Overview
In the United States, precarious work–work that is uncertain, unstable, and insecure, where employees receive limited to no social and statutory protections and where substantial legal and practical obstacles to collective representation exist–has increased across industries and sectors. The Worker Institute and the Climate Jobs Institute at Cornell University’s ILR School are hosting a webinar that will explore the state of labor-market precarity in the clean energy economy with a focus on the way unions and worker centers are organizing to raise standards for workers. This webinar will shine a spotlight on climate justice, exploring how two models of collective representation are addressing job precarity in two sectors of the clean energy economy.
The webinar will be broken into three parts. We will open with a high-level overview of the state of worker precarity in the United States, highlighting new drivers of precarity and why we need to care about this. The Climate Jobs Institute will then provide background on the state of climate justice and the ways precarity emerges across different clean energy sectors. A cornerstone of this discussion is elevating the way local groups are addressing worker precarity through collective representation and to what effect. The webinar will close with a panel discussion with representatives from local and state government, unions and worker organizers to discuss how current endeavors will inform future expansion of a just and fair clean energy economy.
