Making a Living on a Living Planet, #58 | March 2022
From the Editor
While storms, fires, floods, and other climate catastrophes devastate the country and while inflation and poverty devastate working people, President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better legislation that would begin to address both has been blocked in the US Senate. But the struggle for jobs and justice in a climate-safe world is going over, under, around, and through that blockade.
You can read below some of the grassroots efforts to realize the principles and policies of the Green New Deal. The Labor Network for Sustainability’s Transit Equity Day, for example, raised a banner for protecting the climate and providing fair access to jobs and amenities in sixty cities by expanding public transit. Workers who are creating renewable energy and energy efficiency are now working through the Green Workers Alliance to advocate climate-safe energy – and to fight for their needs as workers on the job. Meanwhile, unions and local communities are organizing to win funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And communities around the country are developing hundreds of jobs-and-justice promoting renewable energy production projects in what has been described as a “Green New Deal – from Below.”
Even at the national level the struggle is finding ways to move forward. Postal workers won House passage of the Postal Service Reform Act which will protect the future of their jobs in a public Postal Service. The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to force the Postal Service to replace its 150,000 aging mail trucks with electric rather than fossil fuel vehicles. 1100 groups just wrote president Biden to use his executive powers to circumvent the Congressional blockade and implement his jobs-and-climate program. And a Federal court has halted the largest sale of oil and gas permits in US history.
The fossil fuel industry and their supporters would like us to believe that ordinary people are too powerless to avert the devastating consequences of a fossil fuel future. Let’s see if we can prove them wrong.
Postal Service Reform Moves Forward — If We All Help
How You Can Join the Green Workers Alliance
Getting Infrastructure Dollars for Your Union and Community
1100 Groups Call on Biden to Build Back Fossil Free
Court Blocks Giant Gulf Fossil Fuel Lease Sale
Grassroots Green New Deal Is Producing Jobs and Justice
LNS and 45 Enviro Groups Call on the Green Building Community to Stop Partnering with Kingspan
“Future is Union: Climate Urgency through the Eyes of Workers” photo contest
Tom Morello: “Rhythm is the Rebel”
Featured LNS Member: Liz Ratzloff
Workers and Riders Unite for Transit Equity Day
Photo: Taylor Mayes
By Bakari Height, LNS Transit Organizer
For the past four years on February 4, Labor Network for Sustainability and a network of transit rider unions, community organizations, environmental groups and labor unions have organized Transit Equity Day (TED)–a national day of action to commemorate the birthday of Rosa Parks by declaring public transit a civil right. This year, TED made a big splash. Two states (Wisconsin and Minnesota) passed formal proclamations that declared February 4th Transit Equity Day—as did dozens of cities. Local transit activists organized mor than 60 events across the country, LNS hosted a massive livestream, and we launched a transit equity workforce investment report with some of our partners!
This year, Transit Equity Day showcased many of the local transit organizers and their heroic efforts in making sure that Transit Equity remains a top priority in planning and maintaining our transit systems. Whether it was Fort Wayne, Indiana, Buffalo, New York, Atlanta, or Wisconsin, our network put Transit Equity front and center. And thanks for special guest appearances by Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Department of Transportation Administrator Nuria Fernandez – see the Secretary interview the Administrator at twitter.com/ SecretaryPete/status/ 1489634427630141444?s=20&t= EJ9WFljXJeUkxa35CtziSg
Let’s continue to make our voices louder and our presence stronger.
Postal Service Reform Moves Forward — If We All Help
By Mike Cavanaugh, LNS Senior Strategic Advisor/Organizer
After years of facing challenges to their very existence as public service workers, the workers of the US Postal Service are close to finally achieving a measure of security with the February 8 passage of the Postal Service Reform Act in the House of Representatives by a vote of 342-92. The Bill now moves to the Senate and the unions are asking all of their members, family, friends, and supporters to call your US Senators to urge a YES vote on the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 by calling: 1-833-924-0085.
Through their unions, hundreds of thousands of letter carriers, mail handlers, and postal workers have fought a multi-year battle to ensure six-day delivery, eliminate the onerous requirement that USPS pre-fund future retiree health care costs, and strengthen the future of the public Postal Service.
Relatedly, the Biden Administration, through the Environmental Protection Agency, is seeking to have the Postal Service pause on its $11.3 billion contract to replace its fleet of more than 150,000 mail trucks so they can be certain to replace their ageing fleet with electric vehicles. The Administration, joined by the United Auto Workers Union, has criticized the USPS’ Environmental Impact Statements as flawed and incomplete. Replacing the Postal Service fleet of vehicles is long overdue – and necessary for the health and safety of the workers as well as the modernization of the Postal Service.
