Corporate profiteers and climate change are driving our cost of living out of control. We'll learn from organized workers leading and winning fights that promote affordable communities and a safer climate. Then we'll discuss how our own unions could lead, with contracts and coalitions, to bring down the cost of a good living.
Semiconductor production in the U.S. is set to triple in the next decade, with hundreds of billions in private investment and federal and state subsidies. But these new chip factories bring with them exploitation of workers and toxic byproducts that can contaminate our air, water, and land. We’ll share reports from the front lines of struggles in the semiconductor industry and talk about building worker and community power to make sure these companies are good employers and neighbors.
It's 110 degrees out, but the boss wants business as usual. How can we bring our co-workers together to keep us safe—and build our power—through all the climate mayhem? Hear from workers who have organized around heat, floods, and other dangerous weather. Then you'll have the chance to discuss how your co-workers already bring up climate issues, and plan steps towards collective action.
Rising temperatures, severe storms, and other climate-fueled disasters are already threatening workers' safety. While health and safety laws are designed to protect workers during emergency conditions, enforcement agencies do not have resources to keep workers from harm. Unions can both prevent these risks and fight for a sustainable planet. Practice using health and safety tools to reflect on your own experiences with climate change hazards and take action in your union.
To shape a pro-worker economic future, we'll need industrial policy: coordinated goverment action to plan what our economy produces and how. Learn how some unions and community organizations are beginning to do this at the state and federal levels.
It's critical that jobs in the clean energy sector become high-quality, union jobs. Unions are beginning to make this happen in two ways: legislative campaigns and industrial policy from the top, and new organizing from below. Come learn about the development of clean energy industries and how unions are taking advantage of opportunities to organize.
Catastrophic fires, floods, earthquakes, and the daily degradation of life from industrial pollution are the urgent realities of emergency responders around the world. Firefighters, first responders, and emergency room nurses are embedded in these harsh realities day after day, while our governments cut budgets, reduce services, and ignore long-term consequences. But, as these unionists explain, it is possible to use the power of emergency workers to forge a path forward.
Real solutions to the climate crisis depend on workers' know-how. But CEOs hope to cash in on "greener" technology to undercut our unions and degrade our jobs. Hear from workers who started conversations and took action to set the terms for clean energy shifts at work. Then you'll have the chance to discuss what your co-workers are saying about green changes ahead, and plan workplace conversations for green transitions that grow worker power.
