Talking Union, Talking Climate (2023, 15 minutes) Three oil workers share their experiences and views about their jobs, labor conditions, and thoughts on the impact of climate change on their industry. Their conversation is both a funny and serious dialogue between workers in the global north and south (California, Norway and Nigeria) each of whom is involved in forms of union leadership. But they also are rank and file workers: Charlie is a refinery operator in California, Kristian is an oil platform machinist in Norway, and Didi is fluids engineer in Nigeria, as well as working in other countries. The film is a collaboration that emerged from WAGE, Work and Labour in a Greening Economy, a four-year project funded by the Norwegian Research Council to study the views of oil workers about their role in a green transition, The purpose of the film is to stimulate dialogue among workers and their unions in diverse political economies about how they situate themselves around climate change. But the film is also useful to the wider public to understand workers’ perspectives and their ideas about the green shift. While the beginning of the film follows the three workers as they find similarities and bond as trade unionists in the oil industry, differences soon emerge. These reach a climax when a deep contrast punctuates their experiences and perspectives around climate change. At the end, underlying questions linger about the role of the state, unions, and the power of oil profiteering across countries. Audiences of workers, students, environmentalists, and others have responded with great interest to this covid era film that challenges stereotypes and takes on hard questions about just transitions.
Voices from the green transition (2025, 8 minutes) While scientists worldwide agree that we must reduce greenhouse gasses quickly or face extreme climate change, how are those efforts affecting workers and communities? This piece is the first of several research to film shorts based on studies organized by the University of Leeds Just Transition project, funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation. This initial piece presents stories from unionists in South Africa and workers and Indigenous communities in Chile about the need to involve local people during the phaseout of coal in the former and transition to a green economy in the latter.
At the COP26, western countries and the World Bank set their eyes on rapid decarbonization by lending billions of dollars to several global South countries to abandon coal. In South Africa, that contributed to a rapid shutdown of the Komati coal power plant, celebrated with great fanfare as a model program. However, unionists from the National Union of Mineworkers express their anger at the empty promises of the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), the massive loss of jobs, the lack of authentic skill training and employment in renewable industries and the resulting devastation of a community dependent on coal. There are also issues of growing inequality as the funding further plunges South Africa into debt and privatizes green energy.
In Chile, international investors and private Chilean companies push to expand the extraction of lithium from brine, while the national government attempts to expand domestic control of the industry for the benefit of the country. A lithium worker recounts stories of poor treatment and low wages and the opposition to strong unions, while an Indigenous woman protests the destruction of the fragile habitat of the arid desert where the Atacameňos and others have lived for generations. This glimpse of the center of the world’s green economy calls attention to the contradictions of renewable development driven by profit and without meaningful consultation with workers and communities.
Please note: Vivian Price will be presenting virtually.
Professor, California State University, Dominguez Hills
Vivian Price, PhD, Professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills & former union electrician, is a researcher and filmmaker for US and international projects on labor and climate justice. She was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Liverpool, a Fulbright specialist... Read More →
Thursday April 3, 2025 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Hannaford HallAbromson Community Education Center, 88 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Despite our pristine environmental reputation, Maine has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in New England. As a lifelong Mainer who is raising three children in the Dirigo State, I am passionate about helping to accelerate the transition from finite, polluting fossil... Read More →
Thursday April 3, 2025 2:15pm - 3:15pm EDT
Hannaford HallAbromson Community Education Center, 88 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Labor Educator, Scontras Labor Center, University of Southern Maine
Union organizer, labor educator, and author, Kevin Van Meter, Ph.D. is a teaching fellow at the Dr. Charles A. Scontras Center for Labor and Community Education at the University of Southern Maine. Kevin writes about contemporary labor issues, labor history, and neighboring social... Read More →
Thursday April 3, 2025 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Abromson Room 10988 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Climate infrastructure must be rapidly built in the next 5 to 25 years to meet impending demands of decarbonization in the face of growing climate risks. With the new federal administration, the infusion of massive investments in the green economy is at risk, as well as the labor standards that helped make these investments a historic win for the working class. Yet despite the unclear future of pro-labor federal climate investments, the demand for climate solutions will continue to exist and grow. This panel discussion will examine the consequences of building out climate infrastructure with poor working conditions in the solar industry in New York and Texas, the opportunity to rectify these consequences and foster a pro-labor environment in emerging climate industries like thermal energy networks, and pathways to build the high-quality, equitable union workforce to meet this unprecedented moment.
Lessons learned from the growth of the solar industry: The number of solar job postings has more than tripled since 2010 (Curtis & Marinescu, 2023), however, recent findings from two studies supported by the Climate Jobs Institute in the last year have highlighted serious concerns around job quality, from potential legal concerns to severe racial disparities within each sample.
Applying these lessons and the case of thermal energy networks: Thermal energy networks are an emerging technology to reduce emissions from buildings at the block, neighborhood, or campus scale with the potential to utilize the existing unionized fossil fuel workforce. As thermal energy networks or TENs rapidly gained popularity across the U.S., their proliferation offers a chance to apply the lessons learned from the growth of the solar industry and instead create a truly just transition for organized labor and communities alike.
