Unions for climate action! | Payton M. Wilkins (re-release)

Payton M. Wilkins rejects the framing that workers must choose between a paycheck and a healthy environment. Closing coal mines and other polluting facilities can cost workers jobs, wages, and pensions, while harming whole communities: schools may close, local businesses may shut down, homes may be lost, and poverty can deepen. A green economy may create more jobs that are healthier and better paid, but that prospect does not mean displaced coal workers already have green jobs waiting for them. Wilkins says a transition must address what happens to workers and communities, not only the benefits of cleaner energy.

Wilkins says coal’s decline is being driven primarily by profitability, rather than by climate activists or policy alone. Coal is becoming more expensive as renewable energy costs fall, and investors are divesting from coal because of climate impacts and associated risks. That shift means workers may face changes whether or not they have helped plan for them. Wilkins wants miners involved before declining profitability and policy decisions determine their fate, so they can help define what a transition should provide.

His approach begins with listening rather than arriving in workers’ communities to tell them what is best. After a heated disagreement between a United Mine Workers of America leader and climate experts at a Coalition of Black Trade Unionists convention, Wilkins arranged a private conversation where panelists and mine workers could hear one another’s fears, priorities, and concerns about dignity at work. He later began inviting miners to just-transition meetings and conferences. Some miners became open to exploring taxes and emissions standards, though they had not reached the position Wilkins wanted.

Wilkins argues that workers should help shape a path to green jobs while there is still an opportunity to plan for it. Unions can press for federal funding to retrain workers and help ensure people are not forced to choose between making a living and living in a safe, healthy environment. He points to Denmark’s union 3F, which negotiated with the government and wind-energy companies for jobs, retraining programs, and fair wages as the country shifted from fossil fuels to wind energy. The example shows how organized workers can negotiate not just for new jobs, but for training and fair terms as industries change.

Wilkins connects environmental justice to labor’s history of organizing against dangerous and unequal conditions. In 1968, Memphis sanitation workers struck after two Black workers were crushed in a malfunctioning garbage truck; the city later agreed to recognize their union and meet their demands. He also cites South African trade unionists’ protests, boycotts, and strikes against apartheid. Negotiations began in 1990, and apartheid ended in 1994. These examples reinforce his argument that collective action can challenge conditions that deny workers dignity and help secure change.

The union movement, Wilkins says, brings together tens of millions of people across generations, ethnicities, races, and genders, making it a natural partner in a just transition. He argues that the U.S. government, which bailed out banks and the auto industry during the 2008 financial crisis, can also bail out American workers. But he doubts a worker-focused transition will happen without a concerted push from unions. Their role, in his view, is to make sure workers have a voice in setting the terms of change rather than bearing the costs after decisions have already been made.