the United Auto Workers union strike has become the latest GOP culture war talking point and a new front line in the 2024 presidential race.

It’s unclear if the GOP’s message is resonating with the striking autoworkers. Some have publicly expressed support for Trump and disdain for EVs. Union leadership, however, has made it clear that they’re not buying it.

“I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for,” UAW President Shawn Fain said about Trump in an interview with CNN. “He serves the billionaire class and that’s what’s wrong with this country.”

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, September 29, 2023

Seven thousand Auto Workers at two more assembly plants will walk off the job at noon ET today, UAW President Shawn Fain announced in a Facebook Live appearance this morning. Joining the strike are Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant and General Motors’ Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan.

Fain announced that Stellantis would be spared this time. The union had been expected to expand the strike today at all three companies, but, said Region 1 Director LaShawn English, three minutes before Fain was scheduled to go on Facebook Live, the UAW received frantic emails from company representatives.

According to Fain, Stellantis made “significant progress” on the cost-of-living adjustment, the right not to cross a picket line, and the right to strike over product commitments and plant closures. “We are excited about this momentum at Stellantis and hope it continues,” Fain said.

Fain made clear that negotiations with all three companies are ongoing. “I’m still very hopeful that we can reach a deal that reflects the incredible sacrifices and contributions our members have made over the last decade,” he said to 60,000 viewers on Facebook. “But I also know that what we win at the bargaining table depends on the power we build on the job. It’s time to use that power.”