LNS Board Chair and former president of the Washington State AFL-CIO Jeff Johnson made the following remarks to the September 17 Climate Rally in Seattle…

The Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents more than 5,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and EOF counselors at the state university’s three main campuses, has been holding a series of “Freedom Schools” in the tradition of “Ella Baker, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the 1960s civil rights movement.”

A new coalition of labor unions called Climate Jobs Washington was formed this summer “to address both climate change and racial and economic inequality by creating high-quality union jobs to sustain Washington’s families and communities.”

While protecting the climate will require millions of jobs, there is no guarantee that those jobs will be good jobs. In his new Commentary “The Green New Deal from Below and the Future of Work,” newsletter editor Jeremy Brecher describes how the local and state Green New Deals that have sprung up around the country are not only creating new jobs, they are also addressing low wages, lack of opportunities for training and advancement, de facto exclusion from access to good jobs, and other dimensions of job quality.

A survey commissioned by the British charity Protect has found that concerns about being fired or victimized at work are preventing people from calling out their employers on the climate crisis and the wider environment.

Yasmin Gabriel, Sr is a native of New Orleans, LA. When hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. Gabriel made a documentary about college students being displaced after Katrina. Gabriel moved to Georgia after the storm and worked to secure $1.8 million in funding for housing assistance to Katrina survivors

The United Auto Workers (UAW) are making history with their Stand Up Strike against corporate greed, and for economic and social justice during the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Their fight is our fight too. We’re joining with Public Citizen, Greenpeace USA, Sunrise Movement, Evergreen Action, Jobs with Justice, DSA, Working Families Party, 350, Sierra Club, Green New Deal Network, and UAW for a Day of Action this Saturday October 7, in solidarity with striking auto workers.

In a September op-ed, UAW President Shawn Fain and Congressman Ro Khanna say record auto profits should be used to address inequality and the climate crisis.

A recent article in In These Times by journalist Sarah Lazare says, “Mainstream media coverage of the UAW strike has implied that workers’ demands stand in conflict with achieving climate goals. That’s BS.”