Jeremy Brecher

Common Preservation in Action

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  Climate and Labor

Posted by Jamie Cantoni

In Global Village or Global Pillage, Tim Costello and I warned that “Global warming, desertification, pollution, and resource exhaustion will make the earth uninhabitable long before every Chinese has a private car and every American a private boat or plane.”  We maintained that the solution lies in “converting the system of production and consumption to an ecologically sound basis.  The technology to do this exists or can be developed, from solar energy to public transportation and from reusable products to resource-minimizing production processes.”[1] The role of organized labor in climate issues was a central focus of Global Labor Strategies, which in 2007 issued my discussion paper “Labor and Global Warming.”[2]

 

In 2009, Tim Costello, Brendan Smith and I joined retired AFL-CIO leader Joe Uehlein to form the Labor Network for Sustainability,[3] which aimed to help build the “strong, broad movement that is needed to advance strategies for a transition from a world with an economy, society, and climate in crisis to one that has a sustainable future.”[4] LNS, soon joined by Becky Glass and more recently by Michael Leon Guerrero, published scores of reports, articles, and commentaries of mine, such as “If Not Now, When? A Labor Movement Plan to Address Climate Change” (with Ron Blackwell and Joe Uehlein)[5] and Jobs Beyond Coal: A Manual for Communities, Workers, and Environmentalists.[6]

 

In 2017, LNS will publish my new book Climate Solidarity.

[1] P. 183-4.

[2] Jeremy Brecher, “Labor and Global Warming: A Global Labor Strategies Discussion Paper,” 2007 http://www.newunionism.net/library/internationalism/GLS%20-%20Labor%20and%20Global%20Warming%20-%202007.pdf

[3] http://labor4sustainability.org

[4] http://www.labor4sustainability.org/about/

[5] Jeremy Brecher, Ron Blackwell, and Joe Uehlein, “If Not Now, When? A Labor Movement Plan to Address Climate Change,” New Labor Forum, 2014 http://www.labor4sustainability.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/NLF541793_REV1.pdf

[6] Jeremy Brecher, Jobs Beyond Coal: A Manual for Communities, Workers, and Environmentalists, Labor Network for Sustainability, 2012.

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ABOUT JEREMY BRECHER

11You and I may not know each other, but I suspect there are some problems that we share -- problems like climate change, war, and injustice. For half a century I have been participating in and writing about social movements that address those problems. The purpose of this website is to share what I've learned. I hope it provides something of use to you in addressing our common problems.

For the record, I am the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements. I have written and/or produced more than twenty video documentaries. I have participated in movements for nuclear disarmament, civil rights, peace in Vietnam, international labor rights, global economic justice, accountability for war crimes, climate protection, and many others.

PROJECTS

Common Preservation

  Human Survival Movement

Climate Protection

  Climate and Labor

  Climate Insurgency

  Against Doom

  Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs

Labor History

  Strike!

  Common Sense for Hard Times

STRIKE! Commentaries on Solidarity and Survival

  • Protecting Workers and Communities–From Below | Part 1: On the Ground
  • New Foundations for the House of Labor?
  • Commentary: The Green New Deal – The Current State of Play
  • Commentary: The Green New Deal in the States – Part 2
  • Commentary: The Green New Deal in the States – Part 1
  • If the Courts Won’t Protect the Climate the People Must
  • The Inflation Reduction Act and the Labor-Climate Movement

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