Speaker 3: Every part of the City Council Agenda Item five, Resolution 31907 in support of Youth led September 20th, 2018 Global Climate Strike urging Seattle Public Schools to support its students rights to assemble and participate in the global climate strike and affirming the city employees may request unpaid leave for a day of conscience on September 20th, 2019.
Speaker 1: Councilmember Swann.
Speaker 4: Thank you, President Harrell. On Friday, September 20th, hundreds of Seattle public school students will walk out of classes to take part in the global climate strike. The strike action is part of global movements demanding immediate action from political officials in response to the impending climate catastrophe. It is now expected to be one of the largest protests ever, with 3500 strikes in 117 countries and more than 700 in the US alone. After decades of inaction by corporate politicians throughout the world and a recent report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change giving humanity just 12 years before surpassing a critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Young people are correct to be outraged, and they have no choice but to take action. This resolution in front of us supports this global call for student walkouts as part of September 28 global climate strike. We as a city council and the legislative body of this city owe our young organizers our deepest respect and support. The resolution also asks Seattle Public Schools not to punish students who participate in the walkouts. In fact, New York City, our school board is giving students unexcused absence. Finally, the resolution reaffirms that city of Seattle employees who wish to participate have the right to do so under state law by taking something called A Day of Conscience and ask the city of Seattle departments to inform people of those rights. I want to thank the Seattle for a Green New Deal coalition for all the work that the activists on the ground have done to promote the idea of a new Green New Deal and also emphasize, most importantly, emphasize the urgency of action. It's also important to note that workers throughout the world will be supporting the youth climate strike, as many of you might have heard. Nearly a thousand Amazon employees have declared that they will be joining the strike action, and they are specifically demanding that their employer, Amazon Corporation, stop donating to climate change deniers. Politicians and lobbyists stop working with oil and gas extraction companies. And as a corporation, they are calling on Amazon to achieve zero carbon emission by 2030. Yeah. And last but not least, as many of us have acknowledged. But we should keep reiterating. The Green New Deal is nothing but a massive public public works program. It's a public sector jobs program because in order to achieve what it will take to make Seattle 100% renewable by 2030, we will need to massively expand public transit, you know, to do clean energy retrofitting of all our buildings and businesses. And that will generate you know, if we actually do it, it will generate thousands of public sector, unionized construction and other trades jobs. And I really appreciate all my labor sisters and brothers today who expressed their solidarity with the Green New Deal and especially commend the workers in the fossil fuel sector who are joining us on Friday and calling for a just transition, including retraining programs, prioritizing fossil fuel workers so that they are not on the line, their jobs and families are not on the line. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Swan. Was the resolution. Any other comments or questions on the resolution? Councilor O'Brien, just quickly.
Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to Friday.
Speaker 1: All right. Okay. We're going to vote on it. Those in favor of adopting the resolution, please vote i, i. Those opposed vote no. The motion carries the resolutions adopt and Cher will sign it.
Speaker 4: See you Friday.
Speaker 3: 60 Total Agenda Item six Constable 119 623 relating to city employment authorizes an execution of a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Seattle and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Local number 77.
A RESOLUTION in support of the youth-led September 20, 2019 Global Climate Strike; urging Seattle Public Schools to support its students’ right to assemble and participate in the Global Climate Strike; and affirming that City employees may request unpaid leave for a day of conscience on September 20, 2019.