Case 1

Colorado’s Shift Toward Renewable Energy and a Just Transition [8]

Colorado has a long history of renewable energy policy. In early 2018 a Colorado legislator informed the state labor federation that he was planning to submit a bill to take Colorado to 100% renewable energy by 2035. This bill, which was never introduced, was the impetus for unions adopting a purposely approach to managing this crisis. In other words, labor coalesced internally and decided to lead on energy and environment policy rather than blocking unavoidable policy proposals or just saying no.

Their choice was based on both inter-union discussions and previous events that had fostered collaboration between unions, environmental justice, faith-based, and national and local environmental groups. That collaboration had started with the People’s Climate Movement in 2016 and was being rekindled by an environmental/community justice organization during late 2017. During that same time Colorado labor leaders had become familiar with the Washington Initiative and Just Transition at a meeting of Western State AFL-CIO leaders where the Political Economy Research Institute presented a climate jobs report for Washington state.

During 2018 unions continued their own deliberations and commissioned Robert Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, to write a study for Colorado while they also continued to participate in cross-social movement discussions that were run by a professional facilitator. These discussions succeeded in advancing mutual understanding and have set the foundation for sustained communication.

During that period unions and collaborators crafted a just transition bill to accompany the decarbonization bill that was to be introduced at the 2019 session of the General Assembly. The decarbonization bill aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90% of the levels of statewide greenhouse gas emissions that existed in 2005 and will, thus, affect all fossil fuels. For various reasons, the just transition bill covered only the coal industry and communities. While the number of workers affected is about 2200, coal is quite significant in the counties and communities affected, mostly on the Western Slope. Both bills passed and were signed into law in 2019.

The Just Transition bill set up an Office of Just Transition (OJT), which became operational in early 2020, and a Just Transition Advisory Committee—consisting of unions, corporations, economic development specialists, representatives of affected counties and disproportionately impacted communities, political leaders, and government officers—with a mandate to solicit input for a draft plan for workers and communities. The Committee started its work in late 2019 and held two large community meetings just before the COVID-19 pandemic led to a ban on public meetings and everything shifted online. The draft plan was submitted to the Office of Just Transition on August 1, 2020, and subsequently opened for public comment. The Just Transition Action Plan was made public December 31, 2020, and the implementation of its proposals are to take place from now and until January 1, 2024. The Plan focuses on communities and workers and identifies funding as the main issue that has not been resolved, with various solutions to be explored. It also identifies a moral obligation to develop policies for disproportionately affected communities.

To advance the Plan the Office of Just Transition will require more resources. The major financial obstacle comes from the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the 1992 constitutional amendment that limits state spending and requires voter consent for new taxes. The financial challenge, as well as the realization that a comprehensive transition that will protect workers and revitalize communities will cost significant amounts of money over time, has made it clear to all involved that federal support is likely necessary. A stronger OJT, along with the continued commitment of unions, environmentalists and community activists, can ensure that just transition remains on Colorado’s agenda.

Case 2

Washington Initiative 1631: Model of Financing and Redistribution
(defeated at the polls)

This innovative coalition put environmental justice, and Indigenous and workers’ rights together at the center of their environmental plan. The Initiative was also historic in its structuring of a fund based on a corporate carbon fee to be directed solely towards worker transition, green energy and community investment addressing the funding problem. Equally important, labor, community, tribal and environmental justice members were well-represented on the decision-making committees.

Washington Initiative 1631 was not triggered by an imminent plant shutdown, although there was clear momentum from the state legislation setting GHG reduction goals in 2008. Those goals contributed to the decision to close the TransAlta mines, and the negotiation (without union representation of the workers) for a multi-faceted transition, with dedicated funding by TransAlta, in the phaseout of Centralia, the state’s last coal plant, by 2025.

Leaders in labor and environmental justice who were alarmed about the climate crisis saw the opportunity to bring equity for labor and Black, Indigenous, immigrant and other historically marginalized communities of color into environmental legislation in Washington. They set up a structure that would center environmental justice concerns with strong advocacy for labor and the environment. Unions participated in the negotiations and were encouraged about the prospect of good green jobs by a report on the Green New Deal in Washington produced by Robert Pollin in 2017.

A key point of agreement by all was that a funding mechanism was needed and that the polluters would pay a fee dedicated to reinvestment. The final initiative called for a carbon fee on many large polluters. Critical components included $50 million to be set aside and restored each year as a support fund for laid off workers that would provide wage replacement and insurance, benefits, retraining, pension, counseling, relocation fees, and priority hiring in renewable energy jobs. Seventy percent of the revenue would go to clean air and energy investments, 25% to clean air and water, and 5% to a community fund. Targeted percentages of these investments would go to EJ and lower income communities. A portion would also go to tribal communities but with a caveat that instituted Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), an Indigenous right enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples so that Indigenous people can exercise their sovereign rights over their land. FPIC became part of Washington state law despite the defeat of 1631.[9] Another unique feature was the formation of a public board for accountability that would include voting representatives from unions, local communities, EJ and the tribes to oversee the distribution of funds.

