Climate Strikes
Educators Organize for a Just Transition
A just-published article by Todd E. Vachon, “Climate Justice for All: Pursuing a Just Transition in the Education Sector”—published in the American Federation of Teachers journal The American Educator—lays out in detail “what educators can do—and many already are doing—through their unions to promote climate justice and equity in their schools and communities.”
National Climate Assessment Highlights Environmental Justice
The National Climate Assessment, issued every four years based on the work of scientists and other experts, is generally considered the US’ most authoritative report on how global warming is affecting the country. The recently issued fifth assessment puts environmental justice front and center, emphasizing that low-income families and communities of color have historically borne the brunt of the nation’s environmental harms while benefiting least from environmental regulation.
What Do Clean Energy Programs Mean for Workers?
It’s not every day that workers get to tell representatives of Congress how federal programs affect their work lives. But that’s just what happened when union members working on clean energy projects in Illinois, Maine, and New York spoke about the impact of federal climate investments in their communities to the Clean Energy Workers Roundtable hosted by the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC).
Bargaining for the Common Good in Minnesota
“Bargaining for the Common Good” has become a crucial strategy for organized labor and a key means of forging broad coalitions for mutual support. For the past decade, unions and allies in Minnesota have developed powerful union and community alignments that have won victories at the bargaining table, in the community, and in the legislature.
How Labor and Climate Movements Build Power from Below
A January 18 podcast interview with labor historian Jeremy Brecher, editor of LNS’ Making a Living on a Living Planet, delved into strategic issues for the labor and climate movements.
January 2024 LNS Spotlight: Nayyirah Shariff
Nayyirah Shariff is a grassroots organizer based in Flint, Michigan and recently joined the LNS Board of Directors! Nayyirah was one of the co-founders of the Flint Democracy Defense League, a grassroots group formed to confront Flint’s emergency manager in 2011.
What Workers Want Is a Function of What They Think They Can Get
The rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s shows that workers can join together across divisions of race, gender, ethnicity, occupation, and industry — and reveals the power they can acquire when they do. It also reveals the long history of some of the problems that have plagued the American labor movement down to the present day. This interview with Benjamin Fong at the Center for Work and Democracy at Arizona State University appeared in Jacobin and was originally conducted for the podcast.
How Green New Deal from Below Programs Integrate Climate, Jobs, and Justice
The appeal of the Green New Deal lies in its drawing together the varied needs of diverse constituencies into a common program that realizes them all. Here’s how that works at the sub-national level.
Labor unions and environmentalists are working together on the energy transition
By Brooke Larsen, Hight Country News—In 2023, groups found solidarity on the climate, but work lies ahead.
‘COP28 should be the most important meeting in the history of the world’
British journalist DAVID HILL interviewed Jeremy Brecher in the lead-up to COP28 about why international climate negotiations fail and how a “global nonviolent constitutional insurgency” could be a climate game-changer.