The state of the American labour movement has, since the mid-1970s, been dispiriting. There have, of course, been moments of creative and inspiring resistance, but the predominant story has been a chronicle of decline: private-sector unionization rates below where they were a century ago, the abject failure to make breakthroughs in key emerging sectors, defensive stagnation in bargaining achievements, and – election-year rhetoric aside – the political marginalization of working-class concerns.
The climate mobilization in Canada, as I’ve written in previous columns, has yet to feel like a grand societal undertaking. Among the bold initiatives that would send such a signal — a Youth Climate Corps.
Remember during the 2016 Democratic Primary when Hillary Clinton ineptly said she was “going to put a lot of coal miners […] out of business”? The Bernie crowd — myself included — had a good time with this gaffe, finding in it a microcosm of a certain centrist Democratic politics that touts supposedly progressive policy (in this case, clean energy) while treating the needs of working people as an afterthought, at best.
Ottawa and its critics agree there is much more work to be done to achieve Transport Canada’s goal of phasing out the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035, but plans have stalled until the United States sets its course.
