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| BY KEITH BROWER BROWN |
Democrats win control of the White House, Senate, and House. In the new president’s first year, he announces a climate bill with fanfare: it’s America’s plan to lead the world again. The largest environmental NGOs cheer and hope with bated breath. Then, against broad corporate opposition, the climate bill dies in quiet misery… at heart, the 2021 climate bill stuck with the most basic neoliberal strategy: to use government to “unlock substantial private capital,” as bill advocates at the World Resources Institute put it plainly. By November, after right-wing Democrats had whittled down the bill for months, the most generous climate measure left was an extension of hundreds of billions in tax cuts for private clean energy companies.
No Change Without Conflict
Over and over, Biden promised “good union jobs” would spring from his “clean energy revolution.” However, his climate policies left workers’ power as an afterthought in nearly every way
Pro-worker climate policy might someday earn the support of a powerful working-class army, but first, we have to help bring that army into existence.
Shop Floor Strategy and Solidarity Campaigns
Like many thousands, I helped lobby legislators, build local sustainability projects, and disseminate climate science, and I joined the grand marches and photo ops. Blockading dirty energy…
Instead of imagining ourselves as the enlightened vanguard leading the general public, serious climate activists need to get tight with the specific part of the public that could win… If they were to unite and pull the lever down — by going on strike, for example — segments of the economy would grind to a halt and capitalists’ profits would suffer. That potential gives this segment of the population enormous power to influence capitalists’ behavior.
There are plenty of real-world examples showing how workers can build power for a climate transition. The United Steelworkers (USW), a major union of oil refinery workers, is demanding to slash climate pollution from their workplaces... Since the 1970s, Australian union construction workers have often declared “green bans,” refusing to build environmentally destructive projects, a tradition started by socialists in the union. In the last few months, German autoworkers fighting to keep their jobs in the electric car transition have built alliances with climate activists to raise pressure on the boss and government alike.
By committing to work long term on the shop floor in powerful sectors, climate activists could help their coworkers step up and lead the fight for a transition. Even from outside the workplace, climate activists can wage strike support and labor solidarity campaigns to help workers win..
More union jobs in the climate transition won’t be enough to build a united working-class movement so long as who gets those jobs remains determined by race and gender.
