 On Monday, we partnered with Wells Fargo workers to deliver union gift bags to 200+ bank branches across the country. The gift bags included coffee, candy – and an invitation for workers to learn about the union by talking with unionized bank workers. The goal? Support more bank workers getting involved in the fight to unionize Wells Fargo. But, maybe you’re wondering why we, a climate coalition, are spending our time supporting worker power. So I thought I’d use this month’s newsletter to explain our strategy. Over 150 years of labor organizing has demonstrated that organizing workers can be an incredibly effective strategy, one capable of moving corporations in huge and meaningful ways. We’ve even glimpsed this within the climate movement. In 2019, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice organized more than 8,000 Amazon employees around climate demands, and nearly 2,000 employees walked out of work to join a climate strike. In response, the company committed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, announced the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund, and ordered 100,000 electric delivery vehicles. Yes, there’s still a heck of a lot of work to be done to make Amazon a responsible social actor, but those were remarkable victories – and they wouldn’t have happened without a critical mass of organized workers. So, that’s part of the reason we’re supporting workers’ fight for a union. By building with bank workers, we can build the power to win real concessions from Wells Fargo. But it’s about much more than that, too. We’re living in an age of truly grotesque wealth inequality. America’s richest twelve billionaires are now worth $2.7 trillion, their combined wealth quadrupling since 2020. And while your average school teacher (or bank worker) pays around 25% of their income in taxes, Jeff Bezos pays a true tax rate of 1%. This level of inequality is poisoning our politics. In 2024, just 300 billionaires and their families were responsible for $3 billion in political spending, making up nearly 20% of all political spending in federal elections. This is what oligarchy looks like: a small number of billionaires buying politicians and reaping the rewards. It’s why we got Musk’s DOGE, which literally killed hundreds of thousands of people and stole the data of every living American. It’s why Trump’s budget bill cut taxes for billionaires while spiking healthcare premiums for everyday Americans. And it’s, in part, why tackling the climate crisis is so damn hard. Many of MAGAs largest donors are billionaires from the oil and gas industry. In 2024 alone, the fossil fuel industry contributed $445 million to support Trump and his climate denier buddies. Which brings me back to why a climate group is supporting a labor union struggle like the Wells Fargo Workers United campaign: we can’t tackle the climate crisis without taking on the billionaire class and the wealth inequality poisoning our political system. And you know what the single greatest antidote to extreme wealth inequality is? It’s labor unions.
So, yes, we’re supporting the union fight at Wells Fargo because we think it’s a good strategy to win on climate in the long run. But more broadly, building a fighting labor movement is perhaps the greatest antidote to the power of the billionaire class that’s undermining our democracy and our ability to tackle the climate crisis. In Solidarity,
____________ News and Updates from the Coalition- Stop the Money Pipeline celebration and online gala: you're invited! On Thursday, May 21st, we’re hosting Brighter Futures: An online celebration and fundraising gala for Stop the Money Pipeline! It’s gonna be great! – Holding Elon Accountable On April 14th we launched the Investigate DOGE campaign with our partners at Communications Workers of America and Tesla Takedown. DOGE destroyed vital government agencies, left 300,000 dedicated public servants jobless, exposed the personal data of nearly every American, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. But accountability is coming. Sign the petition to call on Congress to investigate Elon Musk and the DOGE Bros, and receive all the updates about the campaign. – Big update from the Insure our Communities New York campaign As Governor Hochul unforgivably moves to gut New York's landmark climate law, we have much better new from the Insure our Communities New York campaign: Senate Insurance Committee Chair, Jamal Bailey, has signed on as the new lead sponsor of the Insure our Communities Act. This is a big deal. Not only is Senator Bailey the Chair of the Insurance Committee and therefore a critical vote, but he is also widely considered a frontrunner for the Senate Majority Leader position. We’re very excited to build on this progress and work with Senator Bailey’s office to advance this landmark bill. – And progress in Connecticut, too! For 3+ years now, our partner, Connecticut Citizens Action Group (CCAG) has been campaigning for a bill called Insuring Connecticut’s Resiliency. The bill would place a surcharge on insurance premiums paid by fossil fuel companies, and use the money to pay for climate programs. On March 13, when the bill was introduced into the Environmental Committee, we joined many others in voicing support of the bill. Despite the short legislative session, CCAG and allies secured a huge win: the bill passed out of the Environmental Committee and the Appropriations Committee with an overwhelming majority vote. Next year will hopefully be the year the bill gets pushed over the finish line. – Now that’s a lotta emails The Spanish bank, Santander, is the world’s largest funder of fossil fuel expansion in Latin America. So, after Santander ignored European and Latin American campaigners’ requests for a meeting, we organized a coalition of groups to flood their top executives’ email inboxes with messages. So far, 33,000 people have sent more than 530,000 emails. I reached out to their Global Head of Sustainability, Lara de Mesa, to request a meeting yesterday – I’ll let you know what we hear back. – No immunity for Big Oil Big Oil companies have knowingly fueled catastrophic climate damages for decades — but they lied about the danger to protect their profits. Now, as communities are taking action to make polluters pay, Congress has introduced a bill that would give the fossil fuel industry blanket immunity from any laws or lawsuits that could hold them accountable. Call your Member of Congress here to demand No Immunity for Big Oil. – How your pension votes matters In the world of campaigning against the financial industry, spring is what we call shareholder season. That’s because this is the time of year major companies hold annual meetings to vote on critical issues, including hundreds of climate-related proposals that shape their sustainability practices. One of the best ways we can push them to act is through public pension funds, which invest trillions of our tax dollars and have a significant voice in these shareholder meetings. Our partners at the Sierra Club have done great work flagging critical climate votes for pension funds – and you can sign their petition to pension managers here. – Seattle’s First Peoples’ Climate Fund In Seattle, STMP Steering Committee member and Mazaksa Talks co-founder Matt Remle, played a key role in winning the First Peoples’ Climate Fund, a new funding source to fund Indigenous-led climate adaptation and mitigation efforts in the region. – And to finish: a goofy photo… Finally, to close out this month’s newsletter, here’s a goofy photo of me and my buddy outside a Wells Fargo branch on Monday. Remember, if you know anyone who works at Wells Fargo, let them know: they can get in touch with a union organizer here. 
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Graph showing income inequality and union density trends (1925 - 2015)
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