Labor’s Climate Fight

Today, amid growing climate disasters, the energy transition is faltering. Commentators now challenge the very notion of a transition, more accurately labeling today’s context as one of energy expansion. Any progress in renewable energy development has largely been offset by skyrocketing emissions from the expanding global oil and gas sector. But even the gains that have been made in decarbonization have limits. As Brett Christophers has argued, the delivery of wind and solar is grinding to a halt across the West. Government subsidies, which have been central to wind and solar development, cannot satisfy the demand for profit sought by capital.

Challenges with renewables development preceded Trump’s reelection and the recent passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, which rips up many of the tax incentives for wind and solar development introduced through Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The COVID-19 pandemic sharpened the existing contradictions of the wind and solar industry; subsequent inflation then worsened this terrain for the industry, creating pricing issues, project delays, and in many cases the cancellation of projects. Simply put, the political economy of wind and solar and the urgency of scaling-up and building-out of renewable energy is incompatible with capitalism’s profit motive. The renewables industry cannot produce the profits demanded by investors, so investors will ultimately seek returns in more profitable sectors. For any hope of decarbonization or a just transition, public democratic ownership that offers a route away from the privatized, profit-driven market mechanism that is determining decarbonization today must be central.

No social actor is more consequential to shaping a just energy transition than labor unions. Unions can be essential vehicles for organizing the working class and influencing climate policy. By articulating a class-based environmental politics, the labor movement can help workers develop a shared collective interest to think and act as a class.

Today, after a slow start, labor unions have begun to shape the energy transition. The United Auto Workers historic stand-up strike in 2023 brought electric vehicle battery plants under the union’s master agreement and, for the first time in a generation, put on the bargaining table a reduction in the workweek, making this argument an important part of the fight against the climate crisis. In New York, the labor coalition Climate Jobs New York secured a union jobs guarantee for an offshore wind project that will deliver half of New York’s energy needs by 2035. Recently, they also secured a significant victory on solar, helping secure legislation that commits New York City to install 100 megawatts of solar energy by 2030 and 150 megawatts by 2035. This work will be done by unionized labor.

To date, labor’s engagement in the climate crisis has largely followed a social-partnership model that aims to bring together corporations, government, and labor unions around the shared interest of decarbonization. This idea that the three can sit together and bargain as equals sits in stark contradiction with capitalism’s relationship to workers, which is based on the exploitation of workers’ labor. This model also pushes workers and trade unions into a competitive strategy that produces gains for some unions at the loss of others, undermining the potential for solidarity across the economy and across the working class.

The need to decarbonize our economy to avert the climate crisis does not change this dynamic. How unions resolve this debate will have implications for the labor movement and the future of the climate. It requires a strategic shift away from the social-partnership strategy. Moving away from market dependency on private capital toward a more planned and democratic economy requires a confrontational relationship with the employer and the state in the pursuit of public ownership.

There is both an opportunity and a necessity for labor to push for public, democratic ownership by demonstrating that climate policies can also tackle inequality. Public democratic ownership is a way to ensure that jobs are secure, wages guaranteed, and prices stabilized and controlled, rather than leaving these factors to the whims of the market. Too often market-centered climate policies have resulted in workers being left behind, as with the surge in plant closures across Europe and North America in the wind power industry.

Union demands of the energy transition should be centered on how climate actions can make working-class life more affordable, without which the working class will not be won to supporting climate action policy. The global backlash to climate policies reflects the regressive impacts of those policies on workers’ incomes, from carbon taxes that impact billionaires and the poorest equally, to costs falling directly on working-class shoulders. The backlash to these policies does not mean that people are against climate policies, but rather that they rightfully will turn against any policy that makes their precarious existence harder. Climate action cannot succeed on the backs of the working class.

Lessons From Scotland on Public Democratic Ownership

Scotland provides a case study of public democratic ownership. Across the period of the neoliberal policy regime, Scotland has seen much of its public infrastructure privatized, as with most liberal democratic states. Bus privatization is worth focusing on as a climate issue, because domestic transport is the largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland.

