Labour and climate activists gathered to exchange experiences and plan for future action at the Second Labor Convergence on Climate event, held on September 23-24, under the banner “Building Worker Power to Confront Climate Change.” The meeting was hosted by the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS), which recently released a report on the meetings summarizing the impressive initiatives and projects, including: the Canadian Postal Workers Union proposal Delivering Community Power, which envisions expansion and re-purposing of the postal station network to provide electric vehicle charging stations, farm-to-table food delivery, and community banking ; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters described the San Francisco Zero Waste program that now diverts 80% of municipal waste from landfills into recycling and composting and provides union jobs; Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199 described their environmental and climate justice programs, resulting from the impact of disasters like Superstorm Sandy; worker training programs at the Net-Zero Energy training facility built by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 595 in partnership with the Northern California National Electrical Contractors Association; the United Food and Commercial Workers described their experience with the Good Food Purchasing Policy as a tool for protecting and enhancing labor standards for workers in the food industry and advancing climate justice; and the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen profiled their successful Green Diesel campaign to win cleaner fuel engines and a visionary strategy called “Solutionary Rail” , profiled in “How we can turn railroads into a climate solution” in Grist (March 2017) and in “ Electric Trains everywhere – A Solution to crumbling roads and climate crisis” in YES Magazine (May 2017).
Participants at the Second Labor Convergence on Climate included over 130 people – labour union leaders, organizers, and rank and file activists from 17 unions, 3 state federations/central labor councils and 6 labor support organizations, as well as environmental and economic justice activists.