In the last stretch leading up to the vote on the Initiative, Exxon spent over $30 million to convince voters that a yes vote would lead to higher prices at the pump. Setbacks in raising money from environmental and labor groups made it impossible to compete with corporate oil money and the initiative was defeated.

Case 4

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Closure

Diablo Canyon Power Plant, 2008. Photo: Tracey Adams, Flickr (Creative Commons)

This an example of how a strong coalition came together to secure a proactive transition plan that adequately supported the workers, community, and climate.[11] In anticipation of the plant’s closing and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) proceedings to determine the terms of retiring Diablo Canyon, a coalition came together to propose a plan, the Joint Proposal, to transition those impacted by Diablo Canyon closing.

The coalition included PG&E, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental California, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, and the pertinent unions, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1245, and the Coalition of California Utility Employees. The Joint Proposal included replacing Diablo Canyon with a clean energy portfolio to substitute for nuclear power; an employee retention, retraining, and compensation plan; and mitigation to the local community for the loss of tax revenue and other economic costs of closure.

When the Joint Proposal was presented, the CPUC approved only parts of the plan and funded transition programs at lower levels than proposed. For example, the CPUC approved only $222.6 million of ratepayer funds for the employee program even though the estimated cost was $350 million. The CPUC declined to fund the community transition plan through rate recovery while the Joint Proposal had provisions to protect San Luis Obispo County against the loss of tax revenue from the closure of Diablo Canyon. The Joint Proposal created an $85-million Community Impacts Mitigation Program, which would also offset any potential negative impacts to essential services, and the creation of a $10-million Economic Development Fund to ease local economic impacts arising from the plant’s closure.

Rather than accept the CPUC’s diminished transition plan, the coalition behind the Joint Proposal went to the state legislature and introduced SB 1090, which required the CPUC to accept the Joint Proposal as originally presented. The bill passed both the state Assembly and Senate and was signed by then Governor Brown on September 19, 2018.

Case 5

Lordstown Transition Center: Managing an Unjust Transition through
Creating a Support Center for Displaced Workers in Ohio

Unionists have fought for more humane transitions by using public resources when available. One example of a union that tried to strengthen resources for its members is a United Auto Workers (UAW) local in Ohio. In 2019 GM finally confirmed the rumors that they were going to shut their car assembly plant. Rather than bring in another car model, the company was going to build a battery plant and another company was going to build electric trucks. Union leadership tried to save their jobs by building a coalition with local businesses. Having been unable to save the jobs, they pivoted to creating a transition plan for the members, ranging from 1500 who had gradually been laid off to another possible 1800. GM offered people jobs if they relocated, but “a good 30 percent” did not want to break up their families or tear up their roots.

The UAW local reached out to Senator Sherrod Brown and Congressperson Tim Ryan who helped write a grant for a Transition Center from the U.S. Deptartment of Labor, with the State of Ohio as the partner who handled the funds.

We pushed for it and we got it. It wasn’t just government like, “Let’s put this thing in there,” right. We were reaching out to the state saying, “Hey, we’re going to have this big layoff, we need help here. Hey, we’re going to have all these thousands of people coming in –,” I think we had about 15 to 1800 active, and then another 15, 1800 hundred that had already been laid off, so you’re talking about 3000 people that are now shuffling to the union hall every day trying to get some help and support. And, “My unemployment’s not working…how does the TAA, the TRA (Trade Readjustment Allowances) work? What should I do? Where do I go to get a job?”

The union leadership had a good sense of what their members needed. The Center provides help with applications of all sorts, fills in paying for school if the payment does not come in on time, pays for tools to start a new career, fixes vehicles needed for work, helps spouses get retraining and more. Aside from their services, the Center, staffed by laid-off union members, is a place where workers come to vent and get emotional support. It is housed in the old union hall, which they are holding on to in hopes that the UAW International will be able to organize the new electric industry. There is no guarantee those will be union jobs, so most workers are retraining as nurses or HVAC technicians if they have not relocated.

Meanwhile the whole Mahoning Valley, formerly a bustling industrial area, is an area in need of sustainable development. This case raises the question about what kinds of efforts it would take to bring more organizations to Ohio or the many other states that are experiencing displacement to create a more just transition for workers and communities.

