Climate Strikes

According to an April 5 article in the Guardian, US labor leaders view this year’s elections – and 2024’s -- as “a goal-line stand to preserve America’s democracy.” Shane Larson, Director of Government Affairs for the Communications Workers of America, told the...

Germany, which imports around two-thirds of its gas from Russia and other former Soviet Union states and which aims for net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, is planning to require nearly 100% renewable electricity by 2035. Robert Habeck, German’s economic affairs and climate minister, said Germany needs to triple its rate of emissions reductions.

LNS board member Sarita Gupta and Jobs with Justice leader Erica Smiley have just published a new book called The Future We Need, Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. The book lays out ways to evolve collective bargaining to match the needs of modern people—not only changing their wages and working conditions, but being able to govern more aspects of their lives.

Edgar Franks, LNS Board member since 2019, is the Washington State Campaign and Political Director for the independent union Familias Unidas por la Justicia where he works with union leadership and allies in the development and implementation of the Just Transition framework that centers food sovereignty and worker organizing in innovative models of participatory democracy, such as People’s Movement Assemblies and Tribunals.

The United Mine Workers just announced that it will partner with energy startup SPARKZ to build an electric battery factory in West Virginia in 2022 that will employ 350 workers. The UMWA will recruit and train dislocated miners to be the factory’s first production workers.

The Labor Network for Sustainability has joined more than 610 organizations in 57 countries to call on world governments to ban Russian oil and gas and to rapidly phase out all fossil fuels in the name of peace.

A dozen Maine unions launched a new coalition this March to push for pro-labor environmental initiatives. The coalition, called the Maine Labor Climate Council, include…

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents 98 members of the House of Representatives, has just called on President Biden to declare a climate emergency, jumpstart renewable and just energy production, ban federal fossil fuel leasing, end fossil fuel subsidies, and take executive actions aimed at advancing environmental justice and making clean air and water accessible for all.

New polling finds the Green New Deal is incredibly popular. The think-tank Data for Progress asked voters whether they supported each of three laws embodying basic elements of the Green New Deal. After they heard descriptions and price tags of the Green New Deal for Cities, the Green New Deal for Public Schools, and the Green New Deal for Public Housing Acts, likely voters supported each by way more than two-thirds of voters.

Climate-safe energy is being produced locally all over the country in ways that also produce jobs and increase racial, social, and economic justice – fulfilling the basic principles of the Green New Deal. “Climate-Safe Energy Production – from Below,” a new commentary by Jeremy Brecher describes a range of those projects.