Elizabeth Fiedler Is Uniting Labor and Environmental Leaders
As the new chair of the Pennsylvania House Blue-Green Caucus, Philadelphia socialist Elizabeth Fiedler is bridging a political divide that once seemed impassable: environmental advocates and the building trades.
Pennsylvania state representative Elizabeth Fiedler gives a press conference with labor leaders and members of the Blue-Green Caucus on April 16, 2024, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (Elizabeth Fiedler / X)
- Interview by
- Jordan G. Teicher
Robert Bair would probably be the first to admit that his participation in a Pennsylvania House Blue-Green Caucus news conference this month may have once seemed unlikely.
The president of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades Council — an organization representing 130,000 members — Bair has, over the years, found himself at odds with environmental leaders on key legislative issues. But now, at the Pennsylvania capitol building, he found himself standing side by side with representatives of the Sierra Club and Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania.
“People say, ‘Rob, do you have a lot in common with the environmental community?’ Two and a half years ago, I probably said, ‘Eh, maybe not,’” Bair said at the conference. “But then the representative immediately to my left and I decided that to actually get something started, we needed to sit down together and talk about our issues.”
The representative he was referring to was South Philadelphia socialist Elizabeth Fiedler, who became chair of the fifty-five-member caucus last January. Through her role in the caucus, she and Bair have developed a close working relationship. Now, they’re united behind an unprecedented eleven-bill legislative agenda that spans solar energy production, transit funding, and protections against water privatization.
“For so long, we’ve been told environmental and labor groups don’t get along. They don’t really like each other. They don’t talk at all. In this building, we of course know that is not true,” Fiedler said. “We have so much more we can be doing.”
Fiedler spoke with Jacobin about bringing the environmental and labor movements together, and her plan to expand renewable energy production in Pennsylvania.
What challenges have existed for those trying to bring labor and environmental groups together in Pennsylvania around renewable energy?
I think that the move to a renewable energy economy in Pennsylvania in some ways is a much greater lift than in other places because of our historical reliance on the fossil fuel industry. It is very deeply rooted in not just the economy of Pennsylvania, but in the culture of many parts of our state. There are people whose families have worked in these industries for generations.
Environmental groups and labor groups weren’t really talking until the Blue-Green Caucus really set out to make that happen. Now I do feel like it’s baby steps, but we are heading in a direction that makes me hopeful.
How do you overcome some of the historic distrust between labor and environmental leaders?
I think a lot of it is personal connections, having someone’s cell phone number, having dinner with them. Maybe we agree, maybe we disagree, maybe a little bit of both, but there are pieces that we can work on together.
Those personal connections, I think in many cases were lacking. Building those relationships, both between individuals and organizations, is very intentional work that has been done over the last couple of years. And I’ve really enjoyed it, I think in part because just a couple of years ago, it didn’t seem likely.
In doing this work, it has been important to recognize the urgency of acting swiftly and also, at the same time, recognize that we are talking about the lives and the livelihoods of people. How do we include those people in the renewable energy transition, and how do we do it in a thoughtful way rather than as an afterthought?
Robert Bair, the head of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades Council, attributes a lot of his investment in the blue-green agenda to you. How did that relationship develop?
Just over a year ago, he and I started talking about some other renewable energy issues that we respectfully disagreed on, and he made an appointment to meet with me in my office. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was awesome. Really from that first day, we had the most pleasant conversation about the widest spectrum of issues. Since then, I have considered him to be one of my strongest allies in this work.
Just a couple of years ago, being able to say that about the head of the building trades would have been beyond my wildest dreams. Rob is intensely dedicated to making sure his workers have good work. And at the same time, he recognizes that his workers and their families want this to be a healthy and safe planet. And I think he’s really unwilling to accept that only one of those things is possible.
The building trades are clearly interested in growing the renewable energy sector in Pennsylvania. But the state is still the country’s second-largest natural gas producer, and unions are bound up in that work. How do you navigate that reality in your position?
