Electric vehicles are a lifeline for labour + climate
Zero-emissions vehicles could drive Canada's green recovery efforts
I’m a sucker for nostalgic representations of what “good jobs” used to look like: communities sustained by large employers, company picnics, regular pay raises, opportunities for advancement, salaries that supported a high standard of living, et cetera.
Workers in automotive manufacturing once represented this kind of labour ideal, but it’s been a long time since the industry experienced sustained success.
Back in 2013, the Toronto Star said the status of the auto industry was “dismal.” The situation hasn’t really improved since then. According to Unifor, there are 129,000 people working in Canada’s auto industry. That’s a lot of families in a potentially precarious situation.
I’d understand if the promise of an EV-powered green recovery – such as the one proposed in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent throne speech – wasn’t warmly embraced by rank-and-file union members. Making sweeping changes to what little they have held onto probably sounds terrifying.
And yet, change must come to how we make and use vehicles. Transportation is responsible for about one-quarter of Canada’s GHG emissions according to the most recent National Inventory Report.
After major car makers in Canada shut down operations back in March due to the pandemic, the auto industry’s appetite for trying new things has notably increased. Canada’s automakers have been pitching in with our pandemic efforts by making essential items like personal protective equipment (PPE). As I’ve mentioned in a previous newsletter, countries like Germany, France and China are already betting on electric vehicles to be a generator of renewed economic growth. And you can now add India to that list too.
If you’re an autoworker in Canada, there are good reasons to expect things could get better.
Ford Mustang Mach-E GT (via Wiki Commons).
Last week, the federal government and province of Ontario agreed on a $500 million plan to upgrade a Ford plant to produce electric vehicles – the kind of news that finally puts autoworkers and climate activists on the same team. And in the U.S., California just announced that it’s banning the sale of new gas-powered cars in just 15 years.
Strong climate policies and public-private partnerships like these are necessary for meaningful climate action in transportation, and they at long last could provide autoworkers with the momentum they’ve been waiting for.
I don’t imagine that electrifying everyone’s gas-powered vehicle will suddenly solve our climate problems, though. Car-centric living is itself a problem – a psychological one. Building communities with an embodied reverence for personal transportation has trapped us in a mode of living that is more dangerous, selfish, wasteful and environmentally taxing.
In this sense, electrifying vehicles should be seen as our middle step. We have to keep an eye towards long-term improvements in how we design and connect our physical spaces. Can we still have “good jobs” in a world like that? I hope so.
Thanks for reading! You can find me on Twitter @seanminogue or check out my website here.