Climate Strikes

Labor leaders, economic development groups and environmentalists from coal states recently wrote to President Joe Biden to fund a “just transition” from coal to renewable energy. They also asked the administration last week in a letter to immediately establish a White House Office of Economic Transition to work on rebuilding the economies of coal communities. 

According to a recent Op-Ed in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, wind energy is going to mean union jobs. The Op-Ed, “Steelworkers and Windmills–Perfect Together,” co-authored by Del Vitale, Director of District 4 for the United Steelworkers and Debra Coyle McFadden, Executive Director for the New Jersey Work Environment Council–both organizations that are partners in the Jersey Renews coalition, which recently sponsored the Time for Turbines Conference.

New York City’s largest pension funds have voted to divest from companies related to fossil fuels. The $4 billion divestment is one of the largest in the country and the first time a major city has committed to complete divestment of fossil fuel holdings.

In case you missed the February 11, 2021 webinar "Climate Justice + Labor Organizing," hosted by Saren Glenn Vincent of the Power Shift Network, you can watch it here. Featuring Labor Network for Sustainability Young Worker Project Organizer Joshua Dedmond and Kayla...

In February, the International Union of Electronic Workers – Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) held actions at Walmart locations around the U.S. to save jobs for workers who manufacture LED light bulbs produced by Walmart, who recently announced plans to move production to China.

With nearly eight hours of testimony by more than 50 essential workers and riders, both live and pre-recorded, the Community Hearing on Transit Equity, which took place on Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, provided an intentional space for those wanting to share their plights brought on by transit service cuts during the pandemic and with greater threats to transit funding.

Claudette Colvin was no standard 15-year old. When she was that age, she sat down on a Montgomery, Alabama bus and refused to give up her seat to a white person. She was arrested and wrongfully charged with assault and battery. Despite being just 15 at the time of her arrest, Colvin was booked into a cell in Montgomery’s adult jail. When Colvin’s pastor, Reverend H.H. Johnson bailed her out the evening of her arrest, he told her that she had “just brought the revolution to Montgomery.”

After many months of Republican stonewalling the HEROES Act, in December, Congress finally passed a totally inadequate bill to address the hardship of people hit by the COVID-19 depression. Now newly elected president Joe Biden is proposing new legislation–aptly dubbed the Rescue Act.

The Biden administration is preparing its Build Back Better program. The initial focus will undoubtedly be on recovery–from both the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis. But Build Back Better opens the possibility for major commitments both to climate protection and to protection of worker rights and racial justice.