Ensuring the buildout of a just, equitable green economic future for the working class: Building out the needed infrastructure for a climate-safe economy will take millions of workers, but there is no guarantee that these workers will be highly-trained, well-paid, diverse, and treated with dignity on the job. Union-led programs around the country show what is possible when industry leaders and policymakers prioritize high-road job creation and investment in skill development. Successful models of pre-apprenticeship that specifically support expanding diversity in the trades provide a roadmap for how community, labor, government, and industry can work together to ensure an equitable transition.
Assistant Director of Labor Outreach and Workforce Equity, Climate Jobs Institute
Melissa began her labor career as a community organizer with the Laborers Eastern Region Organizing Fund (LIUNA), working to build multi-stakeholder community labor coalitions to ensure quality and labor standards in affordable housing. She was the Director of Organizing and Political... Read More →
Thursday April 3, 2025 4:45pm - 6:00pm EDT
Abromson Room 21388 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Jobs with Justice (JWJ) is a national network of local coalitions that are leading the fight for workers rights and an economy that works for all. Since the passing of the Bi-Partisian Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act, Jobs with Justice has strategically engaged in opportunities to increase worker power within these federal funds. Local coalitions in our network are anchoring various campaigns and projects with union and community partners to build worker power in the clean energy sectors, leveraging the labor provisions baked into these federal funds. The geographic areas of JWJ’s coalitions engaging in this work are not limited to but do include: East Tennessee, Central Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Pennsylvania and California. There is a wide scope of goals and focus in our networks campaign and project goals, including:
Increasing union density in construction, manufacturing and operations of these clean energy and decarbonization projects.
Increasing representation and retainment of people of color, non-binary individuals and women in the building trades.
Implementation and enforcement of Community Benefit Plans/Community Benefit Agreement provisions.
Ensuring that workers on the construction and operating sides of these projects have union neutrality, specifically in union hostile states in the regional South.
Todd E. Vachon, PhD is Assistant Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University and serves as the Director of the Labor Education Action Research Network (LEARN)—the university’s labor education program. Todd has written extensively about labor and climate... Read More →
Friday April 4, 2025 9:00am - 9:30am EDT
Hannaford HallAbromson Community Education Center, 88 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Leticia Zavala was born in Zacapu, Michoacan in 1979. At the age of six, her family migrated to the United States and immediately started following the migrant stream from Florida to Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. In her teenage years, she became a member of the Farm Labor Organizing... Read More →
Friday April 4, 2025 9:30am - 10:30am EDT
Hannaford HallAbromson Community Education Center, 88 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Rick Levy is the President of the Texas AFL-CIO, a position he was elected to in 2017. As President, Rick has focused on building a broader, bolder and more inclusive labor movement, and weaving a culture of solidarity to address the challenges faced by working people in Texas. Under... Read More →
Friday April 4, 2025 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
Hannaford HallAbromson Community Education Center, 88 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Join assistant professor of Digital Art Janna Ahrndt and MS in Computer Science Nick Largey in a discussion about the environmental and labor impacts of AI and the widening gap between developers and users through a hands-on data and circuit bending workshop. We'll dissect discarded electronics and manipulate digital data, turning frustration into art. Even if we can't save the world, you'll walk away with a newfound appreciation for the ethics of the glitch.
Please bring a laptop to this workshop if you are able to.
Assistant Professor of Digital Art, University of Southern Maine
Janna Ahrndt is unable to focus, and her medium-agnostic art practice seems to reflect that fact often making work utilizing creative coding, video, textiles, and altered household electronics. Born to a working-class family in Northern Indiana, their work follows themes of labor... Read More →
Friday April 4, 2025 1:45pm - 3:00pm EDT
TBDAbromson Community Education Center, 88 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
This workshop will be participatory as well as educational. Christopher will share his expertise in using literary and performance art addressing the climate crisis, racial injustice and inequity, and how he's worked with environmental groups to make an impact. He will ask the audience questions throughout this workshop engaging them in the process. Some questions will be: Where have you experienced this in your community?, and Where have you witnessed effective collaborations in your community where the Arts have been used to address injustice, inequity, and the climate crisis?
We will then compile these examples and create a working, shareable document that participants can use as resources to take home and share with their social and spiritual communities to continue this important work.
Please note: This workshop is geared towards Climate Activists.
Have you ever been frustrated by the number of people involved in your activities, disappointed by weak participation in your actions, and/or the lack of attendance at your events or meetings? This participatory workshop will include exercises that will explore who is and isn't part of the Climate Justice movement and why. We will describe the barriers to involvement and how we can address them to increase participation, strengthen our efforts and win what we want for the long haul!
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 →
Friday April 4, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Abromson Room 21588 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Todd E. Vachon, PhD is Assistant Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University and serves as the Director of the Labor Education Action Research Network (LEARN)—the university’s labor education program. Todd has written extensively about labor and climate... Read More →
Friday April 4, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Abromson Room 21688 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Professor of Anthropology, Chair of Native American Programs, and Faculty Fellow at the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, University of Maine
Darren J. Ranco, PhD, a citizen of the Penobscot Nation, is a Professor of Anthropology, Chair of Native American Programs, and Faculty Fellow at the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine. He has a Masters of Studies in Environmental Law from Vermont... Read More →
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 →
