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
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
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 →
