Climate Strikes

The Gulf South and Appalachia have increasingly been the targets of environmental destruction by fossil fuel and other toxic industrial infrastructure – and the location of significant campaigns against that destruction.

As key states like Illinois, New York, and California start reducing their production and use of coal, oil, and gas, what will happen to the workers who produce, transport, and burn those fossil fuels? A new by Commentary Jeremy Brecher, LNS co-founder and senior strategic advisor, portrays state-level programs to guard workers and communities against loss of livelihoods and income from climate protection policies.

A district court in Montana is deciding a case brought by 16 youth plaintiffs who are arguing that, by enacting pro fossil-fuel policies, state officials have violated their constitutional rights to a healthy environment. The trial has featured testimony of experts from around the world as well as from the youth themselves.

A labor-climate movement is developing not only in the US but worldwide. An on-line forum in June brought together labor activists from different countries to explore the global labor movement’s response to climate change.

Gail Francis is the Strategic Director of RE-AMP, a network of 130 organizations with the shared goal of equitably eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the Midwest. Prior to coming to RE-AMP, she founded the Labor in the New Energy Economy program at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

The New York State legislature has just passed the Build Public Renewables Act with support of unions representing a million New York workers. The Act authorizes the New York Power Authority – the largest state-owned power company in the US –to start investing in renewable energy. It requires that all state-owned properties that ordinarily receive power from the New York Power Authority (NYPA) are run on renewable energy by 2030. It also requires municipally owned facilities like hospitals, schools, public housing, and public transit to convert completely to renewable energy by 2035.

Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the original sponsors of the Green New Deal, have reintroduced the Green New Deal legislation, whose goal is to eliminate fossil fuels in a decade while creating millions of well-paying jobs. According to the Washington Post, Markey and Ocasio-Cortez say they’re aiming to ensure that Democrats’ landmark climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, is implemented in a way that upholds the Green New Deal’s core principles.

By Veronica Wilson, LNS California Organizer. California teachers, education, and health advocates took a major step toward winning on climate in May when the California Senate unanimously passed (39-0) SB 394, a mandate to create a master plan for healthy, sustainable, and climate-resilient schools. 

After a three-year organizing struggle, workers who manufacture school buses for Blue Bird in Fort Valley GA voted last month to be represented by the Steelworkers. Blue Bird is the second-largest bus manufacturer in the country. Steelworkers organizing director Maria Somma said, “It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with 1,400 people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry.” Only 4.4 percent of workers in Georgia are represented by a union.

Jeremy Brecher’s review of Dimitris Stevis’ new book Just Transitions: Promise and Contestation