The dominant narrative [diary link] about labor unions and climate change is that fossil fuel workers are a major roadblock to action. There’s good reason for that reputation. In California, building trades unions have fought against limiting oil and gas extraction and won industry-friendly changes to climate policies. Nationally, labor leaders have urged President Biden not to block oil pipelines such as Keystone XL (which was just canceled) and Minnesota’s Line 3 [diary link] (where the Biden administration sand-blasted protesters this week).
That opposition is driven partly by uncertainty about what comes next if traditional energy jobs go away. It makes perfect sense. So it’s worth slowing down to examine a groundbreaking new report — endorsed by 19 unions, including two representing thousands of California oil workers — that offers a preview of what the path forward might look like.
The report estimates the Golden State could create 418,000 clean energy jobs per year through a program to cut climate pollution in half over the next decade. It could create even more jobs — 626,000 per year — through investments in related areas such as water infrastructure, leaky gas pipelines, [schools,] public parks and roadways, some but not all of which would also reduce emissions….
and it was organized labor that spearheaded and paid for the research, particularly Local 675 of the United Steelworkers, representing 4,500 members, about two-thirds of them employed in oil refining and extraction in Los Angeles County — the full list of all 19 unions endorsing the report is here! They include some that helped fund the report, such as the California Federation of Teachers and Local 3299 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Two labor organizations, Jobs With Justice San Francisco and the Labor Network for Sustainability, helped to coordinate.
This is from today’s Boiling Point newsletter by Sammy Roth, whose work is pretty terrific. I subscribe, so I get email notification of each Boiling Point newsletter/article he posts.
Sammy Roth covers energy for the Los Angeles Times and writes the weekly Boiling Point newsletter. He previously reported for the Desert Sun and USA Today, where he focused on renewable energy, climate change, electric utilities and public lands. He grew up in Westwood and would very much like to see the Dodgers win the World Series again.
Roth goes on to review the 178-page linked report, A PROGRAM FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY AND CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION IN CALIFORNIA, by Robert Pollin, Jeannette Wicks-Lim, Shouvik Chakraborty, Caitlin Kline, and Gregor Semieniuk — Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts-Amherst — JUNE 2021.
That report is supported not only by the Los Angeles steelworkers local but also by is United Steelworkers Local 5, which represents Bay Area refinery workers.
Roth finds the proposal estimating that we could halve climate pollution in five years through 1 million jobs —418,000 new clean energy jobs per year, plus another 626,000 per year that would somewhat also contribute to decreased emissions —
through investments in related areas such as water infrastructure, leaky gas pipelines, public parks and roadways [at a total price tag of] $138 billion annually, which sounds like a lot until you realize it’s not even 4% of the state’s expected GDP.
Even more encouraging, equitably transitioning fossil-fuel workers whose jobs would be gone would come to $470 million/year, about 0.02% of expected GDP, including retirement, pension obligations, retraining and relocation, and “wage insurance”
guaranteeing new jobs with three years’ worth of total pay at the same level as workers’ old fossil fuel employment
Please do read Roth’s entire newsletter if you possibly can. It continues with an interview with Dave Campbell, secretary-treasurer of Local 675, who’s matter-of-fact outlook is also the opposite of our assumptions about the people in this industry: “An energy transition is coming whether we like it or not, and it’s crucial that we build a secure future for workers and their families.”
And Roth also spoke with members of other labor groups that have endorsed the linked report. Although those are not fossil fuel sector unions, he says their perspectives help demonstrate that the “climate action versus jobs” argument is an empty one in missing too much of the big picture more and more union members are coming to recognize, including those in the industries we’ve thought immoveable.
Stronger together.