Why go on strike?
Ongoing and visible racist police violence and the coronavirus crisis both bring into plain sight what we’ve known for a long time: the rules are written to keep the powerful in power.
At least 31% percent of renters in the U.S. couldn’t afford rent in April, and it was worse in May. Police violence and the coronavirus fall along racial lines, as they have throughout U.S. history.
Today people’s utility bills are climbing as we spend more time at home. The Institute for Policy Studies describes economic inequality as “America’s pre-existing condition”—the most vulnerable members of our community are unfairly handed an immense share of the suffering. Black and Indigenous communities, who have continually paid the price for economic expansion, are again being dealt a losing hand. Meanwhile, many of the nation’s wealthiest billionaires profit off the pandemic.
And since pre-pandemic world problems haven’t gone away, we are faced with compounding emergencies: climate change, racial injustice, and economic disparity alongside coronavirus.
Current policies will lead to 3 degrees Celsius of warming, more than twice the Paris Agreements goal of 1.5 degrees. Here, too, people who are already struggling will bear the greatest burden: up to 1.5 billion people will be climate refugees by 2050, but the people most responsible—fossil fuel executives and the politicians who support them—will have the means to protect themselves. Even during the pandemic, already wealthy fossil fuel companies are receiving extensive bailouts.
Here in New England, the Merrimack Generating Station in Bow, NH is the last large coal plant without a shutdown date.
Thanks to decreasing regional energy demand and new cleaner sources joining the grid, there is ample energy in the region to handle our maximum need without ever using the Merrimack station—and, in fact, it doesn’t provide power very often. But it’s still running, just in case. In 2018, the plant received a subsidy as part of the New England grid: over $188 million to run until 2023, plus whatever it earns by providing energy. We pay that subsidy in our utility bills—bills that more of us than ever cannot afford to pay. In total, approximately 10% of every New Englander’s electric bill subsidizes fossil fuel plants.
For over a year, people from all six states in New England have been working together to shut down the Merrimack station. Last September, 67 of us were arrested attempting to remove coal from the plant, bucket by bucket, and through the winter, we consistently blockaded trains carrying coal to resupply the plant. With the pandemic we are switching up our approach, but banding together to solve this problem is more important than ever.
In a moment of racial reckoning during public health and economic crises, it is increasingly irresponsible and unjust for the fossil fuel industry to profit off ratepayer dollars while driving forward climate catastrophe. That’s why we’re launching a utility strike—withholding payment of our electric bills to demand:
An immediate halt to fossil fuel subsidies on the New England grid.
Cancellation of contracts with fossil fuel generators and redirection of that money:
Towards ratepayer relief for the next year.
Towards electrical efficiency, conservation projects, and renewable generation, beginning June 2021.
As people who care about our communities and our climate, we are in a moment of great potential. One thing becoming clearer by the day is that things are not going back to the way they were before the pandemic. In the chaos, it’s natural to feel lonely and helpless.
Striking requires courage, and it involves risk. But if fossil fuel companies succeed in pushing their story of the future, our communities face not just risk but certain danger. Because we are not alone, because we do have communities, we don’t have to quietly go along with that story. We can work to build the world we want to live in: a world that puts people before profit and protects the most vulnerable members of our communities.
Strikes like this work when ordinary people make the brave and necessary choice to say no more—and every person that joins gives us more power to protect each other. The world is changing rapidly no matter what we do. Let’s make it a change that’s just.