L/T – GND new horizons of care work – laundry list

People need jobs, and there is much work to be done to transition our economy away from carbon. The THRIVE Agenda, for example, calls for creating fifteen million new jobs to repair the country’s infrastructure, build clean public transit, replace lead pipes, expand solar and wind power, protect and restore wetlands and forests, and expand clean manufacturing technologies. University of Massachusetts economists estimate that the THRIVE Agenda would create over fifteen million jobs in a range of sectors, including indirect job creation in related industries.22 But given the deterioration in the quality of work, it is not enough just to focus on job creation. Work itself needs to change in many ways, and since the exploration of imaginative reinventions of work is possible through a public workers program in a way that it is not through the private sphere, proponents of the Green New Deal ought to be envisioning both more work and better work. Here are at least four specific ways that should happen. Take Care of One Another The Green New Deal is about environmental sustainability, but it should also be about sustaining human life. Environmental scientist Eli Dueker points out, “This [crisis] isn’t about ‘saving the planet.’ The planet will survive in the end. We need to focus on learning to take care of each other. And if we do that, if we start to prioritize collective care, it will also have positive side- effects for the planet.”23 Green New Deal proposals focus on creating jobs to save the planet and workers’ livelihoods, but we also need jobs to save ourselves from alienation and to take care of another. A Green New Deal should create care jobs. A growing number of commentators, such as Alyssa Battistoni (chapter 4, this volume) and Naomi Klein, are calling to expand our definition of “green jobs” to include the kinds of work that service the whole range of human need: social reproduction, health care, education, and social work.24 We need to take care of the sick and the elderly, counsel those suffering climate depression and trauma, and rebuild our communities. Care work is also an effective way to think about job creation. Some cities and states have begun to pass variations of “green” legislation that focus on construction work. For example, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo pushed a version of his Green New Deal, which would provide $1.5 billion for funding to support large solar, wind, and energy storage projects in the state. This is projected to provide renewable energy for 550,000 homes and create 2,600 short- and long- term jobs.25 New York City, under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, passed a bill that mandates environmental retrofitting of all private sector buildings occupying over 25,000 square feet over the next ten years. This is expected to create over 26,000 jobs.26 This is a good start. But compare these 2,600 construction jobs created by the New York State Green New Deal and the 26,000 in New York City with the job needs in the care sector. There are almost 880,000 jobs in the state’s care sector (including health and education) where the median wage is less than $40,000 annually. And in many of these jobs, even the wage for experienced workers is less than $40,000 annually. At the national level, there are over 11 million workers in low- wage care occupations (see table 5.1). Home health care is the fastest- growing occupation in the country, and according to the National Employment Law Project, almost half of the workers in this occupation rely on public assistance to survive.27 The Green New Deal should have an expansive definition of sustainability and the kinds of jobs needed to deal with climate crisis and human need. We should demand higher wages for personal care workers, home health aides, teacher assistants, and childcare workers. We should also demand investment to greatly increase the number of workers in these occupations. In Search of Fulfilling Work Work should be about serving the collective need, but work should also be fulfilling. Work should be a place to develop human capacity. One of Marx’s main critiques of work under capitalism is that it deforms human beings. He argued that capitalism produces not a rich human being but an impoverished one, that “the more value he creates, the more worthless he becomes; the more his product is shaped, the more misshapen the worker.”28 Workers should have freedom not just from want but from soul crushing, deforming labor. As economist Michael Lebowitz argues, work should be about producing the goods and services we need to survive but also about developing ourselves.29 How do we foster this? Our goal should be to de- commodify work. People should not have to depend on a paycheck to survive. We must find ways so people have more choice over how they spend their time, choice about how to develop their capacity. This won’t be easy, but there are steps we can take to move in that direction. The pandemic lockdown gave a glimmer of an alternative. First, millions of people stepped up, looking to help. Whether it is because they are now unemployed and have more time on their hands or because, as Rebecca Solnit has observed, assisting others gives them joy, we are seeing people all over the world participate in mutual aid networks and