Scottish buses were privatized alongside a wider wave of privatizations in the UK by then prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1985 with the promise of better service, cheaper fares, and an uptake in ridership. First Bus, the largest private bus operator in Scotland, has failed on all counts. Ridership is down 43 per cent from 1986/87 to 2019/20, fares are up 159 per cent since 1995, and cuts to services have become the norm. Despite some improvements bolstered by the Scottish government, such as free travel for those under twenty-two and over sixty-five, the privatized profit motive of First Bus has meant that fares have continued to rise for everyone else, and services are continually cut, despite major public subsidies from the Scottish Government that have only grown since the COVID-19 pandemic.

A recent report by the Scottish Trade Union Congress reported: “In 2023–24, Government provided 58% (£439 million) of all operators’ revenue in subsidy.” The cost of subsidization comes out of the public purse. Rather than investment in bus infrastructure, decarbonization, and making their target of 2035 to electrify all First Bus buses a reality, this money is used to subsidize continual profits for First Bus.

The disaster of privatization is exemplified by the announcement in 2023 that First Bus would cut eleven weekend night bus routes from Glasgow. Night bus services bring shift workers and members of the public home safely at night. However, First Bus blamed low passenger numbers for the cuts, ultimately deeming the routes not profitable enough. The owner of First Bus even suggested that one of the workers could get their bus driving license and drive this late night bus themselves, prompting backlash from trade unions, workers, politicians, and the general public.

The backlash has ensured the night bus will continue for now, but the Glasgow city council has introduced low emissions zones that restrict access to the city center for certain vehicles, making affordable, accessible transit more necessary than ever for working-class people — another example of the incompatibility between the profit motive inherent to privatization and the objective of decarbonization.

The recent announcement by the electric bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis that it will cease operations at its factory in Falkirk, Scotland, to lower costs and increase efficiencies (with four hundred jobs at risk) reinforces this argument. Alexander Dennis manufactures much of the First Bus electric fleet and will therefore quell decarbonization plans. As seen in other sectors, decarbonization efforts are ruled by corporations’ ability to accumulate profit, too often resulting in cuts to important infrastructure and services when deemed not profitable enough. Ultimately, the critical infrastructure necessary for the transition, in this case the manufacturing of electric buses, is abandoned, and workers left behind.

Trade unions’ response to the loss of jobs in the renewables sector has largely been to call for government intervention through nationalization and renationalization through public ownership. The policy of public ownership is popular across the trade union movement in Scotland and has also been part of mainstream policy discussions, given the failures of privatized public transit. This proposal was central to the campaign to save Burntisland Fabrications, a manufacturing hub for renewables. Despite a valiant campaign that included an occupation of the factory, the plant was not brought into public ownership and ultimately shut down.

Support for public ownership in the trade union movement has largely resulted from a reactive demand to save jobs that have been lost to factory closures. Trade unions have yet to fully develop a vision of public ownership that centers democratic ownership and makes the connection to climate action. This would require a more proactive approach that challenges capital. There remains a missed opportunity for building support both inside and outside the labor movement for a class-based climate politics that uses the full potential of public democratic ownership to tackle the climate crisis while improving the lives of the working class. It is not too late to learn these lessons and change course.

Public Democratic Ownership in Action

New York offers a compelling contrast of a campaign for public democratic ownership through the Public Power campaign, which successfully secured the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) — legislation that mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani championed as an assemblyperson and continues to advocate for. BPRA authorizes and directs the state’s public power provider, the New York Power Authority (NYPA), to plan, build, and operate renewable energy projects across the state to meet the ambitious timetable to decarbonize the grid, mandated by the Climate Act of 2019. During his primary campaign, Mamdani repeatedly called for NYPA to fulfill BPRA’s mandate, demanding rapid expansion of renewable capacity to meet these legally binding climate goals.

The New York chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) emerged as the driving force behind both Mamdani’s victory and Public Power New York, building a grassroots machine that has secured multiple local and state offices over eight years. Their success stems from an intensive on-the-ground door-knocking campaign which has mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers across New York, coupled with a strategic approach that combined insider advocacy with outside pressure. DSA’s electoral successes positioned their allies in government, lobbying from the inside for the BPRA to pass, while the organization maintained external public pressure through campaigns, direct action, and a coordinated communications strategy. This approach forced incumbent politicians to reckon with BPRA, facing either support for the legislation or potential primary challenges. Many ultimately shifted their positions, enabling the act’s passage.

