This panel discussion will foster dialogue about the considerations needed to center municipalization and non-profit energy coops around the overlapping concerns of labor, utility affordability for low-income households, and climate justice. Panelists will share reflections and lessons learned from labor community efforts and recent municipalization ballot questions. We will encourage constructive dialogues between different groups to foster mutual learning, solidarity, and reciprocity, while recognizing the intersectional needs for a just transition that incorporates labor, energy justice, economic justice, and climate justice.
Please note: Jeremy Brecher will be presenting virtually.
Senior Labor Educator, U-Mass Dartmouth Labor Education Center
Camilo is long time labor and community organizer from a working class immigrant family in SE Mass. He is a first generation student who graduated from UMass Dartmouth and is passionate about connecting students to workplace and local community struggles. In his work he uses popular... Read More →
Senior Strategic Advisor, Co-Founder, Labor Network for Sustainability
Jeremy Brecher is a writer, historian, and activist who is the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements, most recently The Green New Deal from Below: How Ordinary People Are Building a Just and Climate-Safe Economy. Over the course of half a century Brecher... Read More →
I am the president of a statewide federation of labor organizations representing approximately 40,000 workers in our mostly rural state of 1.3 million people. Our organization has supported single-payer universal healthcare for a long time. For the past three years we have had an... Read More →
Mireille (she/they) works with community groups fighting fossil fuel infrastructure and waste facilities across Massachusetts, facilitates the Fix the Grid campaign to overhaul the regional electric grid, and helps manage the overall operations of Slingshot. Before Slingshot, Mireille... Read More →
isaac sevier is the founder and Executive Director of Public Grids, a national organization at the heart of the movement for public power and utility justice in the United States. isaac is an energy engineer and policy advocate with experience addressing interlocked issues of race... Read More →
Saturday April 5, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am EDT
Talbot Lecture Hall85 Bedford St Portland, ME 04101 United States
Maine Community Power Cooperative (MCPC) is the result of years of cooperative development work by the Center for an Ecology-Based Economy. From humble beginnings in the western Maine foothills, to being awarded $5M in one of the US Department of Energy’s most competitive grant programs, MCPC is pioneering a disruptive business model that puts people first.
We are a consumer-owned cooperative that develops, owns, and operates small-scale community solar projects on behalf of our members. Think of us as part energy company, part social movement.
Our mission is to provide equitable access to clean renewable energy. Our member-owned cooperative lowers energy expenses and improves resiliency through solar power, energy storage, efficiency and education. We empower communities, strengthen local economies, and promote ecological practices through community-based energy systems.
Our focus on replicable, small-scale projects that utilize dual-axis trackers and integrate agrivoltaic principles turns the tables on large-scale corporate energy development that further enriches wealthy investors at the expense of Maine ratepayers and sensible land use practices.
Mainers export more than $4B each year paying for fossil fuels to power our automobiles, heat our homes, and power our grid. MCPC’s consumer-owned business model keeps energy dollars in our communities. If Maine’s transition to 100% clean energy is to be just, beneficial electrification must be beneficial to all.
Small-scale renewable energy projects strengthen our grid, create good paying jobs, and provide stability to the residents and businesses who need it most. Cooperative ownership ensures profits remain in the hands of Mainers, generating long-term wealth, including for low-income households.
This presentation will address the evolution of the idea from a single cooperatively-owned project in western Maine, to a scalable platform for cooperative ownership of energy generation with national implications.
Executive Director, Center for an Ecology-Based Economy
Scott Vlaun is a writer, photographer, and since 2013, the founding Executive Director of the Center for an Ecology-Based Economy (CEBE) in Norway, Maine. He is also the Board President of Maine Community Power Cooperative, which was incorporated as a consumer-owned cooperative in... Read More →
Saturday April 5, 2025 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT
Abromson Room 21688 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
This participatory workshop will provide an introduction to the strategic role that cooperatives can play in the labor movement towards a just transition, not as an alternative to unions and other worker organizations, but rather in collaboration with them. We will focus on examples of how cooperatives created by and for marginalized, historically under-represented workers have been uniquely situated to address immediate community needs while providing ways to demonstrate raising industry standards. Those same workers are often most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, so we will look at ways that the formation of cooperatives rooted in community needs can lead the way and drive change towards climate adaptation and mitigation solutions.
We’ll share case studies of the strategic use of cooperatives by immigrant communities to transform both working conditions and environmental impact in historically abusive industries; the role cooperatives have played in disaster response and rebuilding local economies after disruptions; and examples of conversions of existing businesses to worker cooperatives, at times as a result of partnerships with unions, that have resulted in localized climate mitigation and adaptation solutions while simultaneously raising the bar for wages and working conditions.
This session will use time in small groups to review and reflect on these case studies, draw out lessons together, and talk about what can be learned and applied locally.