solidaristic activities in their communities.30 Of course, others retreated from community and turned on their neighbors, but early studies show an increase in volunteering overall during the pandemic, which is consistent with findings from other times of crisis.31 Second, the lockdown brought to light the enormous creativity and skill set that already exists among us. Bakers, gardeners, computer programmers, lawyers, house cleaners, teachers, and more all stepped up to offer their services to those in need. Others quickly learned new skills: with more time to spare in lockdown, they could pursue interests that seemed impossible only months earlier. People taught one another, and our collective skill set grew. This means some people have a moment to pursue meaningful work— if not for a paycheck, then in the service of our collective human development.32 Instead of a system that deforms us, we are enriched through pursuing our passions. Of course, it isn’t just in a pandemic that people are creative. Scratch the surface in any workplace and you will learn the incredible range of hobbies and skills that workers have off the job. In her recent memoir of her time as a steelworker, Eliese Colette Goldbach wrote, “Many of my coworkers possessed a creative side. . . . There was a man who made stained- glass windows, and there was a woman who made jewelry out of animal bones. Some people built furniture and gazebos for their families, and there was one crane operator who made elaborate sculptures out of recycled silverware.”33 Finally, the pandemic exposed the reality of “essential work”: what we really need to do in society to take care of ourselves. We need food and shelter, health care, education, and social work. This includes service work as well as construction, manufacturing, and transit. And taking care of ourselves includes recreation, music, and arts. We need purpose, and we need space and time to pursue our passions. Many of the workers who serve our basic needs, such as farmworkers, grocery store workers, nurse’s aides, home care workers, delivery workers, and emergency medical technicians are not rewarded by a capitalist labor market, leaving them to rely on charity or public services to make ends meet. In a differently organized society, we could start with making sure these kinds of jobs are adequately staffed and that those who do them are treated justly. And “essential work” is also that which allows us to develop our collective human capacity. All workers are essential, but under capitalism the only real essential work is that which makes a profit. For work to become a way to help one another, to pursue our passions, and to build our communities, it must be decommodified. There are a number of ways to move in this direction. By reducing living expenses, people become less desperate to take any job and are able to afford more choice in work. This could be done through programs including Medicare for All, expanded affordable housing, universal child tax credits, and free or reduced fare public transit. The child tax credit attached to the 2021 American Rescue Plan was a good start, but it only lasted a year, ending December 31, 2021; it should be restored indefinitely. Another proposal is a universal basic income (UBI), which would provide a cash grant to all adults. The UBI concept can be easily co- opted by conservative forces using it to cut social programs and advance individualism. In Finland, the center- right government launched a modified UBI experiment in 2017 on the hopes of getting unemployed people into jobs. That did not work, although participants did report an increase in life satisfaction and mental well- being.34 Critics note that the Finnish experiment was flawed to begin with for a variety of reasons, including the low grant level. The U.S. federal government gave out a number of cash grants as part of the pandemic stimulus packages in 2020 and 2021 but so far has failed to pass any structural reforms that alter the balance of power toward workers, such as the PRO Act or Biden’s Jobs Act. A true UBI, progressive advocates argue, would be given to everyone— not just unemployed people. Rather than a tool to improve work ethic, a properly designed UBI would allow people to choose a job based on what they found interesting or rewarding rather than what they needed to do to survive. One advantage of a UBI is that it is a collective solution to a collective problem as it pools resources and redistributes to all. Reduce and Localize Work A growing number of analysts have been raising alarms about the future of work given developments in technology— particularly artificial intelligence. Take, for example, a recent Brookings Institute report that found 25 percent of jobs will face “high exposure to automation,” and another 36 percent will face medium exposure in coming decades.35 These alarmist projections are misleading in part because, under capitalism, jobs are always under threat of mechanization. Textile workers were fighting new technologies in the 1700s, and we have seen employers attempt to mechanize and replace workers ever since.36 The type of automation and technology takes new forms, but it does not change the underlying power struggle between employers and workers about how new technologies are introduced. Also unhelpful are the ways in which analysts pose technology as a