Case 6

Jobs to Move America: Creating a Pathway from Fossil Fuel to
Local Good Green Union Jobs

United Steelworkers (USW) Local 675 worked with Jobs to Move America (JMA), a strategic policy center that works to transform public spending to advance good jobs and healthier communities, to organize one of several electric bus manufacturing plants in Los Angeles County. Their partnership came out of a decade-long effort of several unions working together to develop sustainable businesses that could support good union jobs. Steelworkers International had a relationship with JMA and invited the local to get involved with them.

JMA uses public procurement agreements with government entities to leverage incentives for business to work with unions and develop apprenticeships and community benefits programs in their contracts. The IBEW and the Sheetmetal Workers have also been able to organize electric vehicle factories with similar strategies. Since the Steelworkers do not have access to many of the opportunities the Building Trades have in solar, wind, and other construction-based occupations, the Proterra Bus contract provides a manufacturing option to displaced refinery workers and a future for the USW membership to grow.

Once USW won the organizing drive, the work of winning the first contract began. JMA helped negotiate the community benefits agreement that commits the employer to hire from marginalized communities. The Secretary-Treasurer of the local explained what bringing Proterra into the Steelworkers realm meant to members of his union, particularly the new leaders:

I know that top officers and key players like the Next Generation committee chair and so on and so forth, we’re thinking about, okay, how do we make a transition from dirty, unsustainable fossil-fuel production to the clean energy economy? And what concrete things can be done to get us from this point to that? And we’re still trying to figure that puzzle. But along the way, we’ve managed to, fairly recently, along with a great, great, great deal of help from the Jobs to Move America organization, to organize an electric bus manufacturing company called Proterra. And we also worked in conjunction with JMA on the community benefits agreement. So it looks like we’re going to be able to establish an apprenticeship program for manufacturing electric busses. And the wage scale, even for electric bus manufacturing, is probably about half of what it is in the oil sector. But we hope to get that up some. And part of the problem is–I mean, that’s a nice problem for an oil worker to have, but it makes the transition difficult–is that oil workers in the U.S. are probably among the most highly paid industrial workers of the world, just shy of nuclear workers. So transitioning them is going to be problematic.

This union official, who has been in the fight for a just transition since the time of the Labor Party in the 1990s has seen the gulf between having good intentions and watching people lose their livelihoods:

I think that with a just transition, I need to be able to explain to each one of my members and their families, here is the plan for you…their concern is, how am I going to keep a roof over my kid’s head? How am I going to feed my kids? And until we can address that gut level question properly, you’re going to get a reaction based on fear. Fear does not like change. Fear wants the status quo. So we have to come up with concrete ideas to say to individual workers, okay, this is the plan for you and your family, in my opinion. And so much of this policy work seems to be missing the concrete answer to those questions.

In the summer of 2020, the USW and Proterra signed their first contract.

Case 7

Redwood Employee Protection Program 1978 [12]

What was extraordinary about the Redwood Employee Protection Program (REPP) was that it was set up as an entitlement that could not be rescinded. This program was an historic piece of legislation approved and supported by the AFL-CIO, and it received a great deal of academic and policy attention during the 1980s and 1990s. The significance of the history behind the REPP is being revisited in a study by historian Saul Levin.

This Amendment to the National Park Act of 1968 was an addendum promoted by Congressional Representative Phil Burton to expand the protected Redwood National Park to almost double its size in the original bill. Since logging was one of the most lucrative and unionized jobs in a rural area where there were few alternatives, most of the unions were vehemently opposed to its passage. Burton had introduced this legislation annually for eight years running and realized he needed his prime constituency, labor, to support the bill. He began meeting with UAW economist Nat Weinberg to understand what labor needed to back the legislation.

The UAW at the time was involved with progressive organizing in Detroit and Dearborn around environmental justice, bringing labor and civil rights communities together. Weinberg saw the opportunity to write landmark legislation for federal lands to connect restoration with workers’ rights and employment. In this he had the collaboration and support of the leadership of International Woodworkers, a union with a long history of environmentalism. During the 1980s, however, shifts in IWA’s membership and leadership made it more susceptible to job blackmail, leading to the ‘spotted owl’ conflicts that followed. Another group that was important in learning from the timber workers about their concerns was the Emerald Creek Committee at Humboldt College. Their actions in the forests were pro-worker and pro-Indigenous and they ended up giving important testimony for the bill in Washington, DC. The groundbreaking transition included up to six years of pay, benefits, vacation, relocation and retraining for full time and seasonal workers as well as a three-year bridge to retirement for those 62 and over. It also included rehiring workers to restore the damaged forest area, including the Indigenous foresters who had traditional skills and those who had learned from them.