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Why the Environmental Justice Movement Should Support the UAW Organizing Drive [1]
['Bill Gallegos', 'Manuel Pastor', 'Emily Wilson', 'Robert L. Borosage', 'Joan Walsh', 'Chris Lehmann', 'Peter Kuper', 'Lara-Nour Walton', 'Andrea Arroyo', 'Steve Brodner']
Date: 2024-03-11 09:30:00+00:00
Activism / Why the Environmental Justice Movement Should Support the UAW Organizing Drive A progressive version of the right’s Southern strategy could remake our politics—and ensure that the cars of the future, and the batteries they run on, are built by union labor.
Members of United Auto Workers on a picket line in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on September 20, 2023. (Andi Rice / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
While analysts have pointed to a recent slowing in demand for electric vehicles (EVs), the long-term picture remains clear: Annual global EV sales are projected to nearly triple between now and 2030. That trend represents some potential good news for the climate. But it’s also raised concerns—most sharply reflected in last year’s strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW)—about what will happen to both existing and prospective workers.
One big problem: The new “Battery Belt”—prompted by federal policies to move to zero emission vehicles and build an adequate charging infrastructure—is being developed in many Southern states where manufacturers seek to take advantage of low wages, few regulations, and a divided working class.
While we can’t stop the flow of federal climate dollars to those states—a fiscal largesse that seems particularly ironic since so many of their Republican leaders deny climate change—we can and should change the conditions that make them a lure for multinationals seeking to exploit low costs. That, in turn, requires widening the circle of support for a truly transformative move to a clean energy economy.
The combination of worker vulnerability and political division in the South has deep historic roots. The field of exploitative corporate dreams was made possible by a US labor movement that has never been able to follow through on its post–World War II promise to organize the South—a region whose anti-union politics stem in part from a legacy of slavery and racism.
But change may be coming. Even as presidential candidate Donald Trump was trolling autoworkers to persuade them that electrical vehicles would be the end of their jobs, the UAW’s 2023 strike led to contracts that raised wages, did away with two-tier labor systems, and opened the way to unionization up and down the supply chain for electric vehicles.
UAW president Shawn Fain has now promised to build upon the UAW’s victory by undertaking an aggressive organizing campaign at the many nonunion auto plants in the Southern US, as well as the Tesla manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif. The promise to organize Tesla got the attention of CEO Elon Musk; in January of this year, he raised the wages of his workers at the Fremont plant in a preemptive attempt to head off unionization.
This sort of geographic focus—basically, a progressive version of the right’s infamous Southern strategy to tilt the nation rightward—is vital for the future of labor, but it is also crucial for anyone concerned about the environment. Saving the next generation from environmental catastrophe will not be possible if a working class vulnerable to fears of job loss remains political fodder for climate deniers stoking those concerns.
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[1] Url:
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/uaw-organizing-environmental-justice/
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