LNS Spotlight:

Nicole Cantello

Each issue we feature a member of the Labor Network for Sustainability network.

Nicole Cantello is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lawyer,  President of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Union Local 704, and leader of AFGE Council 238- a nationwide union that represents over 8,000 EPA employees. As an EPA union leader, Nicole has pushed with AFGE Council 238 for the Declaration of a Climate Emergency and the passage of an EPA Workers Bill of Rights, in addition to winning protection of scientific integrity in the EPA’s work through their union contract. Recently, Nicole helped organize the Labor Network for Sustainability and AFGE Council 238 webinar “Fed Up: How EPA Workers are Fighting Back,” and has been working tirelessly to defend environmental protections and EPA workers.

Stand with EPA Workers! Tell your elected officials to defend EPA funding and staff.

Editor Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

Since the election of Donald Trump there has been a frequent refrain that Americans are accepting in silence his assaults on labor, climate, and the interests of working people more broadly. That silence has now ended.

Today we are seeing the rise of a movement to defend working people and society as a whole against the destruction of that which makes our life together possible. We are seeing the rise of what can be called Social Self-Defense.

We report in this newsletter on some examples:

• On April 5, millions took part in the Hands Off Day of Action at 1,300 locations around the US and around the world. Unions were at the forefront of organizing the protests.
• On Earth Day, events around the country focused on the threats to our environment that are being advanced by the Trump administration. 
• Government workers organized in the cross-union Federal Unionists Network are conducting a “RIF Resistance Campaign” bringing together federal workers and those who depend on their services to oppose the Reduction In Forces (RIFs) that are destroying the services provided by agencies like the Social Security Administration, the Veterans Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Events are already planned at more than 900 locations for actions on May Day, many of them led by unions.

Many of these actions put a strong emphasis on how the campaign of destruction against labor rights, social security, climate protection and so many other things people need to live is largely a struggle between haves and have-nots. As the call for May Day actions expressed it:

"Trump and his billionaire profiteers are trying to create a race to the bottom—on wages, on benefits, on dignity itself. This May Day we are fighting back. We are demanding a country that puts our families over their fortunes—public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, prosperity over free market politics."

As the harm the Trump regime is doing to ordinary working people, our society, and our world becomes more and more painful, the movement for social self-defense can only grow. The labor-climate movement can play a crucial role in helping different constituencies and concerns converge and mobilize to create the power we need to halt, roll back, and ultimately overcome the attacks on our survival, wellbeing, and future.

We shall overcome. 

Young Worker Leaders Speak

MayDay MayDay MayDay MayDay

How Chicago Teachers Won Green Schools and Climate Justice

Save social security! Save the VA! Save our environment!

Federal Workers: Need Legal Help?

Ten National Unions Say “Stop This Campaign of Terror”

UAW Prez Sez: Trump’s Attack on Democracy is an Attack on Unions

Transit Is Hanging Over the Fiscal Cliff

Unions Flex Pension Power Muscle

The Young Workers Project of the Labor Network for Sustainability has just released its major report Earth Is a Hot Shop. The report is based on a two-year survey of 400 young worker leaders, ages 18-35, from a wide range of industries and locations, followed by 70 in-depth follow-up interviews. Those interviewed were rank-and-file workers and a few union staff and elected officers at the forefront of building bridges between the labor and climate movements. As such, the report notes, “their insights point to a path forward for creating a more powerful and effective labor-climate movement.”

The report covers many aspects of the experience and thinking of these young worker leaders. It concludes:

"Young worker leaders articulated a holistic and interconnected understanding of sustainability – failure to prioritize environmental sustainability makes it harder for people to do their work and meet their material needs; as people struggle to sustain themselves it becomes harder to find the time and build the trust to engage in organizing that could alleviate this burden.

"They see a need for approaches that are responsive to this reality, working with the challenges of their day-to-day lives, to allow them to do transformative organizing that can push back on the systems that impose these contradictions."

The report was authored by Maria Brescia-Weiler, Laura A. Bray, Matt Hessler, and Oren Kadosh, with special support from Erik Kojola and Jeremy Brecher. 

For the full report: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/files/YWREPORT2025.pdf 

For more on the LNS Young Worker Project: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/ywlp/ywlp-in-depth/ 

A broad coalition largely led by local and some national trade unions is spearheading a day of action on May Day. While much of its focus is on immigrant rights, its call is for a broad opposition to MAGA policies:

"Trump and his billionaire profiteers are trying to create a race to the bottom—on wages, on benefits, on dignity itself. This May Day we are fighting back. We are demanding a country that puts our families over their fortunes—public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, prosperity over free market politics."

More than six hundred events are already planned in all fifty states. A center of action will be Chicago. Chicago’s week of action will start with a mega march on May 1 from Union Park to Federal Plaza. Work stoppages are planned for May 2 and 3. May 5, the Cinco de Mayo, will be a “day without margaritas and guacamole.”

