by It’s the job of socialists to show that there are concrete steps working people can take today to put us all on the path to save the world from the climate criminals we call capitalists.
By Stan Strasner
When DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to US Congress and popularized the idea of a Green New Deal, it marked a new era for the environmental movement. It was a bold agenda to lift up the living conditions of working people as part of a rapid restructuring of the economy toward environmental sustainability. It said that inequality was a cause of climate change, and that a big part of the solution should be things like a jobs guarantee, free public transit, healthcare, and housing for all.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has gone even further in fighting for a Green New Deal that includes taking energy companies into democratic public ownership and leading efforts such as the campaign to pass the PRO Act.
On August 10th, DSA and US Congressmember Jamaal Bowman launched the Green New Schools campaign which aims to tax the rich to fund a $1.4 trillion plan for retrofitting schools with eco-materials and fully staffing school buildings with a huge jobs program in high-need communities. This campaign presents an outstanding opportunity for educators to bring the fight for the Green New Deal into our unions and workplaces.
The Green New Schools campaign is an outstanding opportunity for educators to bring the fight for the Green New Deal into our unions.
Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the fight for safe schools with clean air has been a hot issue throughout the country. School buildings across the US have been left in disrepair after decades of inadequate funding; they are not set up to provide a healthy environment for students, educators, and families. Just like the 2018 #RedForEd strike wave of teachers, the fight for Green New Schools can draw massive support from a wide base of the working class with the labor movement taking the lead.
Union activists should seize this opportunity with both hands! Here are three steps that will be important to successfully build the campaign:
1
Link the Green New Deal to the fight against racism.
The task of uniting the whole working class for a Green New Deal cannot be carried out without a specific fight against environmental racism. Because of a legacy of capitalist class-imposed red-lining, segregation, and forced relocation, Black and Indigenous communities are often the most impacted by climate change. Hurricane Katrina, the Flint water crisis, and the Dakota Access Pipeline are just some of the high profile examples of everyday crimes that the ruling class inflicts on these communities.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The Green New Deal should be used as a unifying rallying call in all of these struggles against oppression and for investing in working-class communities. Labor struggles such as Black Lives Matter at School is an outstanding example of how union activists can bring movements for racial justice into our unions.
2
Don’t rely on the Democratic Party establishment.
The Green New Deal is not popular among the Democratic Party establishment who prefer “pro-business solutions” to climate change. Nancy Pelosi shamefully referred to it as “the Green New Dream or whatever” when it was first brought to Congress. A policy structured to benefit working people that places the cost on big business doesn’t work for corporate Democrats.
Labor leaders often rely on their lobbyists friendly with the Democratic Party to push a legislative agenda. This is paired with an idea of limiting political activity to what is acceptable to so-called labor-friendly politicians who are also funded by big business. Workers shouldn’t limit themselves to this short-sighted vision and should force politicians to support a movement on working-class terms.
3
Build a strong rank-and-file base.
Having all the best ideas in the world won’t be enough to win a Green New Deal. We’ll need to have a strong base of workers who are united around a strategy of taking on billionaire polluters. A rank-and-file approach means busting out of a narrow vision of running a union like an insurance firm for members, toward a union run by the workers that organizes a fight with the capitalist class, aiming to get the whole working class involved.
Union activists should form Green New Deal action committees in every local. These committees can plan educational programs, do community outreach, and be ready to organize members of our unions to take action together when big climate events occur. These committees can help build up alliances with other unions to plan days of action around climate issues on the worksite and get the media to cover labor’s fight for a Green New Deal.
It can be understandably depressing to think about the daunting task of fighting against climate change. Making real headway would rightly mean taking on the most powerful forces in society. It’s the job of socialists to show that there are concrete steps working people can take today to put us all on the path to save the world from the climate criminals we call capitalists.
