Climate Jobs New York (CJNY) is a growing coalition of labor unions representing 2.6 million working people at the center of New York’s economy. We are united around a shared goal of combating climate change while reversing income inequality. CJNY’s mission is to advocate for a clean energy economy at the scale climate science demands, create good union jobs, and support more equitable communities and a more resilient New York.
We empower New Yorkers, especially workers, in the civic engagement process to advance a low-carbon, equitable economy through training, workshops, and education exchanges. We engage all sectors—elected officials, policymakers, businesses, and community—around pro-climate, pro-worker policies. Unlike most other labor-climate coalitions, CJNY includes building trades and energy sector unions that represent members who currently work in the fossil fuel sector, operating and maintaining coal, oil, gas, and nuclear plants that will be phased out as the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy accelerates. A key priority of CJNY is protecting and supporting impacted workers through the clean energy transition.
CJNY met with early and significant success when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo committed to supplying more than 85 percent of the state’s annual energy needs with the renewable resources of offshore wind and solar energy. Additionally, New York was the first state in the country to include a project labor agreement in its initial request for bids to construct offshore wind farms. The agreement ensures that all of the construction workers on the project will receive union pay and benefits.
“With Governor Cuomo’s leadership, New York has raced to the forefront of clean energy development. And we’re going to do our part to make sure New York stays on the leading edge, from port infrastructure that can make us a manufacturing staging port for the offshore wind industry to the installation of solar retrofits on public schools. There’s a lot more we need to do to grow New York’s clean energy economy and take on the dual crises of climate change and inequality.” Gary LaBarbera, President, Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York
As New York State moves toward its renewable energy goals, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that the path to a low-carbon future results in good jobs that provide family-sustaining wages and benefits for communities across the state.
We will talk about the ways that climate change and inequality are inextricably linked, dig into the once-in-a-generation opportunity to create good family-sustaining jobs by developing the renewable energy sector, and engage in a holistic discussion about just transition for workers in fossil fuel industries and their communities. |
At a time that calls for public investment on a scale not seen since the Great Depression, let’s invest in the clean energy economy of the future, assure that the new clean energy jobs hire union workers, take climate action at a scale science demands and address the crisis of extreme inequality.
Climate Jobs National Resource Center, launched in 2020, helps unions across the U.S. form their own state-based Climate Jobs coalitions. CJNRC provides strategic and technical support to state-led coalitions to develop action plans specific to their states to create good, clean jobs, organize union members around the plan, and advocate for its implementation. Specific support on how to engage and educate community leaders, labor leaders, and members, business leaders, and elected officials is also available.
Climate Jobs NY, launched in 2017, is a growing coalition of labor unions representing 2.6 million working men and women at the center of New York’s economy. CJNY is united around a shared goal of combating climate change while reversing income inequality. CJNY’s mission is to advocate for a clean energy economy at the scale climate science demands, create good union jobs, and support more equitable communities and a more resilient New York.
Cornell’s Labor Leading on Climate Program, part of the Worker Institute at Cornell University’s ILR School, is the academic and educational partner to the Climate Jobs National Resource Center. The Labor Leading on Climate program studies the labor and employment impacts of climate change and clean energy policy and provides education and training to union leaders and members to engage labor in climate protection efforts.