Last year was the hottest year on record, and nearly every region in the world was battered by extreme weather events. Working-class people are facing life-threatening conditions while the cost of basic necessities continues to spiral out of reach for millions. But in the face of this dual crisis, both the climate and labor movements are surging forward.
At the heart of this alliance lies the vision of a just transition: a shift away from fossil fuels that doesn’t abandon workers and communities, but lifts them up. It’s not just a call for clean energy, but for union jobs, community ownership, and strong protections for frontline and historically marginalized workers.
We must confront an undeniable truth: there can be no economic justice without climate justice, and no livable planet without workers leading the way. Across the globe, millions are caught between the crushing weight of a deepening cost-of-living crisis and the escalating devastation of climate disasters.
Energy bills, housing, and food prices have skyrocketed, while wages stagnate. Meanwhile, fossil fuel corporations report record profits, and billionaires grow wealthier, insulated from the very crises they fuel. The fight for fair wages, safe jobs, and affordable energy is inseparable from the fight for a safe and just future.
For decades, corporations have wielded a cynical narrative to divide the labor and environmental movements, pitting workers’ livelihoods against the health of the planet, all while shielding the industries responsible for both economic precarity and environmental destruction.
Now, as material conditions worsen for everyday people, right-wing populists winning elections around the world on the backs of exploited workers’ justified anger are offering scapegoats instead of real solutions: blaming migrants, environmental protections, or international cooperation, while leaving the root causes: corporate greed, deregulation, and fossil fuel dependency untouched.
Across the world, labor unions and climate organizers are rejecting these false choices, coming together to demand a future where both people and the planet can thrive. This vision is most prominently embodied in the demand for a Green New Deal, which demonstrates how bold climate action can create millions of good jobs and rebuild public infrastructure.
There’s precedent for this kind of solidarity. The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 marked a turning point. New York City’s public sector workers—transit operators, nurses, and municipal employees—faced the storm’s most brutal impacts head-on, and their unions helped ignite a wave of labor-climate solidarity that continues to grow.
Oil and gas workers in Argentina, represented by Argentine Construction Workers’ Union (UOCRA) have started engaging in debates about a just transition in response to the expansion of Vaca Muerta, one of the largest oil and gas fields in the world.
In the Philippines, unions like Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) have been vocal in demanding a just transition away from coal and industrial agriculture, emphasizing that the same corporate interests that exploit workers also drive environmental destruction in the wake of deadly typhoons and rising sea levels.
Across East Africa, the growing resistance to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) underscores how fossil fuel expansion threatens both people and land. While oil companies involved have touted job creation, communities in Uganda and Tanzania have revealed the reality: precarious, unsafe work for a few, and the displacement of thousands of farmers, fishers, and rural workers whose livelihoods depend on the land and water. The demand is clear: instead of new fossil infrastructure, invest in community-controlled renewables that create dignified, lasting jobs—anchoring both climate justice and economic justice in local hands.
The 2019 global climate strikes, which mobilized over 6 million people across 150+ countries, were directly inspired by the tactics, history, and moral force of the labor movement, especially its tradition of collective action and withholding labor as a tool for systemic change.
Our demands, and the root causes of our contentions, are intertwined. The same system that exploits workers’ labor is the same one that’s plundering the Earth, fueling ecological collapse, and intensifying inequality.
A global mobilization for climate and economic justice is already stirring – in workplaces, on picket lines, and in the streets. This September, we draw the line together: against extraction, against exploitation. For people and the planet.