Much of the work of the Blue-Green Caucus is really focused on the areas where blue and green agree. We want to throw down hard on those areas, and we want to be as respectful and professional as possible on the issues where we disagree. I think this is one of them.
It’s important to recognize we can’t just shut down an industry. There needs to be a real alternative — not just the promise of an alternative, but real work in solar and wind and other renewable energy industries. People need to be able to feed their families today, tomorrow, and next month. These are people who are deeply invested in making sure that they have work and making sure that they are part of the state’s energy economy. People are very proud of the work that they do. If we can be really intentional and bring them into the conversation, I think it gives us the greatest shot that we possibly have of building the economy that we need.
Your “Solar for Schools” legislation is a key part of the blue-green legislative agenda. How did that come together?
Addressing education funding or school facilities was the primary focus of my work for my first couple of terms and it continues to be at the heart of my work. I wanted to bring labor more into those efforts. So, last November, I started talking with the building trades about projects we could work on related to schools.
One of the things that we here in Harrisburg have heard for quite a long time is that schools need billions of dollars to fix their buildings and we just don’t have that sum of money. We’re going to keep pushing to try to get the commonwealth to invest the huge sums of money it should be investing in schools and school buildings. The idea of Solar for Schools really came out of a desire to find tools that we can give school districts directly in the meantime so that they can save money and reinvest those dollars how they see fit.
The legislation would create a state grant program that would help schools across the commonwealth install solar panels. And the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] will pay for 30 to 50 percent of every single one of these Solar for Schools projects. That promise of the federal money from the IRA was really the thing that made us 100 percent certain that this was a very good idea and we’ve got to give it everything we can to make it happen.
What got labor leaders excited about Solar for Schools?
There are provisions within the IRA that can make them feel good about the promise of their workers doing these projects. These are labor leaders who want to be part of growing energy in Pennsylvania. So this was a chance to do that and be aligned with education and environmental groups in a way that doesn’t often happen, especially in Pennsylvania.
One of the motivations behind this that I’ve mentioned is saving money, and we definitely see that as a way in which local municipalities could pass down the savings to taxpayers, either in the form of reducing taxes or certainly in the form of not having to raise taxes. So I think for their members, it was just a no-brainer.
Pennsylvania is consistently one of the states with the slowest renewable energy growth. How do we change that?
We have a long, long way to go. There’s discussion from both the administration and some of my colleagues about ways in which Pennsylvania can increase the amount of energy we get from renewables. There are a couple of proposals out there, but it’s very much recognized among my colleagues and also the governor’s office that we have an incredibly long way to go, which is frustrating because we don’t have a lot of time. The governor’s own plan would be 30 percent renewable electricity by 2030.
I think there are real signs that the trend of Pennsylvania is renewable energy growth, which in the past has really lagged behind other places. And I think it’s important that as we do these things, we are working hand in hand with labor. One of the things that we hear over and over from workers is, “Oh, they did this energy project here and all the license plates were from out of state.” If we can be really intentional about including these workers, I think that’s only to our benefit as we try to move very quickly.
How does your perspective as a socialist inform the work you’re doing in the Blue-Green Caucus?
I think being a socialist means caring about the lives of all people: caring not just that they have their basic needs met, but also free time to be able to spend with their families, enjoy their community, enjoy arts and culture, and just exist as a full person.
That kind of future won’t be possible without taking meaningful climate action. And climate action is not going to be possible without the input of the workers who will make the changes to our infrastructure that we need. That’s what the Blue-Green Caucus is about: it’s bringing workers and environmentalists together to participate in democracy and to find steps forward through legislation. This work is just a start, but eventually, could it look like workers at energy companies making workplace decisions together, or all of us having true public ownership of utilities? I hope so.
Sometimes that big-picture stuff is hard to keep focused on when you’re in the belly of the beast in state government. But that vision is helpful motivation for me at times when I feel frustrated.