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LABOR & CLIMATE NEWS
Science and Crisis
by Carly Ebben Eaton | Apr 16, 2020 There are a ton of parallels between the leadup to the current crisis and the non-response to the climate crisis. Recently, I learned that the fastest a vaccine has ever been developed is 4 years (for mumps). The average time to...
Earth Day to May Day: A Historic Experiment in Virtual Protest
The first Earth Day in 1970 had very significant support from the United Automobile Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which included money, staff time, printing, and other related resources. Denis Hayes, organizer of the first Earth Day told Labor Network for Sustainability President Joe Uehlein that the first Earth Day would not have happened without labor support. Some of the larger Earth Day planning retreats/meetings were held at the UAW’s Black Lake training center in upstate Michigan.
Give Us the Damn Masks!
As reported in The Hill, a letter to president Donald Trump from more than 100 unions, advocacy organizations, and environmental groups demanded that the administration immediately provide equipment to hospital workers, cleaning staff, restaurant workers, manufacturers, and others who cannot work from home.
Transit Equity Means Protecting Transit Workers and Riders
More than 70 unions, civil rights groups, transit organizations, and coalitions in the labor and environmental justice movements led by the Labor Network for Sustainability and Institute for Policy Studies are campaigning to include funding for transit workers in the HEROES Act now before Congress.
Earth Day to May Day: A Historic Experiment in Virtual Protest
At the end of March, it seemed for a minute like Earth Day to May Day actions would be non-existent with the devastating spread of COVID-19—especially with executive orders throughout the states that suspended (and rightfully so) live events to mandate social distancing.
A Trade Unionist Scientist on ‘Science and Crisis’
Carly Ebben Eaton is Development Director for the Labor Network for Sustainability. She has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University, focused on the chemistry of nitrogen oxides, ozone, and aerosol particle production, and the impacts of this chemistry on air quality and climate.
LNS Launches Just Transition Listening Project on May 27
The need for a large-scale Just Transition for workers and communities has never been more urgent as more than 30 million workers have applied for unemployment in the past month. Many face the likelihood that they will never go back to their previous jobs. The Coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis developing as a result offer an important barometer of whether and how we are prepared socially, politically and economically for massive changes to our economy. The shift to the green economy we need in order to confront the climate crisis will require economic shifts on a similar scale.
No Worker Left Behind
The transition to a climate-safe economy will produce millions of new jobs. But it will also require the elimination or transformation of millions of jobs—and any job is important if it is your job. Such job loss will affect not just individual workers, but also whole localities and regions.
Emergency Green New Deal
As the Coronavirus Pandemic leads into the Coronavirus Depression, our very survival depends on putting our people to work fighting the coronavirus; meeting the needs of all for food, shelter, healthcare, and other basic necessities; and reversing the destruction of the earth’s climate. LNS Policy and Research Director Jeremy Brecher has authored a series of commentaries proposing to do so through an Emergency Green New Deal.
LNS’s Statement on COVID-19
The Labor Network for Sustainability’s new statement on the Coronavirus pandemic
Take Action Now! Contact Your Legislators: Support the 5 Principles of a #PeoplesBailout!
The United States is now the epicenter of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. As Congress acts swiftly to develop relief and recovery packages to address the crisis, we must make sure that they prioritize the health, wellbeing, and economic stability/security of all people, with no exceptions.
In Coronavirus Fight, Workers Are Forging a Green New Deal
In a new series of commentaries, LNS Research and Policy Director Jeremy Brecher argues that, in the face of government and employer failure, workers and communities must take the lead to protect ourselves and each other from the coronavirus and its economic and social impacts. He proposes an emergency program to do just that. It might be described as a do-it-yourself Green New Deal.
Earth Day and the Emergency Green New Deal
The climate crisis on its own is a threat multiplier. Now, workers in a multitude of industries are serving the public amid the existential crisis that is the COVID-19 pandemic. Illustrated by Taylor Mayes of Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs, this graphic is one of a series of Earth Day to May Day “Emergency Green New Deal” graphics—and corresponding video interviews by LNS’s Leo Blain—to raise awareness of the conditions facing workers the actions they’re taking to stand up for their rights to health and safety.
Climate Strikes Go Virtual
Unions and others around the world were just gearing up to make the Earth Day climate strikes and the subsequent “Earth Day to May Day” actions the greatest demonstrations on behalf of the earth and its people in history—when the coronavirus pandemic struck. Now the climate protection movement is taking the global Earth Day climate strike on-line.
First Union-Backed Strike to Protect the Climate Wins Contract
On Thursday, February 27 thousands of Minneapolis cleaning workers walked off their jobs and struck their downtown commercial high-rises. Among their key demands was that their employers take action on climate change. It was one of the first if not the very first...
