Talking to Your Co-Worker | How to Introduce and Pass Resolutions | Green, Healthy Schools Projects | Teaching Climate and Environmental Justice to Students | Forming a Climate or Environmental Justice Committee In Your Union Local | Start a Climate or Environmental Caucus | Divest/Reinvest Your Pension | Connecting with Youth |  Bargaining for the Common Good | Write an Op-Ed and Get it Placed

Green, Healthy Schools Projects (Schools as Hubs of Resilience)

• • Green, healthy schools projects are projects to retrofit, modernize, renovate, and otherwise build healthy, zero-carbon, sustainable school buildings and systems. These projects ensure a school has optimal learning and working conditions for teachers, staff, and students alike. They improve indoor air quality, thermal comfort, acoustic comfort, and visual comfort, and bring green sustainable schoolyards instead of heat- and flood-trapping asphalt.

  • Now is the time to organize for your school buildings to be upgraded and working conditions made healthy and sustainable because there is now significant federal funding that can be won for these purposes. 

  • Here’s what the Climate and Community Project includes as eight core projects that create green, healthy schools in their excellent report, “TRANSFORMING PUBLIC EDUCATION: A GREEN NEW DEAL FOR K–12 PUBLIC SCHOOLS”:
    
    

1. OPTIMAL AIR QUALITY

Indoor air quality will be improved by installing or upgrading a school’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC) and replacing natural gas uses with all-electric equipment. Many schools rely upon fans, window-unit air conditioners, or opening windows for modifications in air quality. New, all-electric HVAC systems with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters will provide the highest-quality experiences for students and teachers. Additionally, the use of natural gas in school kitchens decreases air quality. Replacing kitchen appliances with modern, electric alternatives will save energy and improve air quality.

2. DETOXIFICATION OF AIR AND MATERIALS

All toxic materials in schools will be removed from school buildings, and replaced with zero-carbon materials. In order to remove allergens, dust mites, and other airborne respiratory irritants, new HEPA filters and HVAC systems will be deployed to all schools. HEPA filters will remove 99.9 percent of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and many airborne particles. 

Problems of mold and fungi, associated leaky plumbing systems, intense storms, or poor moisture control will be solved with newer construction and plumbing systems that are airtight, watertight, and maintenance-friendly. Touchless fixtures and technology will aid in limiting the spread of viruses and bacteria. With the introduction of a cleaner building material palette, retrofits will remove other toxins such as asbestos found in insulation, lead from plumbing systems, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) found in caulk, paint, ceiling tiles, floors, and other building surfaces.

3. ENHANCED LIGHT QUALITY

Lighting improvements in school buildings will enhance daylighting, provide low-grade ambient lighting for visual comfort, and improve strategies for task-lighting and targeting visual interest. These objectives will be accomplished in ways that allow for flexibility and control for students and teachers, standardization of lamp types for ease of maintenance, and energy efficiency in lighting technology.

4. IMPROVED ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Improving energy efficiency in school buildings will involve use of passive design strategies, the most energy-efficient building equipment, and automated energy management systems to modulate use on an as-needed basis. Buildings will use strategies to maximize natural ventilation and daylighting, we can reduce demand for energy use in major mechanical systems. To enhance efficiency when lighting or HVAC is needed, we will upgrade buildings with new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems and ensure that buildings don’t lose heir controlled climates from poor insulation or other air leaks and thermal bridges. LED lighting will use 75 percent less energy and last up to five times longer than conventional lighting. 

5. IMPROVED WATER EFFICIENCY

The largest uses of water in schools comes from restrooms, landscaping, heating, cooling, and school kitchens. Reductions in water waste can be accomplished with active leak detection, immediate repair and increasing the water efficiency in all fixtures, sinks, toilets, building chillers and boilers, and use of greywater and water retention systems. 

6. ELECTRIFICATION AND DECARBONIZATION

By retrofitting buildings instead of constructing new schools, we can save an immense amount of carbon emissions. We will electrify all energy uses in the building, allowing their energy sources to transit to 100 percent carbon-free energy sources. Buildings will receive electric heat pumps for HVAC systems, induction-heating for all-electric kitchens, and electric water heaters for all end uses. Technological advancement has allowed for building equipment to become smaller and more efficient. These smaller systems, with less steel and smaller components, are less carbon-intensive in their manufacturing and supply chains. 

Carbon emissions from the building industry consist of embodied carbon (associated with material and component supply chain and manufacturing), as well as operational carbon (from energy use over time). Addressing carbon intensity via materials selection is just as important as energy efficiency.

7. OPTIMIZING ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Automated building energy systems will optimize buildings’ energy use, and coordinate automatically with the electric grid. Buildings will make best use of local energy sources (like rooftop solar), draw on the electric grid as needed, and supply the grid with energy when possible (e.g., during sunny hours and/or contributing energy stored onsite when needed by the grid). Schools will thus help stabilize local energy grids.

