CLIMATE, JOBS, JUSTICE
Edition 9
SEIU members and worker leaders in the Fight for $15 and a Union are confronted daily by the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice. This newsletter offers a snapshot of how we’re combating climate change and fighting against environmental injustice in our workplaces and communities as well as calling on major industries, corporations, and governments to protect the health, safety and long-term economic well-being of all working people across America.
Opportunities to engage in the fight for Climate, Jobs, and Justice
Opportunities for Action
SEIU USWW member Jovan Houston works at LAX. She sent an action alert to thousands of her SEIU brothers and sisters around the country last week about her experience with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) that is made worse by exposure to dirty air and soot that she’s exposed to at her work and in her community. She needs your help to breathe!
Over 63 million Americans, like Jovan, experience unhealthy spikes in daily levels of soot pollution. Soot exposure is linked to increased infant mortality, cardiovascular disease, asthma, diabetes, cognitive impairments, and premature death. The heavy health burden of soot pollution is disproportionately borne by communities of color living near heavily polluting facilities and high-traffic roadways. And air pollution exposures are frequently harming vulnerable people along with other climate threats, including extreme heat.
President Biden’s EPA released a new proposal to protect our health from deadly soot pollution — but it’s not nearly strong enough.
SEIU has joined the Climate Action Campaigns Solutions for Pollution Initiative to help generate comments to the EPA. Comments are openl through March 28. Submit a comment urging EPA to strengthen its Clean Air Act proposal for strict soot limits to further protect public health, defend our communities, and save more lives.
TAKE A MINUTE to submit your comment and a personal story if you can TELL EPA TO PROTECT OUR LUNGS and OUR CLIMATE from DIRTY AIR
Local Highlights
1199 UHE
This month 1199 UHE kicked off its Green Justice Caucus with an engaging virtual event attended by over 90 members. The goal of the caucus is to connect labor and environmental advocates, to educate members about the importance of environmental advocacy, and push for a healthy, green economy with living wage jobs.
HCMNIA
Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz signs '100 Percent by 2040' bill.
Minnesota utilities are now obligated to transition to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 to curb the impact of climate change by setting a new benchmark requiring utilities move to a cleaner energy future. It is one of the most ambitious state clean energy bill in the country.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa worked in partnership with many community organizations through the years.
USWW
Check out this recent op-ed co-written by SEIU-USWW President David Huerta on the right-wing efforts to overturn critical labor and environmental laws passed by the state legislature.
For more information on the activities listed in this newsletter please contact Nicole Hernandez Hammer at nicole.hernandez-hammer@seiu.org
Archive:
https://act.seiu.org/a/climate-newsletter-archive
