Please mark your calendars – Giving Tuesday is December 3rd. We hope to stir up the giving spirit and further engage our many supporters. We appreciate all of you so much and we need your help now, as we all together roll up our sleeves, ready to work harder than ever.
This message is a reminder of why your support for the Just Transition Alliance is so important.
The negative energy of Trump has won over a majority of voters. For those who feel that the Democrats can’t be trusted, we hear you and we certainly don’t disagree. But we must emphasize that in spite of the recent rhetoric coming from the MAGA movement – calling themselves “the party of the working class” – we know that their true vision does not serve the interests of working people and environmental justice communities. In fact, it will bring great harm to many.
We can’t predict the future, but it’s reasonable to anticipate the following:
- Unions will be attacked; workers’ rights will be eroded even further, as will human rights in general.
- Mass deportation may remove millions of essential workers; prices will soar especially in food and construction.
- Tariffs and tax breaks for the 1% will trigger an economic downturn, job losses, and more inflation.
- False solutions to climate change, such as nuclear power, will not reduce fossil fuel extraction; progress toward sustainable energy will stop immediately, and key regulations will be repealed, deepening the economic and environmental damage.
- Unqualified ideologues will bring chaos to federal agencies, leading to breakdown of Social Security, Medicare, public education, etc… “dismantling big government” will bring massive profits to a few corporations, instability and hardship to nearly everyone else.
- The government will continue to be powerful in its violence; contrary to anti-war posturing, the military budget will increase, as it has under every administration.
- Corruption, racist violence, and fear will be visible everywhere; trust in institutions will be near zero.
- Inequality will continue to expand, and before long, democracy will no longer be viable.
JTA is ready to fight back against courts, legislatures, and executive administrations that harm frontline workers and fenceline communities. This moment calls us to escalate our efforts to align Labor and Environmental Justice movements, building the grassroots power which is our most effective defense.
That work is not new to JTA; in fact we’ve been doing it for decades.
Exciting recent accomplishments include catalyzing promising new relationships between waste and recycling workers and community organizers who have succeeded in shutting down trash incinerators in their neighborhoods. The Teamsters are now allied with Valley Improvement Projects in Modesto and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice in Los Angeles, working together toward local zero waste economies (read more here).
We have been deeply engaged with the Global Plastics Treaty process, because we know that this is a critical moment to push hard at the UN level for progress in reducing plastic waste as well as a just transition for workers in the petrochemical and recycling sectors. We are cultivating an inspiring shared vision with members of the International Alliance of Waste Pickers, and we will have lots more news about that soon (read more here).
We understand that the coming years will be challenging. But we also see opportunity in crisis. JTA brings together frontline workers and fenceline communities, united for justice, building the coalitions necessary to give those most impacted by pollution a seat at the table and creating a just transition toward a world where we have jobs for the environment, instead of “jobs vs the environment.”
Please help us by donating what you can – your generosity will add momentum to the continuing growth of our crucial trans-local and international organizing as well as our very popular Just Transition and Just Markets trainings.
Please support the urgent fight for a just transition of workers and communities from unsafe workplaces and environments to healthy, regenerative, local solidarity economies.