threat to workers. Technology could make work safer and more interesting. We could use it to allow for a shorter workday or workweek, periods off for education, or early retirement. We should use new technologies to bring true flexibility to work schedules (not neoliberal employer- driven “flexibility.”) New technologies might reduce our carbon emissions directly— and indirectly— if it results in fewer hours worked per week and more conscious decisions about what kind of work we do. We can, and must, cut back on the kinds of jobs capitalism requires for profit maximization but harm the environment and do nothing for meeting human needs. We can no longer afford a world in which people drive an hour each way to produce or sell things we don’t need. One way to do that is to abandon the commitment to a forty- hour workweek. Sociologist Leah Vosko argues that the whole concept of the “standard workweek”—five days a week, forty hours of work— never worked well for many workers, particularly women and those with care duties.37 The 9- to- 5 workday is not compatible with school schedules, and for many parents work locations are far from school or daycare locations. In countries with strong unions, retail workers were able to win strong protections on their workday. Shops were open limited hours and closed on Sundays. While this model was good for retail workers, it made it almost impossible for a family with two working parents to get groceries. The system relied on having either a stay- at- home “housewife” or hiring a domestic worker (commodifying more of the household labor). A shorter workweek allows people to do errands without 24/7 commerce. A growing number of countries and companies are experimenting or discussing a four- day workweek, and the Spanish government agreed to launch a small pilot program by providing grants to two hundred companies that agree to implement a four- day, thirty- two- hour workweek for three years.38 The pandemic lockdown also showed us that it might not be necessary for so many people to commute to work each day. Working from home might not be the answer for all kinds of work or all people. (In fact, it can dangerously offload the costs of office upkeep onto employees and extend work hours.) But clearly there is room for more flexibility and creative work arrangements, which could benefit the environment as well as work/life balance. The Green New Deal pushes us to get smarter about not just our commutes but our jobs themselves. As Michael Goodwin writes in his comic on climate economics, “Yes, we need to find greener ways to commute, but we also need to ask where we’re all going every morning.”39 Educate and Train for Liberation Another way to create the conditions so people can develop human capacity has to do with education and training. Some Green New Deal proposals promote vocational training for those people who work in fossil fuel industries to help them train to make the transition to new jobs. And, further, some training is oriented toward bringing underemployed and unemployed communities into renewable energy sectors: giving skills to get jobs. Some versions of the Green New Deal call for free higher education. But here is another tension— a possible danger. In capitalist labor markets, employers use credentials and notions of skill to divide workers. Workers might accept this credentialing and skilling because it is one of the few sources of power they have. “Skilled work” is a socially constructed concept. All work is skilled, but some skills (and credentials) are more scarce than others or take longer to acquire. The skills we pay more for are those that are more necessary for profit making— not necessarily for meeting human need. And often the skilled work we pay more for are in fields where some groups of workers have won enough power to keep other workers out. We want to demand access to training and education, but the goal is not to access credentials in order to find wage labor and survive. Many supposedly progressive platforms focus on increasing opportunities for more people to earn a credential, which is misplaced. The goal is lifelong learning, which would include access to noncredit and nondegree education as well. People should have the chance to learn throughout their lifetime— to have access to education and training that interests them. This is a component of the Latin American concept of buen vivir. According to one of the foundational thinkers, Eduardo Gudynas, “Buen vivir wouldn’t design education programmes as forms of investment in human capital, but rather it would design them so that people become more illustrados [enlightened].” 40 In addition, we cannot treat education and training as a tool for individuals to get ahead. Developing human capacity is actually a collective project. Again from Gudynas: “With buen vivir, the subject of wellbeing is not [about the] individual, but the individual in the social context of their community and in a unique environmental situation.” 41 The goal is harmonious, collective development. This requires us to develop the skills of collective problem- solving, decision- making, and governance.42 We must find spaces to promote training in cooperation: how to work together, make decisions together, function collectively. Education and training must be tools for liberation rather than for exacerbating inequality.