On October 30, 2020, the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County, California, was permanently shut down and 345 unionized workers laid off. A new study from the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that 74% of former Marathon workers (excluding retirees) had found new jobs. Nearly one in five (19%) were not employed but actively searching for work. Their unemployment rate was 22.5% Their jobs paid $12 per hour less than their Marathon jobs, a 24% cut in pay.

The Labor Network for Sustainability’s Young Worker Network is holding network calls on the first Tuesday of every month. We hope you or young workers from your union or organization can join us for our first Young Worker Network call on Tuesday, June 6th at 4 pm PT/5 pm MT/6 pm CT/7 pm ET.

LNS is cosponsoring the June 10 Teach Truth Day of Action to defend the freedom to learn and the rights of LGBTQ+ students. Protecting teachers’ right and responsibility to teach truth to our future generations is vital for a sustainable and just world.

At the end of April, California labor leaders and unionists gathered at the 6th Annual Progressive Labor Summit in San Diego, CA., an annual event that brings together members of the San Diego Labor community with left-of-center activists. The event drew roughly 500 panelists and participants.

Excerpts from an interview with Friedrich Graeber of the Magdeberg grouping of the Youth Climate Strike group Fridays for Future:

All this goes back to three years ago when we approached the trade unions in Germany and we asked them if they were interested in working together, because we have to connect climate and social justice fights. We got an answer from public transport workers, who were interested in working together with us, and since then we started to build an alliance in more and more cities in Germany. 

Keith Brower Brown started in April as the first Labor-Climate Organizer at Labor Notes, the long-running media and organizing network for rank-and-file activists.

After a three-day solidarity strike supporting school service workers who belong to SEIU local 99, educators in the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) won a tentative contract agreement that provides a 21% raise. It also included many of the UTLA’s “bargaining for the common good” objectives, including smaller classes, expanding housing for low-income families, special programs for Black students, and curriculum on climate change.

In a new article titled, “Educators Are Standing Up for Healthy Green Schools and a Livable Climate This Earth Week,” two union educators describe how “students, educators, parents, school staff, and community members” around the U.S. are “taking action to demand healthy, green schools.”

In a surprise victory, Brandon Johnson, formerly an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, has just won election as Chicago’s mayor. He ran in part on a program for a “Chicago Green New Deal” which includes…

According to a new study by the nonprofit Energy Futures Initiative, the Inflation Reduction Act passed last summer will create 1.5 million climate and energy security jobs by 2030 – seven years from now. Over 100,000 will be in manufacturing, with 60,000 coming from battery production alone.

Powershift is a network that mobilize the collective power of young people to mitigate climate change and create a just, clean energy future and resilient, thriving communities for all. In April a Powershift Convergence brought together thousands of climate and social justice activists in Bvlbancha/New Orleans.

Conventional wisdom often holds that the interest of workers in jobs and the interest of environmentalists in preserving nature are diametrically opposed, and that they inevitably lead to conflict between environmental advocates and organized labor. A small but growing Labor-Climate Movement, however, is challenging that frame. It is trying to draw the labor movement into the fight for climate protection while persuading the climate movement that it must take a stand for workers and social justice.

The Labor Network for Sustainability recently endorsed the call of Railroad Workers United for public ownership of American railroads. A video panel on railroad nationalization sponsored by Solutionary Rail included LNS Transit Organizer Bakari Height.

How are workers around the world viewing climate change and its impact on their jobs, their labor conditions, and their industries? For a quick, revealing glimpse at the answer, take a look at the 15-minute video Talking Union, Talking Climate. It provides a dialogue among workers in California, Norway, and Nigeria about labor conditions in the fossil fuel industry, the shift to a green economy, and what a just transition might be.

At a recent panel on Working Class Environmentalism at UMass Amherst, organizers from the building trades, education, and human service sectors discussed how the labor movement can organize workers around both immediate workplace issues and bigger-picture problems like the global climate crisis, and how unions can address those problems at the bargaining table and beyond.