The Public Power New York campaign resonated with residents by linking climate action to affordability concerns. Rising electricity prices in New York were a central issue for New Yorkers, with the private utility ConEd often pushing up rates to fulfill shareholder dividends, resulting in some of the highest energy bills in the country. In fact, the campaign was born out of organizing against a rate hike by private utility ConEd.

The BPRA tackles the affordability crisis through the establishment of the REACH program, which allows the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to direct profits from revenues from renewables to bill credits to lower people’s utility bills rather than line the pockets of shareholders. This prioritization of the public good over profit cannot exist within a private corporation that has the primary motive of maximizing profits. Public democratic ownership offers the potential to prioritize public good because it is not beholden to shareholder profits.

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) also has other levers at its disposal to tackle affordability issues. NYPA is one of the nation’s most financially stable and well-positioned utilities. It benefits from very low borrowing costs, owing to its ability to issue tax-exempt bonds. These bonds can be used to prioritize the public good. Private corporations on the other hand, are completely beholden to the profit motive: what is good for shareholders is good for the private market, not working-class people whose bills continue to rise. Public democratic ownership can both tackle the affordability crisis and the climate crisis at the speed and scale necessary.

While BPRA did not directly emerge from the labor movement, the campaign sought to put labor at the center and root itself in the labor movement. Many involved were active union members and viewed labor as critical to the long-term success of BPRA. Organizers understood that expanding NYPA’s unionized workforce and building worker capacity would be crucial to the program’s success.

However, it was a major challenge to win the support of impacted sectors. Initially, building trades labor unions were opposed to the BPRA. This initial resistance stemmed from deep-seated concerns: distrust of state employment, the prohibition of public sector strikes under the Wagner Act, and attachment to existing relationships with private employers.

Despite the success of having the AFL-CIO write the labor standards component of the bill, ensuring best practices such as prevailing wages and project labor agreement provisions, most of the impacted unions were only brought to neutral and held back their support. But labor unions accepting the status quo is no longer an option. Unions cannot afford to sit on the sidelines of this critical debate; public democratic ownership must be a cornerstone of their strategy.

Public Democratic Ownership or Catastrophe

Both Mamdani and BPRA were successful in part because they spoke to working-class people about their materiality, demonstrating how climate action can make their lives more affordable. Working-class people need to see climate action as a solution that can improve their material situation. Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to introduce fast and free public buses and increase MTA funding can do this. Amid a growing cost of living crisis, ensuring decarbonization tackles affordability and provides material benefits to working-class people is crucial to winning working-class support for climate policies.

The Scotland example highlights not only the devastating economic impacts of privatization on working-class communities but also, as seen by the closure of Alexander Dennis, demonstrates how private corporations’ dependence on markets and the profit motive prevents the building of the critical infrastructure required for the energy transition at scale. Labor unions everywhere should learn from this and fight for public democratic ownership, leveraging its full potential not just as a backstop to bail out private corporations. Taking infrastructure that is essential to the energy transition out of the market economy and putting it into public democratic hands is key to the decarbonization challenge. It can also help to build a mass base for class-based climate politics, as Mamdani’s campaign has shown.

As Daniel Aldana Cohen and Thea Riofrancos put it, “If Democrats want to win voters with policies that avert catastrophic climate change, they need to bring immediate material benefits to the working class. That means folding climate policies into an agenda that tackles the cost-of-living crisis.” This approach should guide both left electoral campaigns and labor union strategy going forward, alongside public democratic ownership.

Zohran Mamdani’s election victory puts us at a crossroads in climate and labor politics. There is an opportunity for the labor movement to build toward a just transition by capitalizing on Mamdani’s policy of universal fast and free buses and support public democratic ownership more broadly. As we’ve seen, without an alternative to privatization that challenges the profit motive, a just transition is unachievable. At the same time, for Mamdani to deliver on his ambitious policy goals, he will need the support of a critical mass — a role only organized labor can fill. A class-based climate politics must be the path forward.