The Labor Network for Sustainability is spearheading a climate movement solidarity initiative for United Auto Workers (UAW) currently bargaining a union contract with Big 3 Auto companies (General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis). The initiative launched on August 14 with a Climate Movement open letter to Big 3 Auto CEOs, urging them to ensure that the auto industry’s clean energy transition is a just transition by accepting UAW’s contract demands.

Over July 21st and 22nd, the Labor Network for Sustainability hosted a two-day convening in Denver, Colorado entitled: “The State of Transition: Lessons from Colorado and Beyond!” LNS convened labor, climate, environmental justice, and social movement allies to broaden and deepen an understanding of existing just transition efforts and to gain insights on how we can better support labor-climate organizing on the ground.

1400 workers in Erie, PA have been out on strike since June, demanding that their employer, Wabtec, start producing green locomotives. In a statement of solidarity, the Labor Network for Sustainability said…

Hundreds of workers at Amazon’s main headquarters in Seattle held a walkout May 31 to protest the company’s backtracking on its commitments to climate protection.

UPS Workers Win Heat Protections Faced with a threatened strike – including “practice picket lines” — by its 340,000 union employees, UPS has agreed to a contract that provides major gains in wages and working conditions for its Teamsters’ members. The contract includes elimination of a “two-tier” wage rate; significant wage increases, especially for the lowest paid workers; and combining part-time jobs to provide new full-time jobs.

On August 14 Montana district court Judge Kathy Seeley declared Montana’s fossil fuel-promoting laws unconstitutional and enjoined their implementation. In a 103-page order, Judge Seeley said that by prohibiting government agencies from considering climate impacts when deciding whether or not to permit energy projects, Montana is contributing to the climate crisis and stopping the state from addressing that crisis.

On July 6, newly elected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s transition team provided the city plan for a “Chicago Green New Deal.” Mayor Johnson, a longtime Chicago teacher and union organizer, ran a social justice campaign stressing the disproportionate impacts polluting industry and changing climate have on communities of color and low-income neighborhoods.

Marcelina Pedraza is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and United Auto Workers Local 551 at Ford Chicago Assembly Plant and has been a union electrician for 24 years. In the UAW, she is a Delegate for the Skilled Trades committee and serves as the Recording Secretary for the Women’s Committee. She is a graduate of and instructor for the Regina V. Polk Women’s Labor Leadership conference, a program that has trained women labor leaders for over 3 decades.

The following is a transcript from Labor Network for Sustainability staffer Sydney Ghazarian’s opening remarks during the August 17, 2023 United Auto Workers (UAW) Solidarity Call. Welcome everyone! My name is Sydney, I am an organizer with the Labor Network for...

In June 2023, the United Electrical Workers Locals 506 and 618 voted to reject the last and final offer by the Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation or (Wabtec) of Erie, Pennsylvania.  The unions were denied their basic rights to strike over grievances, and most importantly, over the company’s refusal to move forward with worker-supported environmentally necessary green locomotive production.   

In what may be the first strike in US history to demand green jobs, 1400 striking members of UE Locals 506 and 618 who build locomotives for Wabtec in Erie, PA are demanding that their employers start producing green locomotives.

Half of the US population has faced an extreme weather alert between May 1 and June 15. On June 21, more than 51 million Americans were facing extreme weather alerts, a third of them living in federally-designated disadvantaged areas.