Climate Change Battle Plan Must Include Workers, Communities, Investors, Enviros
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told more than 400 leading investors at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk & Energy Solutions at the United Nations today that “The American labor movement is in the problem-solving business—looking for profitable investment opportunities that address climate risk and create jobs.”
We’re looking for partners, and we’re already working with many of you here today directly and indirectly to move capital to profitable and productive purposes, to step forward in addressing climate risk.
Click here for a video of the summit.
Trumka proposed hosting a dialogue on the risks of climate change and the need to move forward in a way that ensures broadly shared prosperity and a sustainable future.
Addressing climate risk is not a distraction from solving our economic problems…addressing climate risk means retooling our world—it means that every factory and power plant, every home and office, every rail line and highway, every vehicle, locomotive and plane, every school and hospital, must be modernized, upgraded, renovated or replaced with something cleaner, more efficient, less wasteful.
Taking on the threat of climate change means putting investment capital to work creating jobs.
Report: Invest in Broadband to Go Green, Overcome Digital Divide
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To build a green economy, we must also invest in broadband and overcome the growing digital divide in our society, according to a new report. “Networking the Green Economy: How Broadband & Related Technologies Can Build a Green Economic Future” calls for new communication technologies to make our energy-hungry economy more sustainable and energy-efficient.
By transforming the way people and businesses use technology, the United States can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 20 percent by 2020–and potentially see gross energy and fuel savings of $2 trillion over the next two decades, the report says.
The Communications Workers of America’s (CWA) Speed Matters project, along with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club and the Blue Green Alliance jointly released the report today.
Specifically, the report calls for increasing grid efficiency through real-time monitoring, automation and self-healing capabilities, allowing various building systems to communicate with each other through smart technologies and extending communication technologies, such as broadband, to everyone.
Click here to read the full report.
Labor College Offers Green Workplace Representative Program
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Courses in the National Labor College’s (NLC‘s) new Green Workplace Representative Certificate Program will begin on June 26. The program consists of four required, weeklong courses. Students must complete 12 credits to earn the certificate.
Students who enroll in the program will learn how to conduct workplace sustainability audits, which can save energy and water, reduce waste, use environmentally-friendly products, recycle materials, maintain employee health, adopt clean technologies and reduce carbon emissions, while retaining good jobs at family-sustaining wages.
They will also consider topics, including green building construction, strategy and design; building labor-management sustainability partnerships; and the union movement’s role in the green economy.
Apollo Alliance Honors AFL-CIO’s Baugh
The Apollo Alliance’s Right Stuff Award honors outstanding individuals whose work exemplifies the group’s mission to catalyze the new clean energy economy. Last night in San Francisco, Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, joined the list of Right Stuff honorees whose work is creating a new green economy.
The Alliance said Baugh received the award because:
As leader of the AFL-CIO’s manufacturing policy and legislative initiatives, Bob has had a life-long commitment to labor and the environment and has never believed in the false choice between jobs and the environment.
Global Union Leaders: Focus on Jobs, Not Deficits
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Global union leaders called on G-20 governments to deliver the promise made at the Pittsburgh summit to “put quality employment at the heart of the recovery” and focus on creating jobs in the short term to sustain the recovery and reduce public deficits in the medium term.
The union leaders from the G-20 countries are warning their governments that efforts to cut budgets and impose fiscal austerity now could plunge the international economy into another, deeper recession. The statement was issued yesterday by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Council (TUAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).
Just Transition to Green Economy Would Create Jobs, Profits
A just transition to a green economy is the only path toward building the broad support needed to combat climate change and to creating and retaining quality jobs and decent work, AFL-CIO Policy Director Damon Silvers said.
Speaking yesterday at the U.N.’s Investor Climate Risk Conference in New York City, Silvers said investors, especially those who manage workers’ pension funds, must change their investment strategies and lead the way to a stronger, greener future.
Silvers delivered the speech on behalf of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who was called to meet with President Obama on health care.
‘New Green Deal’ Focus of Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference
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Just weeks after the Obama administration and the new Congress take office—with the economy as the top priority—more than 2,000 union, environmental, business and government activists and leaders will take part in the 2009 Good Jobs Green Jobs National Conference.
The Feb. 4–6 conference in Washington, D.C., is coordinated by the Blue Green Alliance, the partnership of the United Steelworkers (USW), Communications Workers of America (CWA), Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
It will focus on transforming the struggling economy through a wide range of environmental investments in green technology, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Conference organizers say the goal is to develop a “New Green Deal” that would create jobs, increase energy independence, reduce global warming and expand the clean energy and green technology markets.
Senate Candidate Martin Joins Union Phone Bank as Election Approaches
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Just eight days remain to get out the vote in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff election between Jim Martin, an ally of working families, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Bush crony who repeatedly has voted against the interests of workers.
Martin, who is campaigning hard around the state, dropped in on the phone bank at the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 613 union hall in Atlanta for a visit last week. Jimmy Hyde, Labor 2008 director for Georgia, reports that Martin phone banked alongside hardworking union volunteers.
Martin…reiterated to everyone how important and meaningful the work we are doing is. Martin acknowledged that we need the labor movement to win this election and that union volunteers reaching out to their brothers and sisters during the phone banks, worksite leaflets, labor walks, and through local union mail are going to make the difference.
Georgia’s union members are mobilized around the state to get out every vote in this critical election.
