What a World Beyond Fossil Fuels Will Mean for Workers, Families, and Communities

Virginia Parks, PhD, is a geographer and urban planner specializing in the study of urban inequality. Her research and teaching interests include labor and employment, urban politics and policy, and local economic development. Professor Parks has published research on the racial wage gap, immigrant employment patterns, public sector employment, workplace diversity, job training, and the politics of urban development. Throughout this work Professor Parks is motivated by how urban space, politics, and regulatory environments influence inequality outcomes. Her current research analyzes the economic effects of the clean energy transition on workers and regional economies.

Robert Zardeneta serves as the Green Workforce Senior Manager in the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Robert has more than a decade of experience developing Green Career pathways for underrepresented communities on both a local and national level. He currently is a member of the planning team managing the L.A. City-County Just Transition Task Force for workers and frontline communities impacted by the phase-out of oil drilling.

Norman Rogers is the Second Vice President of United Steelworkers, Local 675, an amalgamated union representing workers which include the oil, chemical, bedding, carwash, paper, and electric bus manufacturing industries. He currently works in Storage and Handling at the Marathon oil refinery in Los Angeles County. He has spent the majority of his 24-year career facilitating gasoline blending and the shipping and receipt of finished products. He has been active on multiple committees in his local, in particular health and safety but also contract negotiations. Following the Chevron refinery fire in 2012, Norman provided testimony to the Department of Industrial Relations on the importance of strengthening Process Safety measures and working in coalition with environmental organizations to improve safety regulations for refineries and chemical plants. Norman is now deeply engaged in the struggle for a Just Transition for fossil fuel workers whose jobs will be lost in the move to a green economy.

Tracy started his career in 1981 working for Chevron USA and began his involvement in the Union as an OCAW member, then became a union steward and workers committee member, 1st Vice President of his Union, and finally President. Tracy has been USW Local 5’s President for the last five years and has been a Local Staff representative for ten years.