Union partners include:

Chicago Teachers Union
Bargaining for the Common Good
National Education Association
American Association of University Professors
AFSCME 3299
Albuquerque Teachers Federation
UE
Illinois Federation of Teachers

To find or host an event near you: https://maydaystrong.org 

You can also sign a “Solidarity Pledge”: 

I pledge to be one of 10,000 people who, inspired by the civil rights movement, will put my body on the line in strategic actions as soon as Trump begins mass deportations of children, immigrant youth, and workers .I pledge to challenge Trump’s anti-immigrant attacks by working to create welcoming and loving communities, speaking up in defense of our neighbors, and supporting families with information and mutual aid.

To sign the pledge: https://www.solidaritypledge.org

On the eve of Earth Day, LNS and the Chicago Teachers Union held a webinar [link] describing CTU’s unprecedented contract embodying Green Schools and Climate Justice -- and how it was won. The panel featured not only teachers but a parent and a community environmental justice advocate.

The agreement gives teachers more control over the buildings they work in and ensuring that all students can learn in school buildings that are healthy, safe, and environmentally sustainable. The contract charts a new direction of investment and expansion of sustainable community including:

• A more than tripling of the number of Sustainable Community Schools, from 20 to 70, over the course of the agreement.
• A Green Schools initiation of additional resources and collaboration to remediate lead, asbestos and mold in aging school buildings while upgrading to green energy with environmentally sustainable technology, materials and practices.
• Creation of a joint Green Schools and Climate Preparedness Committee that forces the district to work with the union to secure specific funding for green facilities initiatives and collaborate on an updated Climate Action Plan by the end of the 25-26 SY.

To see the webinar: "How Chicago Teachers Won Big for Climate" 

Watch the promotional video of teachers speaking about what this contract means for their students, schools and community.

For a report by participants on how the CTA won: https://labornotes.org/2025/04/chicago-teachers-win-greener-schools 

Federal Unionists United – FUN – is conducting a “RIF Resistance Campaign” to prevent reductions in force (RIF) plans from being implemented at federal agencies. The campaign is focused on the Social Security Administration, the VA, and the EPA – three agencies where job cuts are hurting both thousands of workers and millions of people who depend on their services. The campaign unites the power of public servants with those they serve. Their slogan is Save Our Services!

The campaign started with petitions to members of Congress; then demands that they sign a pledge to block the cuts; and then pickets of members of Congress who haven’t signed the pledge.

To send messages to your representatives in Congress:

Save the VA! https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-your-representative-save-the-veterans-administration/

Save the EPA! https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-your-representative-save-the-epa/

Save the SSA! https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-your-representative-save-our-social-security/

Unions and civil rights organizations have helped form a new pro bono legal initiative to provide legal help for federal workers who have been fired or otherwise had their basic rights violated on the job. It’s called Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. It has already trained more than 1000 lawyers in 42 states and is inviting federal workers with legal questions and needs to contact it.  

Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network: https://workerslegaldefense.org  

For federal workers seeking legal assistance: https://workerslegaldefense.org/federal-workers 

With only three weeks advance organizing, at least three million people joined more than 1,400 local Hands Off actions at state capitols, federal buildings, congressional offices, Social Security’s headquarters, parks, and city halls. CNN described the actions as “protests against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk across all 50 states and globally,” organized by “ a pro-democracy movement in response to what they call a “hostile takeover” and attack on American rights and freedoms. A flyer for the event said Hands Off “demands an end to this billionaire power grab.

"Whether you are mobilized by the attacks on our democracy, the slashing of jobs, the invasion of privacy, or the assault on our services – this moment is for you. We are setting out to build a massive, visible, national rejection of this crisis.”

Union partners included:

AFL-CIO
AFSCME 3299
AFT
AFGE
Coalition of Labor Union Women
CWA
Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee
Federal Unionists Network
National Education Association
National Treasury Employees Unions
NTEU Chapter 271
OPEIU
PSC-CUNY
Pride at Work
SEIU
UAW

UE
UFT

The Labor Network for Sustainability has joined ten national unions and other labor organizations in a call for solidarity with workers and all those who are being targeted by the Trump administration. Their statement says:

 "Labor Demands an End to the Assault on the Right to Organize and Protest"
"The labor movement holds one value above all others: solidarity. Labor demands an end to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant workers, freedom of speech, the right to organize and bargain, and federal government workers, their unions, and the services they provide.

"We will not stand by as President Donald Trump terrorizes immigrant workers with abduction, detention, and confinement without due process in unmarked facilities, far-flung detention centers, and a notorious prison in El Salvador.

"The attacks are ramping up, and we need to act fast. In Washington state, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents smashed a car window and detained farmworker Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a leader in the berry-pickers union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, on his way to drop off his partner at work. They locked up SEIU Local 925 member Lewelyn Dixon, a lab tech at the University of Washington, when she returned from a family trip. They raided a roofing company where workers recently went on a safety strike and arrested 37 people."

