Unions for Climate Action! | Payton M. Wilkins | TED

Fossil fuels have got to go.

We must put an end to these climate-destructive, loosely regulated,

dirty businesses that are destroying the Earth.

We've done the math,

we have the data,

and we know that these dirty businesses

are making it increasingly more uninhabitable on this planet.

But when those jobs go away, there'll be green jobs, right?

Again, we've run the numbers, we have the data

and we know that the more we invest in a green economy,

the more jobs there’ll be:

[more] healthier, higher-paying jobs in the future than there are today.

But here's the thing.

People eat bread, not data.

And when a corporation shuts down a coal mine,

as happy as some of us may be about cleaner air,

the reality is that people lose paychecks,

they lose pensions,

they lose jobs that they thought were going to be there for their children.

Schools close, small businesses shutter,

and homes are lost.

Poverty sets in.

There are no green jobs waiting for those folks.

Shutting down a coal mine,

a coal refinery or most polluting facilities

can devastate a community and a family.

At the end of the day,

I'm not so much a tree hugger as I am a people hugger.

And I don't really believe in this dichotomy

of jobs versus the environment.

We can protect both.

But we're not going to get it right if we just helicopter in

and tell people what's right.

That's where unions come in.

Unions for generations have been fighting to protect workers' rights and justice.

I grew up hearing people speak about justice all the time.

My mom started the first environmental justice organization here in Detroit.

Yes, Donele Wilkins, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice.

(Applause)

She started the first environmental justice organization

here in the city of Detroit,

and yet, I still didn't truly understand the intricacies of workers

and the environmental movement

until I was sitting offstage, listening to a heated back and forth

between a high-ranking member of the United Mine Workers of America

and a panel of climate experts that I had assembled

for the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists's Annual Convention.

On this panel, I had Cecil Corbin-Mark, the late Cecil Corbin-Mark,

deputy director of WE ACT, an Environmental Justice Organization,

based out of Harlem;

Jackie Patterson,

the founder and director of the Shirley Chisholm Legacy Project,

a climate justice resource hub;

and Donele Wilkins, CEO of Green Door Initiative,

who also happens to be my mother.

(Applause)

I thought everything was going well.

I thought that regardless of politics,

we all kind of agreed that climate change was a problem for human health,

for our families, for our homes.

So there I was, sitting in the first row, Cecil was moderating,

and then this high-ranking leader from the United Mine Workers of America

comes to the mic.

And shit got heated.

(Laughter)

Like, really bad.

I'm talking at this point, I'm flushed red,

sweat is beading down my face,

and I'm thinking how best to update my resume

because they're not going to let me keep my job after this shit.

(Laughter)

I look to my boss and he has this look on his face that says,

"Get your ass on stage."

That's a lot to say in the book, but I promise you this look said a lot.

(Laughter)

When the panel ended, my boss pulled me aside and he said,

"You need to fix this."

So I quickly secured a room to have a private conversation

with the mineworkers and the panelists,

and we listened.

We heard the coal miners talk about their desires,

their fears, their legacies, this dignity in their work.

And we talked about the real reason why the coal industry was dying,

which had more to do with profitability than it did with activists or policy.

Coal is becoming more expensive

while the cost of renewable energy is falling.

Investors are divesting from coal because of its impact on the climate

and the risk associated with climate change.

We all felt heard.

We felt understood.

The coal miners had opportunity to separate the person

from the problem.

We talked about the history of environmental justice

and its roots in the labor movement.

Since that day,

and the months and years following,

I started to see change in the coal miners.

They, for a long time, have been actively [in] opposition

to any types of climate policy.

But now they're open to exploring taxes

and emission standards to regulate their industry.

And while they aren't exactly where I would like them to be,

they have come a long way, they've made progress.

Unions have a long history of keeping the needs

and priorities of workers in their mind,

protecting workers rights and fighting for justice.

In Memphis, 1968,

a union of sanitation workers went on strike

after two African Americans had been crushed

in a malfunctioning garbage truck.

That strike ended in April of 1968,

when the city of Memphis agreed to recognize their union

and to meet the workers' demands.

In South Africa in 1985,

the Congress of South African Trade Unionists

quickly became the strongest and most powerful union in South Africa

by putting pressure on the apartheid government through protests,

boycotts and strikes

that led to negotiations in 1990

and the end of apartheid in 1994.

And in Denmark,

when the country was transitioning away from fossil fuels to wind energy,

the union 3F negotiated with the government

and wind energy companies to secure jobs,

retraining programs and fair wages.

Those workers were equipped to get employed

in this new and growing wind energy sector.

Those workers were equipped.

You know,

the union movement is the only multigenerational, multiethnic,

multiracial, multigender movement in the world.

We're talking about tens of millions of people

united around a singular set of ideas.

So it makes so much sense that they're a part of this fight

for a just transition.

So how can we,

those of us that are in the climate fight, properly work with unions?

It starts with deep listening conversations,

like the ones we had at CBTU's annual convention.

And workers and those who are pushing for a green energy transition

need to hear each other out.

We need to hear each other's fears, each other's desires,

each other's ideas for the future.

There needs to be an education on both sides,

one that allows us to learn about the livelihood of workers

and for all of us to learn about the impact of the climate crisis.

Since that conversation that I had at CBTU,

I started to actively invite the coal miners to meetings

and to the conferences that I attend discussing just transition.

My desire is for them to articulate a path towards green jobs

before negative profitability and policies decides the fate for them.

I want unions to secure federal dollars

to aid in this transition to retrain their members.

I want them to realize they don't have to choose

between making a living and living in a safe and healthy environment.

They can have both.

Hell, they deserve both.

(Applause)

I want them to realize that they can live in a community

that generates renewable energy,

that they can live in a community where they don't have to speculate

what's in their water and their air.

A community where people are valued over pollution.

I want them -- thank you.

(Laughs)

(Applause)

I want them to realize that this isn't some distant utopic future,

but a reality that can be had in a few short years.

If the US government can bail out banks and the auto industry,

like they did in the financial crisis of 2008,

surely they can bail out the American worker.

(Applause)

But I have a feeling that this isn't going to happen

without a concerted push from the unions.

To transition to a green-energy economy,

to protect our planet,

we're going to have to make some tough changes.

But I'm a serial optimist,

and I believe we can make this change without too much pain.

Thank you.

(Applause)