All rights reserved. They are looking at housing and gentrification; linking housing justice to utility justice; creating green jobs through economic development plans; and developing a community-driven plan for a green careers pipeline. So many individuals and groups are now asking how we organize society, our economy, and our politics in such a way that our institutions serve the people, rather than capital. ▪ Provide decent pensions with healthcare for workers who are not provided other jobs and who do not opt for retraining. For those of us working on systems change, and fighting to create a better world, we see JT as a vehicle for the creation of new, locally based, economies constructed around principles of equality for all and local control — a more robust democracy where gender, race and class bias fades into the past. What do you get when you bring together leaders and activists from labor, community organizations, environmental organizations and others to hammer out a common vision of Just Transition? For example, it is bringing new thinking to the discussion about jobs. However, as the nation transitions to clean energy, it is critical to have these conversations and to be proactive about policies and investments that can help bridge that gap. “1. We know we need a strategy for power to win Just Transition, and we know we have a deadline due to the alarming advance of global warming and climate change. Closer attention must be paid to power dynamics and political economy challenges. Just transition ensures a humane and civilized approach. The Paris Agreement on climate change requires a transition to a net-zero GHG economy in the second half of this century. Efforts to put just transaction principles into practice have so far been limited. A new social contract can deliver long-term value creation that enables economic security and mobility, is genuinely inclusive, and addresses challenges such as the transition to clean energy and the emergence of a digital world. First, it provides an opportunity to “transform the economy” to create “high quality jobs, especially in low-income and communities of color.” And it provides the opportunity to “take care of and protect fossil fuel workers and communities” by investing in them as we transition to clean energy. That willingness was apparent when we all met together. Just transition in practice” presents seven mini-case studies of efforts to embody just transition ideas in concrete social experiments. For Joe Uehlein of the Labor Network for Sustainability, “the meaning of just transition is very holistic, and very much focused on what’s happening with working people today.” The concepts of just transition are “embedded in all the work LNS does.” The absence of a real just transition approach for workers has been “holding back unions” and “preventing them from participating in discussions about climate change.” With labor people it won’t work if the talk about just transition is only in utopian terms—“that’s just not real to them.” Organized labor is grounded in thinking about “jobs, wages, and grievances,” so whatever the discussion “it has to be real.” When we say that for LNS the meaning of Just Transition is very holistic, we mean that “we believe it is possible to work for the great leap forward, a transition away from capitalism and toward local democratic economies, while at the same time fighting for what working people need today.”, Movement Generation’s Gopal Dayaneni notes that, “Some people are concerned that the way MG uses just transition is way too radical because it’s also about resisting capitalism.” Other people are concerned because “just transition language doesn’t speak to everyone.” Dayaneni’s own discomfort is that “just transition doesn’t explicitly speak to the nature of the disruption” that it will take “to get us where we need to go.” The word “transition” makes it sound like “a smooth, almost easy process.”, Dayaneni says that, “in terms of folks on the ground, where people are exposed to just transition language, like in Richmond, California, and Eastern Kentucky, it seems to be working.” When it is contextualized for people it works: “People will embrace the frame if it’s meaningful to them.” The one place just transition doesn’t have as much traction is within organized labor.