After detailing similar depredations in Massachusetts, Baltimore, New York,
In Massachusetts, the statement continued:

• We call on the Trump administration to immediately release our fellow workers and stop this campaign of terror.
• We call on all employers and state and local governments to refuse to collaborate with these attacks, and to do everything they can to resist.
• We call on university administrations to stand up to the threats and coercion, and to refuse any cooperation with federal immigration and law enforcement authorities seeking to unlawfully persecute foreign students and faculty and student dissenters.
• We call on all elected officials to find their spines and stand up for these workers.
  We call on all unions to organize rallies, demonstrations, and other actions to demand that the administration stop these attacks and free our fellow workers.
• The labor movement must act to stop Trump's deportation, censorship, and intimidation machine. When necessary, we must disrupt business as usual.
• We must not be passive or silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on our rights, the Constitution, and democracy itself. An injury to one is an injury to all!

Signatories included: American Association of University Professors (AAUP) • Association of Flight Attendants  (AFA-CWA) • American Postal Workers Union (APWU) • Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) • International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) • National Education Association (NEA) • National Nurses United (NNU) • National Writers Union (NWU) • Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) • Service Employees International Union (SEIU) • United Auto Workers (UAW) • United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)

For more information: https://labornotes.org/blogs/2025/04/ten-national-unions-call-anti-trump-resistance 

For the full statement: https://form.jotform.com/250850668516059 

In a recent livestream talk to UAW members and the public, UAW president Shawn Fain described the effects of the Trump administration on the working class:

"Here’s what we’ve seen so far from the Trump administration: we’ve seen the destruction of bargaining rights for a million federal workers. That’s not good for the working class. We’ve seen attacks on the National Labor Relations Board, including illegally firing a board member, leading to deadlock on workers’ cases. That’s not good for the working class. We’ve seen attacks planned on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, programs that millions of workers depend on. That’s not good for the working class.

"We’ve seen the absolute trampling of constitutional rights. We have seen the First Amendment go up in smoke at college campuses — with detentions, deportations, expulsions, and firings of people who dared to speak out against and protest against a war, just to call for a cease-fire. We have seen the right to due process disappear as working people are deported for no crime and no reason. That’s not good for the working class.

"Mahmoud Khalil, who has now been detained for over a month for protesting the war, is a former UAW member. Grant Miner, the president of UAW Local 2710 at Columbia University, was expelled for protesting the war the day before the bargaining was going to start. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Service Employees International Union member at Tufts University, has been detained for writing an op-ed. Kilmar Abrego García, a sheet metal apprentice in Maryland was deported for no reason, no crime, to a prison in El Salvador. We’ve seen the arbitrary and unlawful termination of hundreds of our members’ visas, which may lead to their unjust deportation. And the list goes on."

For a recording of Fain’s talk: video livestream

For a transcript Fain’s full talk: https://jacobin.com/2025/04/fain-uaw-tariffs-working-class 

By LNS Transit Organizer Bakar Height

From Philadelphia to Chicago, transit riders are feeling the effects of the impending fiscal cliff which will surely pass on to labor if the federal government does away with federal formula funding.  

Upon a visit to Transportation Camp in Philadelphia, I also took a ride with a friend who knew of a unionized bus operator on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Owl, Philly’s supplemental overnight transit service after the city’s heaviest ridden train line goes out of service around midnight.  We were originally there to cover the safety concerns that many TWU Local 234 operators have complained about, but now it seems the service, along with many regional rail lines, buses, and even the paratransit service will cease to exist by the end of the year.  While Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro works to gain more transit funding for the residents of the Keystone State, the US Department of Transportation has worked to freeze any programs that deliver formula funding to public transit systems, or cut them altogether if they are related to sustainability.

This spells trouble for the transit systems from across the country as many are still trying to regain strength after the pandemic, as well as keep up with the demand with the return of federal workers and many cities begging for residents and employers to return to the empty office buildings. The Transit Equity Network will continue to reach out and provide a space for labor union members and transit advocates to create solutions to these states amid the federal uncertainty.

If you are interested in joining the Transit Equity Network, please contact Bakari at [email protected] or join us at our monthly meetings the first Friday of each month at Noon EST.  Stream us live on YouTube at the Transit Equity Network.

Does your union pension fund have any policies to address climate risk and climate solutions? An LNS webinar on “Pension Power Tools: Accountability and Transparency on Toxic Climate Risk” explained three critical pathways for ensuring accountability and transparency from workers’ pension funds. “Our worker capital in pension funds is an immense reservoir of working class and community power. Let's organize to wield it for climate projection, a just transition, and the common good!”

Watch the webinar; See the slideshow.

New data from NOAA shows that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased at a record rate in 2024. In recent decades the increase has often been in annual increments of 1 to 2 parts per million. But in 2024 the increase was 3.75 parts per million.

Source: Inside Climate News https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042025/global-carbon-dioxide-concentration-in-atmosphere-soared-2024/

Making a Living on a Living Planet is published by the Labor Network for Sustainability. Copyright 2025. Labor Network for Sustainability. All rights reserved.

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