8. RENEWABLE ENERGY

Instead of relying solely on electricity and natural gas from the grid, schools will generate renewable energy on-site using solar and wind energy. Where physical conditions permit and it is cost-effective wells will be dug for geothermal heat pumps for more efficient heating and cooling. Wherever it is legal, schools will also purchase their electricity from 100 percent clean energy sources. We estimate that by 2030, the US power sector will be closer to carbon neutrality, based on the Biden administration’s 2035 zero-carbon electricity target. Between energy retrofits, slashing energy use by up to 80 percent, on-site solar generation in most schools, and the increasingly decarbonized grid, we expect the country’s K–12 schools to be zero-carbon overall by 2030.

These retrofits will turn schools into neighborhood resiliency hubs, making them a key node of overall green community  infrastructure.

Additionally . . . 

• Green schools projects will also support the transition to electric school bus fleets, the upskilling and training of union school bus drivers and mechanics, and the installation of electric school bus infrastructure, with safe, walkable routes to schools wherever possible. 

• Projects can also expand access to locally-grown, healthy, sustainable food and increase opportunities for food donation, food rescue, and composting.

• All of these kinds of projects should be created with labor standards that ensure that living wage union jobs are the ones carrying out these transitions. Standards should also ensure that upskilling, training, and retraining the existing workforce for new building and transportation systems is a priority. 

• Good projects will also organize for the creation of pipelines to ensure that these kinds of good union careers in the clean energy economy are erected for the students in the schools themselves.

HOW DO I START?

• Planning for green, healthy schools in your district can seem daunting, but here are some helpful resources that can help you think about the process and how federal funding can be utilized for these projects.

• Contact ECAN for further support getting started! 

Talking to Your Co-worker (It Can be a Bit Awkward but That’s Alright!)

Beginning: 

You can simply begin by mentioning the conditions of your school building or grounds: 

• • • • E.g., “I can’t believe we still have to try and work and the kids have to try and learn in a building with constant leaks and mold and falling ceiling tiles.” or 

      • “This building desperately needs air conditioning and new ventilation.” or

      • "It's such a burden that we cannot have working windows and fresh air in these classrooms."

Or you can simply begin by being very earnest. 

• • • • E.g., “Can I talk with you about something very important to me?” 

Make it personal and share vocally in the struggles of educators from everything that has been going on in schools combined with environmental damage: 

• • • • e.g., “It’s too much, we have no resources or support, we have lead paint inside, and extreme weather outside.”

Share why you are angry. Think about what is personally motivating you: What do you want for the future? How are you already seeing the combined impacts of neglect and disinvestment and climate change in your community or work?

Agitate: 

Ask them questions and be genuinely interested in their answers, at this stage you want to be listening more than you are speaking: 

• • • • Start a conversation to find out what workplace issues are most important to them - ask open questions - try to find out how they’ve been impacted by workplace conditions

      • What do they want for the future? 

        • Affirm why they’re mad and how you and others feel the same way: 

        • E.g. "I totally agree and I've been hearing the same thing from other co-workers. We can't go on without big investments in our schools and workforce and getting full resources and support for our students."

        • E.g., “We can’t really have healthy school buildings without healthy air, water, and a healthy environment. One can’t happen without the other.”
          
          

Hope: 

Tell them that there are others planning to take action and you’re going to join

• • • • Share why you think this is the moment to fight back and what the opportunity is with collective action: 

        • E.g. “This really feels like the moment to fight back and address all these overlapping problems”

        • “Apparently there’s all this money available now that the union and district can grab to make these buildings modern and healthy with clean energy and getting us more fully-resourced”

        • “This feels like the moment. We could organize to grab this money and create a ton of good union jobs, give our students and future generations a fair chance with a healthy school and a healthy planet, and get living wages for our families. 

        • “Let’s work with these students and do right by them.”

      • If they shy away from the thought of taking action - be prepared with a few answers to Answer and Affirm their concerns, and then Redirect back to why that concern means we need to take collective action.

        • • E.g. "Yes, I also worry that the district won't listen so why bother. It's such a valid concern. The thing is, they already aren't listening to our concerns, so we're already in that boat - the only way to make them listen is to start to take a few steps together as workers." 

          • The point to get across is that our concerns and worries will remain in place until we start to act together, because schools can’t run without the workers who run them! 

Ask them to join you

• • • • Share any plans your union already is forming

      • If your union isn’t yet acting, then share your ideas about next steps (e.g. passing the resolution in the union) and ask them to join the next thing you do 

      • Bring them to the next ECAN meeting

      • Ask them to join you in the national AFT and/or NEA Climate Justice Caucus

      • Share our video and/or this toolkit with them and others to help answer any questions or address criticism

      • People will undoubtedly have questions and raise problems about the action. For questions and answers about climate change and what to do about it see https://www.labor4sustainability.org/do-it-yourself-gnd-qa/

Forming a Climate or Environmental Justice Committee in Your Union Local

• • Forming a climate or environmental justice committee (or similarly-oriented committee) in your union local is incredibly important to make climate justice work a priority in your union. 

