Good morning, everyone! I really want to thank the whole Climate Jobs team for your work to make clean energy jobs GOOD, UNION jobs today and every day.
Because we all know: Bringing together climate and labor…this has been a long road.
Not always easy. Not always overnight.
But it’s a road that many of us have walked together. I know that for a fact as I look around this room and see so many faces who’ve been at this for a long time…and many who are new, and that’s exciting too.
So thank you to everyone in this room—but there are two people who deserve a special recognition for their pioneering work: Mike Fishman, a founding officer of CJNY and President of the Climate Jobs National Resource Center. And Vinny Alvarez, the President of our Central Labor Council here in New York City, and also a groundbreaking leader on these issues. Who has done an outstanding job as a connector…a facilitator…and pushing us all forward. And he’s just one of many amazing State and local AFL-CIO leaders in the room today.
I still remember vividly, being here in the City in 2017 for the launch of Climate Jobs NY—and how groundbreaking it was, and I want to thank the NY Building Trades Gary LaBarbara for his pivotal role in getting things started.
I remember feeling that incredible energy and momentum. The fact that finally…we as a labor movement were going to lead, and be at the front edge of the clean energy transition.
And I think what we’ve proven every day since then is that when we work together on this issue…when we build collective power not just here in New York, or in the U.S., but with workers and labor all over the world…
We’re unstoppable. We can do big things—huge things—when we come together.
Shortly thereafter in 2019, I went to Scandinavia. We worked with our sister unions in Denmark and Norway to leverage our collective power, 12.5 million workers strong and 60 unions, to talk directly with some of the largest renewable energy companies in the world about exporting high road labor standards when they build and operate in the U.S.
What came out of that trip was groundbreaking in many ways for our Federation. It showed us what’s possible – that workers and their unions can shape the future, not just react to it.
And over the past few years, along with this coalition, we’ve made a lot of remarkable gains.
But we all see this is the moment when the pendulum is going to swing one way or the other. Either we’re going to shape this clean energy transition with workers at the center—demanding our seat at the table, demanding equity for women and workers of color, demanding our right to bargain and organize these sectors…
…OR we’re going to miss a huge opportunity and be dragged backwards.
And let companies set bad standards in a race to the bottom.
And watch that pendulum swing toward politicians like Donald Trump…that want to reverse the progress we’ve made and try to divide us.
So I’m here because I think we can get back to that very simple, very important idea of doing big things together.
We see that over and over again when it comes to our unions. Just a few days ago…we had 15 unions from different sectors – all with equity in the offshore wind industry come together at the White House; agree on how we collectively need to move forward; and unleash positive action because we unified our asks and direction.
When we join together, we win. And there are three areas where our collaboration and unity could unleash massive opportunities:
The First is: We can get these companies to the table to make commitments at scale. Where we negotiate a baseline set of standards so they aren’t able to pit one state against another. Whether that’s in offshore wind or a tech company like Microsoft.
You may know this: a year and a half ago, I met with Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft.
He saw what was happening at Starbucks and the momentum of our labor movement across the country. We talked about Artificial Intelligence and the impact on workers, and the more we shared our concerns and the potential of the labor movement, the more it became clear we should work together to bring worker voices and perspectives into the labs and upstream in the development of AI. But that partnership wouldn’t be real without the protection of a union…
So you may have seen, we negotiated a history-making neutrality agreement. The first time in nearly 60 years of these tech giants…that they have formally recognized labor rights in a signed agreement. Which guarantees us neutrality for 100,000 workers for direct employees and across the supply chain.
And I use that example because…we have the potential to negotiate those types of top-down agreements with the big energy companies, if we work together.
These are nascent industries and a new frontier for the labor movement.
And if we set this standard now from the top-down…it’s going to have ramifications not just in the clean energy sector but across the whole economy.
The Second area where collaboration and unity will be a game changer is: bottom up organizing but with multiple unions all throwing in together across a company or sector. Bringing unions together on the front end, so we’re bringing power and scale together, instead of just individually.
That’s a space where I think our Federation is uniquely positioned to play a big role—which is why we launched our Center for Transformational Organizing, or CTO.
Think about these new opportunities in the Deep South—like in Georgia, for example, where we had that huge win with the bus manufacturer Blue Bird last year.
Our CTO is now working with the Georgia AFL-CIO under the leadership of President Yvonne Brooks, along with the trades and manufacturing unions to make sure the federal investments going into the EV sector results in good union jobs—from construction to parts and components.
We can treat all of those as individual campaigns…or we can come together and drive a multi-union organizing campaign that is going to set the standard across the board, amplify our reach and build long lasting capacity in a state that will be pivotal politically for years to come.
And Georgia is just the beginning because we’re going to expand that approach across the entire South and across the country.
There is one more way we can come together more powerfully. My third and final thought on collaboration to make a difference is the biggest thing we can possibly do in 2024.
And that’s a massive education and mobilization effort to turn out the vote and protect all our hard fought gains. I know this is not a political organization, but civic participation and waking people up to the stakes is the most urgent challenge in front of us.
We are now less than eleven months from Election Day. And I don’t think I have to tell anyone in this room what’s at stake.
Tearing down the IRA. Tearing down the gains we’ve made on infrastructure and clean energy. Dragging us backward—on an issue when we don’t have one day to spare.
We need to win of course at the presidential level. But that’s not enough if we don’t complement it with wins in the Senate, the House, statewide races, local ones too.
And we’ve spent the past few years proving the labor movement is the best turnout machine in the country.
We flipped the State house in Virginia last year.
We helped Governor Beshear stand strong in Kentucky.
We got rid of right-to-work in Michigan.
We set out to be a 24/7 political force at every level, and we’re going to keep going in 2024.
And what we find is that when we come together in these critical areas—to drive these history-making neutrality agreements, and organize multi-union campaigns, take advantage of these historic federal investments to organize, and come together in our get out the vote efforts—the goals we have around climate and economic security for workers advance as well.
We get more women in the trades.
We deliver more opportunities for communities of color and advance racial justice and equity as Dr. King talked about when he said jobs and justice are interconnected.
When we organize and grow stronger…when we drive workers to the polls…when we change the trajectory of workers’ lives, their families, and entire communities…
We’re proving:
It’s climate AND workers.
It’s the economy AND the environment.
It’s jobs AND justice.
I can’t wait to keep showing the world what the labor movement is capable of when we stand together and work in partnership, and ain’t no stopping us now! Thank you.