Education and Training Manager, Cooperative Development Institute
Heather Foran is the Education and Training Manager for worker buyouts at the Cooperative Development Institute. In this role, she supports workers who are converting existing businesses to worker cooperatives. She spent many years as a member and board member of the Southern Maine... Read More →
Director of Immigrant Services, Cooperative Development Institute
Pável Uranga is the Director of Immigrant Services at the Cooperative Development Institute. Pável is a radio producer, community journalist, and community organizer with more than 20 years of experience working with unions, students, campesinos, and human rights organizations in... Read More →
Saturday April 5, 2025 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT
Abromson Room 21388 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
As people worldwide struggle with ecological and climate disasters, it is clear climate change is not a vague threat on the horizon. Workers in almost every sector have heard abstract promises of divestment and carbon neutrality from their companies. But as Maine lacks midwinter snow and wildfires engulf miles of Los Angeles, we must wonder: is capitalism capable of the change we need? Is it really possible to halt the march of climate change while capitalist competition dominates?
The Independent Socialist Group (ISG) - which operates in solidarity with the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) - understands that because the climate crisis spans borders, its solutions must, too. To save the planet, workers everywhere must create a mass movement of workers and youth for climate justice, and a just transformation of society. But what exactly would this look like? What strategies can workers - both union and nonunion - take up to help make this a reality?
Not only do we need to fight to protect workers from being left behind in a greener economy, but workers must take the lead role in transforming our economic system from a polluting, rapacious capitalism to one that defends our homes, our future, and our climate.
In turn, we hope to ask (and hopefully answer) key questions during our roundtable discussion, such as: What would it mean to take energy and utility companies into democratic public ownership? Where in working class history can we look for wisdom? Is it possible to expand public transportation to provide high-speed, accessible transit funded by taxing polluting industries? How is a “united front” different from a “popular front,” and why does this matter in combating climate change? How might we connect with workers across borders and sectors?
Legislative and Safety Representative, General Secretary, SMART-TD Local 1473, Railroad Workers United
Nick Wurst is a railroad worker from Massachusetts with over 5 years, first as an intermodal worker and currently as a freight train conductor and locomotive engineer. He is the Legislative and Safety Representative for SMART-TD Local 1473 and also serves as the General Secretary... Read More →
William Ntsoane is a mechanical engineer for a local ocean engineering consultancy. His realms of interest include issues of renewable energy, the circular economy, and economic development.
MSW Student, UMGWU-UAW Member, University of Southern Maine
Milena Germon is currently a full-time MSW student at the University of Southern Maine with over 5 years of experience working in the nonprofit world. She is also a graduate research assistant in the social work department, and proud part of the USM Graduate Workers Union effort... Read More →
Saturday April 5, 2025 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT
Abromson Room 21588 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
The University of Maine System is the state’s public school; the people of Maine ought to feel they have ownership of it: ownership to participate in its activities, to carry its mission along, and to influence that mission—to ensure that it does indeed serve people and engage with their expressed needs. In some ways, UMaine demonstrates what is possible for a university in relation to the climate crisis: i.e. its wind energy projects. In other ways, though, it entrenches the uncritical, defeatist notion largely shared in the ecological and environmental sciences that the climate and biodiversity crises are beyond confronting; we are long past prevention, all that’s left for us is mitigation (for some). We disagree that things have to be this way. We reject that these crises are inevitable and instead contend that we can do something about it—right here, right now. The Universities of Maine can play important institutional roles in a future considerate of all.
Unions provide a voice and potential political power for working people. As climate change accelerates and climate impact grows, the economy will be forced to adapt. If we want this coming transition to be socially just, economically responsible, and politically viable, unions will have to play a big role. When a union is, as Jane McAlevey says, “Strike Ready,” they have a lot more leverage at the table. Becoming strike-ready requires building strong solidarity. Changing the course on climate will require both of those things – solidarity and leverage. Building for a general strike would require organizing beyond unions. Challenges include that our organizing ability is still weak, even in most unions, and of course it is usually even more difficult outside unions where workers – or anyone – don’t have an organizing infrastructure to support them. Building for a solidarity action of this size demands finding the common ground and building people’s interest and ability to support action to win that common ground. The opportunity is that a clear goal – general strike – will help define which actions are moving toward the solidarity goal and which aren’t as organizations and individuals decide toward which actions to allocate their resources and capacity. This framework is even more important now that the Trump administration has throw so much into flux, including electric vehicles and battery production, and a long list of ecologically critical infrastructure and production.
I am the president of a statewide federation of labor organizations representing approximately 40,000 workers in our mostly rural state of 1.3 million people. Our organization has supported single-payer universal healthcare for a long time. For the past three years we have had an... Read More →