    • If you start a committee you will have a space to organize others in your local to in order to host meetings, plan, and strategize. You can use the committee as a vehicle to communicate the importance of climate action as a key to public school justice solutions more broadly to your union members. You can plan campaigns, actions, and also organizing with your community to initiate common good bargaining on climate. 

    • Plus, once contract campaigns start for your local, it’s very hard to then get your fellow members to engage in any activity that is not in the scope of that current contract bargaining. So if there is no group to hold this work, then it might get lost. 

  • If you are starting from square one, please see the “talking to your co-worker” part of our toolkit for a simple guide to starting these important conversations and forming a committee (you really only need two people to start one!) 

  • If climate justice committees (or similar committees) form in other union locals in your district, city, and/or State, then you can begin to coordinate together. You can also start or join a Climate Caucus in your State-level union chapter, as well as the national-level Climate Caucuses in AFT and NEA. Channel member power together and upward to put pressure on decision-makers!

  • And make sure one of your committee members joins ECAN to connect and coordinate with others around the country! 

    • Contact ECAN for further support getting started! 

Divest/Reinvest Your Pension - Fossil Fuels are a Money Loser

• What is Divestment and Reinvestment? 

• This Divest-Invest Guide from the Labor Network for Sustainability and DivestInvest Network provides helpful answers, support, and guidance:

  • “Working people collectively own an enormous amount of capital in our pensions. As a sector, pensions are the largest source of investment in financial holdings, even larger than standard investment houses and banks! Pensions constitute over $40 trillion! Our pension funds are invested in stocks and bonds that may not be serving our interests as working people and may be harming our families’ futures. Imagine what we might be able to support and build, imagine the great jobs we could create, if we use more of our pension funds to directly benefit our members and our families. . . .”

  • “Using divestment from union pension funds for a social purpose is not a newfangled idea. In fact, starting in the 1970s it played a significant role in the overthrow of the Apartheid regime of legally sanctioned racism in South Africa.”

  • “ . . . the [fossil fuel] divestment movement was initially sparked by ‘mission-driven institutions acting out of a moral imperative to confront the climate crisis.’ But a second wave of divestment is driven by ‘financial concerns about economic risk from stranded fossil fuel assets.’ Now, ‘diverse legal scholars, businesses, and investors’ are warning that ‘fiduciaries who fail to consider climate change risks in their investment analyses and decisions; may be at risk of ‘breaching their legal duty as fiduciaries.’”

• Don’t lose your hard-earned wages! Follow the guide linked above and secure your pension’s value by investing in the clean, green economy. 

  • Special thanks to Jeremy Brecher, Bob Muehlenkamp, Denise Patel, Nancy Romer, and Steven Feit for the guide! 

• Check out these other helpful resources on Divestment/Reinvestment: 

  • A comprehensive, easy-to-follow webinar video from our friends at Fossil Free California on everything you need to know about divestment. 

  • The Climate Safe Pension Network helps to support union pension divestment/reinvestment efforts.

  • The Corporate Knights can help show how much money your pension fund will lose in fossil fuels (and how much they can gain in reinvesting green).

• Please reach out to ECAN for support in getting started on divestment.

Bargaining for the Common Good:  Putting Community, Public Health, and Environmental Wins into Your Union Contract

• • Here is what the Bargaining for the Common Good Network has to say on common good bargaining: 

“Unions that have the right to bargain use contract fights as an opportunity to organize with community partners around a set of demands that benefit not just the bargaining unit, but also the wider community as a whole. These are campaigns for investing in our communities, not just settling a union contract.”

• • Educators can do this too with their school district! These campaigns bring the union, parents, and community members together to fight for mutually-agreed on demands beyond even just the important issue of union members’ wages and benefits. 

  • You can use common good bargaining in your union to win a just plan for healthy, full-resourced schools, as well as climate and environmental justice victories that your community needs!

  • Here are some resources on what one inspiring educator union has done with common good bargaining for climate justice. 

  • Please reach out to ECAN for support in getting started on common good bargaining.

OP-ED Checklist

1. Check out this list of major newspapers across the country and their op-ed submission information. If you can't find it, call your local publications or search their contact pages to get in touch

   • Who is the Op-Ed editor?

   • What are the editorial guidelines and deadlines for submitting an Op-Ed?

2. Draft your Op-Ed

   • Watch the Op-Ed Workshop for Guidance on Writing and Pitching >>

   • Feel free to use our draft >>

3. Pitch your Op-Ed (make sure it is to one publication at a time)

4. Upon publishing, share your piece with us (email to oren@labor4sustainability.org) so we can help to amplify