Workers and the Energy Transition
Energy runs the world, and how energy is produced and used is undergoing a historic transformation. As UN secretary general Antonio Guterres recently said, “We are on the cusp of a new era. Fossil fuels are running out of road. The sun is rising on a clean energy age.”
If we get on the right side of this transformation we can solve many of the most serious problems we face – not only climate destruction and environmental degradation, but also racial injustice, insecurity, economic inequality, job degradation, healthcare collapse, international cooperation, world peace, and many others.
But right now our country is on the wrong side of this transformation, and therefore we face a future of economic, social, and environmental doom. Currently the US government is doubling down on fossil fuels and doing everything it can to resist the energy revolution, not only at home, but worldwide. This is manifested in defunding of renewable energy, astronomical tariffs on climate-protecting technologies, demands that other countries buy fossil fuels, payoffs to fossil fuel companies, and many other actions. The American people will pay a heavy price for being on the losing side of the energy revolution.
American workers will be prime victims of this suicidal attack on climate protecting technologies and investments. Already electricity prices for US consumers have gone up nearly 10% just as a result of the gutting of climate protecting legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act. The dismantling of climate investment will lead to the loss of millions of jobs. Investors are already pulling back from investing in the US because of the fear that high costs for fossil fuel energy will make it uncompetitive. Investments in fossil fuels – and in everything that runs on them – are in danger of becoming “stranded assets” that have lost their economic value because they are more expensive than their fossil-free competitors. And of course, the favoring of fossil fuels over fossil-free energy will aggravate the global warming that is worsening apocalyptic floods, droughts, wildfires, and other climate catastrophes around the country and around the world.
Our unions are particularly well placed to combat this self-destructive trend. Right now, unions across the country are participating in the building of solar farms, wind turbines, electric transmission lines, public transit, electric vehicles, low-emission buildings, and hundreds of other climate-protecting, job producing programs.
Right here in New England, unions in Rhode Island and Massachusetts signed an agreement with SouthCoast Wind in September to ensure labor protections for operations and maintenance workers on offshore wind facilities – facilities that President Trump is trying to block and that are currently being fought over in the courts. And in Boston, LIUNA Local 7 members assisted in a $63 million project to rebuild and improve public housing buildings by implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy measures that created more than 600 local jobs.
Despite the attacks on such constructive efforts by Donald Trump and his fossil-fuel backers, unions can work with local and state governments, environmental allies, and local communities to protect and expand these efforts. We can point out how the attack on fossil-free energy is really an attack on workers and communities – destroying our very future. And we can put forward a program for fossil-free reconstruction that will put the people of our country to work building the just, prosperous, and climate-safe future we need and deserve.