More than $6 billion for Postal Service electric vehicles and the accompanying charging infrastructure is still in the sidelined Build Back Better agenda. How, if, and when elements of BBB are able to move forward is uncertain at best – but the need for a new generation of climate-safe, union-made USPS vehicles is a fight worth fighting for all of us.
The first step is to assure passage of the Postal Service Reform Act. Please support our sisters and brothers, and the public postal service. Call your Senators today: 1-833-924-0085
How You Can Join the Green Workers Alliance
The Green Workers Alliance is a new multiracial organization that fights for more and better green jobs. More than 400 workers have already joined GWA online. On-the-ground organizing will begin in Virginia and other southeastern states this spring.
The GWA is initially focusing on the 100,000 workers in the utility-scale renewable energy field. According to Mathew Mayers, GWA executive director,
These workers travel around the country to work on solar and wind projects. They are usually employed by subcontractors or temp agencies, who are under pressure to lower costs to win contracts from utilities or other companies financing the projects. Too often, health and safety conditions suffer, pay is low, and workers face job insecurity as they are constantly hustling for the next gig.
Mayers says, “Ultimately, it is the electricity utilities who have the power to improve these conditions, as they either finance the projects or buy the electricity which they produce.” The GWA is demanding that the utilities use 80% renewable energy by 2030.
The GWA is already helping workers fight sexual harassment and wage theft on the job. And it is providing trainings on worker rights and job applications for workers who work – or want to work – in renewable energy. Next recruiting target: rooftop solar installers in the West.
Getting Infrastructure Dollars for Your Union and Community
By: Oren Kadosh, LNS Legal and Policy Researcher
The federal rollout of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (“IIJA” – colloquially known as the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law”) is now beginning.
The IIJA set overall requirements that any construction jobs created with IIJA funding would pay a prevailing rate of wage (the “Davis-Bacon” standard). This can help to ensure a minimum wage rate (a “floor,” so to speak) for construction jobs.
The IIJA also allows Department of Transportation-funded construction projects to require local hiring. The DOT’s first IIJA competitive grant
rollout is the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) Grant Program. Eligible applicants include State, local, and Tribal governmental entities, transit agencies, or a consortium
of these. Applicants are asked to include information in their applications about how their projects would create good-paying jobs, including through strong labor standards, the use of project labor agreements, and distribution of workplace rights notices. To be the most competitive, applicants are encouraged to utilize registered apprenticeship and local and economic hire agreements.
Grant funds may not be used to support or oppose union organizing — an attempt at requiring employer neutrality. DOT says it will prioritize projects that “address environmental justice, particularly for communities that disproportionately experience climate change” and that “to the extent possible, target at least 40 percent of resources and benefits towards low-income communities, disadvantaged communities, communities underserved by affordable transportation, or overburdened communities.”
It remains to be seen how much force this language will have. A powerful labor-climate movement is can help ensure that projects actually create
family-sustaining jobs, halt climate change, and move us closer to racial, environmental, and economic justice.
1100 Groups Call on Biden to Build Back Fossil Free
The Labor Network for Sustainability joined more than 1,100 organizations in a letter asking President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and to use his executive authority to fight climate change. It called for Biden to keep his promise that “environmental justice will be at the center of all we do addressing the disproportionate health and environmental and economic impacts on communities of color.” Specifically it asked Biden to:
Follow through on your promise to ban all new oil and gas leasing, drilling, and fracking on federal lands and waters.
Direct federal agencies to stop approving fossil fuel projects, including pipelines, import and export terminals, storage facilities, refineries, and petrochemical plants. Direct the Department of Energy to halt gas exports to the full extent authorized by law.
Declare a climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act, unlocking special powers to reinstate the crude oil export ban, redirect disaster relief funds toward distributed renewable energy construction in frontline communities, and marshal companies to fast-track renewable transportation and clean power generation, creating millions of high-quality union jobs.
Photo: Environmental Protection Agency. “ASPECT Flight over Gulfport, Mississippi (BP Oil Spill).”14 May 2010. Wikimedia Commons.
In November 2022 the Biden Administration prepared to sell oil and gas permits for 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico – the largest such sale in US history. Now a federal court has halted the sale because of the failure to adequately assess the impact on climate change.
The court ruled that the Biden Administration must consider the emissions and climate impacts in the leasing program. This ruling will stop not only Lease Sale 257 but future leasing decisions as well.
A sign-on letter urges President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland not to appeal the decision.
