Why The Labor Movement

Welcome to the Third Act Union Sun Day Blog! Glad you arrived.

There is a beautifully wrenching labor song that reaches back to the 1912 Lawrence, Mass. Textile Strike. It can speak to us today if we care to listen as we educate, organize and mobilize to create a transition to an economy that runs on renewable and clean energy, like solar power. It goes like this:

“As We go marching, marching in the beauty of the day;

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lots grey;

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses;

For the people hear us singing Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.

As we go marching marching, we battle too for men;

For they are women’s children and we mother them again;

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses.”

Workers need more than just sun. They need an end to exploitation, exclusion, poverty, economic and political insecurity and empty promises. They need a strong Labor Movement to ensure that their needs and interests and those of their families and communities are at the top of the Energy Transition agenda. The power of the Sun alone does not a Just Transition make. They Need Bread, Roses and Clean Energy and Justice.

Bread and Roses was composed by workers struggling against the grinding exploitation of the transition to industrial capitalism. Climate Change itself and the necessary transition to an advanced economy run on solar and other renewable resources could be just as disruptive and brutal to workers’ lives, families and communities if we – the Environmental Movement and the Labor Movement – join together to plan and win a Just Transition that puts workers’ interests at the head of the agenda. We need to fight together to make sure no worker is left behind.

That is why Third Act Union urges that we raise the issue of a Just Transition and that we center the voices, interests and needs of working people and their power in our messaging and mobilization on Sun Day, September 20-21.

In this blog you will find articles and opinion pieces about Just Transition, Climate Change, Solar Power and the jobs it creates, and how Unions have benefited from the programs in former President Biden’s climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, suggestions for further reading, and links to help you reach out to Labor-based Climate and Environmental organizations.

You will also find links to a spreadsheet with the names and contact information of Labor folks who are willing to speak at Sun Day events about Just Transition, and Labor’s role in it (link coming soon). Plus you will find a link to our slide deck (link coming soon) that you can use for any presentation you are preparing for Sun Day.

Why Should we Center the needs of Workers and the Labor Movement in our Work?

A young boy, Pogo, stands in front of a littered landscape with the text "We have met the enemy and he is us" — Walt Kelly’s , 1971 Pogo Cartoon.

Today in anticipation of Sun Day as we consider the need for a Just Transition, we might paraphrase Pogo to say this: We have met the Working Class and it is Us.

Workers, the American Working Class, will in a wide range of occupations face ever escalating danger from intensifying Climate Change – at work and at home. Climate Change for them is a double edged sword that will cut deep.

They will be most impacted by advancing dangerous climate change. They will be the most impacted by the transition to a clean renewable energy economy.

As heat and humidity rises, a variety of work places – e.g. warehouses, restaurants, factories, and especially a range of industrial and agricultural outdoor work – will become killing floors and killing fields. Workers and their families will be deprived of income and benefits, like health care. And, they will be displaced as workplaces and industries adjust to the move away from fossil fuels and onto clean, renewable energy.

It will be both a moral and strategic failing on our part if we do not commit to centering their needs into the plan for the clean energy transition.

More to the point, we will sell ourselves and our cause short if we view workers and the Labor Movement as a “special” interest,” or the “other.” They are not. They are us, to paraphrase Pogo, our families, friends and neighbors.

In fact, more than 60% of the U.S. population is in the working class (Michael Zweig, America’s Working Class Majority, Cornell University Press, 2000). For a deeper discussion of these issues, see the guest article “Why Workers Need the Sun ” by Jeremy Brecher, co-founder and senior strategic advisor for the Labor Network for Sustainability and author of Strike!

What We Mean When We Call For a Just Transition

Certainly what it is not is a few training programs for workers who have spent 20-30 years of their lives in their industry honing their craft; and sessions with the computer terminal in the Unemployment Compensation office looking at openings for jobs that pay half of what the job just lost paid.

For Us in Third Act, here is a guiding principle on Just Transition:

Ask the Labor Movement, Union Leaders and workers what they think and what they think they need to guarantee work, income, health care, employment, community and economic investment to replace what was lost in transition.

But this transformation cannot be done to workers—it must be done with workers.

If labor – working people, the working class – is not organized, empowered, and protected, the transition will either fail and/ or repeat the injustices of the fossil fuel era. See Why must we organize the South? by Southern Workers Assembly.

(See our Took Kit for help on doing this; and see our Communicators Bureau to access people willing to speak on this topic on Sun Day and beyond).

We Cannot Decarbonize the Economy Without the Power of Labor, Unions and the Majority of Working People.

The Labor Movement, Unions and workers have organized economic and political power and resources we do not. We cannot win a clean energy transformation of the economy alone. The fossil fuel industry is too powerful. We need to build a disciplined and powerful coalition to fossil fuel companies who are adamantly opposed to our agenda.

And, workers in energy, transit, logistics, education, public infrastructure, and more are the ones who will build, operate, maintain, and transition the systems we need for a just and regenerative future.

What Centering Labor Really Means

This can’t be surface-level. We need real commitments and structure. Here’s what that looks like:

Shared Leadership & Planning

Invite unions–at all levels–, worker centers, and rank-and-file groups into Sun Day’s planning at the local, regional, and national level.
Create dedicated labor-climate strategy teams or tables.

Worker-Driven Messaging

Use language that reflects working people’s realities—bread-and-butter demands, health and safety, job security, rising costs, dignity on the job.
Frame solar and renewables not just as clean—but as public, unionized, and community-controlled.
Say clearly: “We won’t build a clean energy economy on the backs of exploited workers. No Worker should be left behind.

Demand Real Guarantees

Sun Day should elevate specific, material demands that align climate goals with labor rights, such as:

Expanded Organizing Rights that protect workers and help build strong unions.
Union jobs with family-supporting wages and benefits in all solar and renewable projects
Mandatory project labor agreements (PLAs) and community benefit agreements (CBAs)
Full health and pension protections, guaranteed incomes and reemployment guarantees for displaced in all industries impacted by climate change and the transition.
Public ownership and democratic control of renewable energy infrastructure

Support Worker Action in Our Sun Day Agenda

Create space for workers to speak, lead, and take visible action on Sun Day.
Encourage joint actions—pickets, worksite mobilizations, teach-ins, or even job actions where appropriate.
Provide legal and political support for labor militancy tied to climate goals. Let’s discuss.

The Vision: A True People-Powered Sun Day

If we do this right, Sun Day can be more than a climate event—it can be a turning point in the labor-climate movement.

Imagine September 22:

Workers and Unions from all Economic Sectors impacted by Climate Change and the necessity of transitioning to clean, renewable energy and a just and humane economy standing with climate and environmental justice advocates.
Solar workers rallying alongside teachers demanding ,(green, safe and healthy workplaces and green and healthy communities), green schools.
Public sector unions organizing town halls on a just transition.
Frontline communities demanding (investment in healthy community infrastructure, clean power and good (Union) jobs .
Climate organizations, labor, youth, and elders standing together to say: