Tom Morello has also walked the tightrope of rock and politics, rock and labor, and now rock and climate change. Inspired by Joe Strummer and the music of the Clash — wearing a Clash t-shirt with “the future is unwritten” over the heart — Tom has set out to make his mark in creating a future where everyone prospers, and the planet thrives. His advice to activists: “Dream big and don’t settle. Aim for the world you really want without compromise or apology. Find the courage, and help others find theirs, to forge a more humane, just, and peaceful planet.”

Liz Ratzloff started working with LNS in October 2021 to research how the workforce will be affected by the electrification of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and how we can ensure a Just Transition for workers and communities in the transportation sector.

Preliminary results from a survey by LNS’s Young Workers Listening Project provides a startling picture of what young workers think about climate and labor. According to a just-released article in The Forge…

As part of President Biden’s Build Back Better plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) passed by the U.S. Senate on August 10, 2021 includes $39 billion in new spending for transit. The bill is now in the House where it will be considered with the overall reconciliation package.

As with many organizers drawn to work with the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), Pamela Tau Lee saw first-hand the workplace cruelties and injustices of her ancestors and throughout the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities when she was a young girl. Founder of the Chinese Pacific Association and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), Tau Lee recently shared her experience at APALA’s 16th Convention themed, “Rooted in Legacy: Towards a New World Beyond Borders & Across Oceans,” of which she was the opening keynote.

Members of Rutgers American Association of University Professors – American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT) are joining with student allies in celebrating a vote to divest from fossil fuels by the Rutgers Board of Governors and Board of Trustees.

Graphic: Sierra Club. Anyone interested in how to address the concerns of both labor and environmentalists in upcoming legislation  should take a look at the new Sierra Club report “How to Build Back Better: A 10-year Plan for Economic Renewal.” Although the Sierra...

How do we spread the word about what it will take to have an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the crises of climate, jobs, healthcare, racism and democracy that it has so aggravated? Members of New York’s large DC37 union have an innovative way: The...

Over the past decade, many communities, especially impoverished rural communities in Appalachia, have been pitched the idea that extracting natural gas would be the solution to their economic problems. Vast amounts of gas were indeed extracted. But a new report from the Ohio River Valley Institute shows that the benefits did not flow to local communities

An NPR “All Things Considered” news story produced by Don Gonyea, “Biden Infrastructure Plan Aims To Please Both Labor And Environmentalists,” recently featured LNS President Joe Uehlein.

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act, perhaps the most significant labor law reform legislation since the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, often known as “Labor’s Magna Carta,” establishing the right of workers...

The Labor Network for Sustainability calls for a halt to the Line 3 Pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline and other climate-destroying fossil-fuel infrastructure of the past. It calls instead to start creating the jobs of the future building the climate-safe infrastructure of the future.

Labor leaders, economic development groups and environmentalists from coal states recently wrote to President Joe Biden to fund a “just transition” from coal to renewable energy. They also asked the administration last week in a letter to immediately establish a White House Office of Economic Transition to work on rebuilding the economies of coal communities. 

According to a recent Op-Ed in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, wind energy is going to mean union jobs. The Op-Ed, “Steelworkers and Windmills–Perfect Together,” co-authored by Del Vitale, Director of District 4 for the United Steelworkers and Debra Coyle McFadden, Executive Director for the New Jersey Work Environment Council–both organizations that are partners in the Jersey Renews coalition, which recently sponsored the Time for Turbines Conference.

New York City’s largest pension funds have voted to divest from companies related to fossil fuels. The $4 billion divestment is one of the largest in the country and the first time a major city has committed to complete divestment of fossil fuel holdings.