Focusing My Climate Work on Labor
Harvey [Jackins] wrote, “There’s no possibility of accomplishing major goals without enlisting the trade unions. . . . This is where the big strength is.” (See pages 41 to 42 of Logical Thinking about a Future Society.)
Capitalists continue to drill for oil even though using current reserves could end life as we know it on the planet. They are driven by patterns of greed, and they derive their wealth from natural resources and the labor of working people. Working people—if organized and, ideally, equipped with the discharge process—are in a unique and crucial position to interrupt capitalist patterns of greed, to end and replace capitalism, and to have a chance at solving the climate crisis.
Since 2018 I have focused my climate activities on labor. I together with others have done the following:
- We have encouraged people to base their climate-related efforts in their workplaces and unions.
- We connected the local plumbers’ union with a leading climate organization. The plumbers switched from opposing to supporting a proposal to end natural gas in new construction. And the proposal passed and became law.
- I started and have led a group of organizers who are active on both climate and labor issues. We meet regularly for mutual support, networking, problem solving, and education. One member of the group initiated a climate survey in their statewide union. Several hundred union members responded, and over a hundred want to be on a new climate-organizing committee in their union. Another group member is organizing in their union for divesting pension funds from fossil fuels.
- I am taking a job in a major corporation with the goal of organizing a union there.
USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC Community members
(Present Time 209, October 2022)