The DOI should now accept the court’s ruling on Lease Sale 257 to vacate the sale and correct the Trump administration’s flawed climate impact assessments that falsely conclude that the resulting emissions from offshore drilling would have no impact on the climate crisis. The DOI should not continue to defend unlawful drilling for oil and gas in public waters in appellate court given the impacts on our climate, clear violations of federal environmental standards, and public commitments made by President Biden to end the practice. https://www.labor4sustainability.org/strike/climate-safe-energy-production-from-below/
Grassroots Green New Deal Is Producing Jobs and Justice
Photo: Make Detroit the Engine of the Green New Deal! Becker1999, Wikimedia commons
Climate-safe energy is being produced locally all over the country in ways that also produce jobs and increase racial, social, and economic justice – fulfilling the basic principles of the Green New Deal. Jeremy Brecher’s new Commentary “Climate-Safe Energy Production – From Below” describes community solar gardens in Denver, “solar mandates” for green buildings in California, a community-owned cooperative in Martha’s Vineyard that is providing wind power to the island’s people and businesses, and numerous other local initiatives. Are these things your union or community could do? Take a look here.
LNS and 45 Environmental Groups Call on the Green Building Community to Stop Partnering with Kingspan
By: Sydney Ghazarian, LNS Organizer and Communications Associate
Labor Network for Sustainability is proud to be among 45 climate and environmental justice groups calling on the green building community to stop partnering with Kingspan, an international building materials company that’s so-called ‘green’ manufacturing processes are polluting the indoor air and local watershed (learn more here).
“We call on those who deal with Kingspan to reconsider rewarding it for behavior that weakens the credibility of the green building community, and that goes against the values of safe and sustainable buildings and communities.” Read the full statement and list of signatory organizations here.
This effort is part of Clean up Kingspan, an inspirational campaign led by Kingspan factory workers in Santa Ana, CA who are holding the global manufacturing company accountable for health, safety, and pollution issues in their community and demanding a fair process to decide whether to unionize. In collaboration with UC Irvine pollution scientist Dr. Shahir Masri, these workers measured unhealthy levels of PM2.5 pollution inside their workplace. They also blew the whistle on Kingspan for misrepresenting its daily operations and water pollution clean-up efforts to the CalEPA.
What this campaign makes clear is that the struggle we face isn’t ‘jobs vs. the environment;’ it’s corporate greed vs. everyone else. LNS is proud to stand with workers, community activists, faith leaders, & environmentalists in this campaign for true economic and environmental justice. It’s time for the green building community to stand with us too.
“Future is Union: Climate Urgency through the Eyes of Workers” photo contest
Don’t miss your chance to enter the “Future is Union: Climate Urgency through the Eyes of Workers” photo contest! Submit a photo that shows what climate work means to you and win up to $500!
The contest is open to any union member who sees their work as a “climate job” – whether you’re driving or fixing electric buses, working on wind turbines, teaching students about the climate crisis, cleaning up after climate-related disasters, working on green buildings, installing solar, operating water systems, or anything that relates to climate change.
Photo: Raph_PH. “Tom Morello play as supporting act for Muse in Bristol, UK.” 5 June 2019. Wikimedia Commons.
By Joe Uehlein, LNS President and member of American Federation of Musicians since 1966
“Over the course of 20 albums and three decades I’ve walked the tightrope of rock and race.”
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.”
With support from Tom, his son Roman and pre-teen Nandi Bushell recently wrote and recorded the song The Children Will Rise Up laying out the urgency of reversing global warming and halting climate change. Nandi Bushell said of the song: “I am not a scientist. I am an 11-year-old girl who understands the simple meaning of science, and while I’m not old enough to vote, I can bring awareness to this problem.”
Tom is well known for his support of working people and their unions, for example, the West Coast grocery workers strike (UFCW), Wisconsin public employees, and the Tell Us The Truth Tour (AFL-CIO and Common Cause), just to name a few. Tom released a new music video, HOLD THE LINE, last October, when so many workers were on strike around the country: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv-0LkDouRs
It carries a powerful message of the importance of supporting strikers. And it includes a link to the AFL-CIO’s “strike map.”
The future, Tom Morello tells us, is yet to be written. But will it be coopted? Tom says, “When they co-opt the movement, don’t trip, just hold the line!”
Who We Are:
Featured LNS Member
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.
She previously worked as the staff organizer for the University of Michigan graduate employees union, GEO (AFT local #3550).
In 2020, Liz organized a strike for a safe and just pandemic response and led efforts to establish a People’s Budget, centering the priorities of workers and the broader community through participatory budgeting.
Liz started and chairs the Just Transition Committee at the AFL-CIO Huron Valley Area Labor Federation and is working on building the local infrastructure needed to move the local economy off of fossil fuels and toward clean energy, while ensuring good jobs for workers. Liz is also the Vice President of the Huron Valley Workers Organizing and Research Center (HV-WORC), which provides research and education in support of worker efforts to organize and act collectively to improve their working and living conditions.
Who We Are:
Making a Living on a Living Planet
Our Mission
To be a relentless force for urgent, science-based climate action by building a powerful labor-climate movement to secure an ecologically sustainable and economically just future where everyone can make a living on a living planet.
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