Investing in Our Labor and Climate Future: “Bread for All, and Roses Too”
In this guest blog, Todd Lu, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati, examines how the "green jobs" frame lands differently across labor and climate movements and what institutional investors can do to build the coalitions that meaningful climate action actually requires.
My foray into the labor-climate movement launched with a rally celebrating federal funding for union-built electrical school buses in High Point, North Carolina. Union and environmental leaders highlighted climate and jobs in one of the country’s lowest union density states. Political winds seemed to be changing: Biden’s federal climate agenda was in full swing, the NC General Assembly passed a bill setting carbon-neutral emission goals, and several prominent companies, including Toyota, Vinfast, and Kempower, announced private sector EV investments for NC.
Yet as I interviewed NC union and environmental leaders on “green jobs,” I encountered significant disconnects. “You just keep hearing about all these initiatives, but I have yet to see where I have benefited from this administration, even, you know?” questioned one building trades leader. Another manufacturing leader preferred “producing cleaner, more energy efficient vehicles, and just directly talking about what their product does... than just the [political buzzword].” Several environmentalists expressed discouragement. “[Green jobs] didn’t bring more interest, enthusiasm, willingness, a greater sense of pride…whether it’s a green job or it’s a job, we don’t care,” reflected an environmental leader. Another posited: “If we are trying to shift capitalism, do we still have to have a job afterward…could we get beyond where we sell our time, our bodies, or whatever for a wage?”
As a cultural sociologist, I study how people make sense of what social movement scholars call “collective action frames,” or packaged messages intended to persuade audiences. Interviews with forty-five NC union and environmental leaders revealed that our intended “green jobs” frame generated different meanings across movements. Whereas unionists took on a labor market logic focusing on concrete economic benefits, environmentalists took on a social transformation logic seeking broader cultural change. Rather than promoting shared goals, meanings are fractured as people relate frames to their own interests, ideologies, and dispositions. This is a significant problem because climate action requires society-wide coordination to transition towards renewables and build resiliency in our living environments.
What can institutional investors do to build and sustain labor-climate coalitions -- the bedrock of a left-leaning vision on climate action? One lesson can be learned from journalist and academic Amy Schiller’s The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong and How to Fix It. She argues that conscious funders should partner with public institutions to bolster civil society and community engagement. As demonstrated by Democrats’ shedding of working-class voters in recent decades, economic messaging alone is insufficient – it must be felt and mobilized through projects that people feel are rooted in their everyday lives. From Schiller’s arguments and from my interviewees, I propose three ways for investors to lay the groundwork for coalition building:
Create clean energy opportunities with direct material benefits for workers.
Projects like offshore wind facilities, EV charging stations, and battery plants represent concrete examples unions can communicate as climate and jobs achievements. One construction leader underscored, “We probably keep an average of 600 guys working…at least double maybe, but triple over the next two years.” Leaders from two other unions described “doubling our membership over the next two years” and “I think we're sitting at 1,005 members officially. And that is too cool. That's too cool, because just a couple of months ago, we were at 800 something. And now, we're at 1,005.”
Bolster public institutions, workplace safety, and care work as part of climate action.
Climate investments can create a public-facing and care-oriented economy. One leader noted unions are concerned about how “the public sector has been very disinvested in a sense of infrastructure and health and safety” and how “[West Virginia schools] had to stop using the drinking fountains because of lead service lines.” Several environmentalists centered the “majority of workers… in caretaking roles, and they are largely held by women of color” compared to energy investments in the “traditionally masculine trades, building trades…largely held by men.” Educating children, childrearing, and eldercare are vital for a people-centered and low-carbon economy. Following Schiller, we can extend this culture of care to retrofit, using union labor, our public libraries, schools, and municipal buildings into climate adaptation hubs, providing public safety and resources during extreme weather events.
Aim for magnificent climate projects and infrastructure.
Schiller describes magnificent projects as ones that “communicate a love of humanity and elevate our day-to-day lives from the daily grind of economic productivity.” We can think of these projects as encouraging civic participation for grand projects that benefit all. “Couldn't we do something like a Civilian Climate Corps?” inquires one environmentalist in reference to the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which laid the foundation of great American national and state parks. We can imagine recruiting young workers to build climate resiliency, green spaces, and renewable energy as grand restoration of national parks and public spaces.
Labor and climate movements need projects with direct economic benefits, but also inspired communities proud of what they build. Institutional investors can be part of that solution, providing the capital needed to incubate these projects. We can learn from the example set by early 20th century suffragist and labor organizer Helen Todd, who popularized our labor movement’s demands for “Bread and Roses.” As adapted by poet James Oppenheim:
Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew — Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too.
Todd Lu is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati. He researches coalition building between labor and climate movements around green jobs and heat safety. Formerly, he worked with the NC AFL CIO and NC League of Conservation Voters as a staff organizer in the NC Climate and Jobs Roundtable.
