Right now, a new economy is being built around us.
A new plant goes up on the edge of town. Farmland gets cleared for a battery facility. Transmission lines expand. Data centers rise, drawing as much power as entire neighborhoods. Billions of dollars move through statehouses and corporate boardrooms, deciding what gets built, where, and for whom.
But most working people are experiencing these changes differently.
A storm hits harder than it used to. A basement floods. A highway shuts down. A shift is missed. A power bill climbs. A job disappears or a new one appears without clear wages, standards, or protections. Rising heat makes work slower and more dangerous.
We are living inside this transformation. But at CLCS, we believe that we are not being told the full story.
The dominant story says this is progress: that new industries are emerging, markets are shifting, and the rest of us need to adapt. It tells us these decisions are too technical or complex for ordinary people to shape. It tells us the best we can hope for is to compete for whatever opportunities come our way.
What that story hides is power.
This transition is being built with public money. Tens of billions of dollars have already flowed into Michigan to build electric vehicles, battery plants, and energy infrastructure. Across the country, federal investments have triggered a much larger surge, and companies are moving fast to capture those funds, lock in supply chains, and secure long-term control over emerging industries.
Corporate executives are making decisions that will shape entire regions for decades, often with public subsidies and limited accountability. State and local governments are competing to bring these projects in, sometimes offering tax breaks and incentives without guarantees about wages, working conditions, or long-term community benefit.
The result is a familiar pattern. The risks are spread out. The benefits are concentrated. The decisions are made far from the people who will actually live with them. And we are told this is just how it works.
That is the story that keeps this system in place. But it is not the only story unfolding right now.
Across the country, workers are starting to push back on the idea that they should simply accept whatever this transition delivers. They are organizing not just around wages and contracts, but to shape the future of their industries. They are asking who controls investment, who sets the terms of new jobs, and what kind of economy is being built with public resources.
Auto workers are preparing for coordinated bargaining across an entire sector. Energy workers are raising questions about how new infrastructure is built and who benefits from it. Workers across industries are connecting the dots between climate change, job quality, economic power, and organizing.
In this story, workers are not waiting to see what happens. They are stepping in to shape the future.
This means fighting to ensure that public investment creates high-quality, union jobs, not a race to the bottom. It means demanding training pathways that actually open doors, not promises that disappear once projects are approved. It means building alignment between labor and communities so that development strengthens the places people live, rather than extracting from them.
It also means recognizing that this kind of change does not happen on its own. It requires organization at the same scale as the forces shaping the economy. It requires that workers act together, across workplaces and sectors, to challenge concentrated power and set new terms.
That kind of work needs infrastructure. It depends on places where people can come together to understand what is happening, build relationships, and develop shared analysis.
At the Center for Labor and Community Studies, we are positioned at a critical intersection that few institutions occupy. We connect workers, unions, and communities in Southeast Michigan, where the future of industrial production, energy systems, and public investment is being decided in real time. As part of the University of Michigan–Dearborn, in the heart of the region’s industrial corridor, we are embedded in the transformations shaping the auto industry and the broader economy.
In moments like this, universities are not neutral. They can choose to remain distant from the conditions shaping people’s lives or they can help build the capacity for workers and communities to shape those conditions themselves. At CLCS, we are equipped to do the latter, not just because of where we are located, but because of who we are accountable to and how we work.
But the timeline is critical. With midterm elections approaching, decisions about industrial policy, energy systems, and public investment are being made now. The next few years will shape the economy for decades, and that window will not stay open for long. The economy is already changing. The real question is who will shape that change.
Right now, the conditions are shifting. Investment is flowing, pressure is building, and workers are beginning to organize at a scale that matches the stakes.
That is where the future will be decided.
At CLCS, we are expanding our work on labor, climate, and industrial transition with that in mind. We are building programs and partnerships to support workers and communities stepping into this moment and working to shape what comes next.
If you want to be part of that work, we invite you to join us.
The future of this economy will not be handed down. It will be decided by those who are organized enough to shape it.
Fill out this interest survey to be connected with future CLCS organizing and programming around sustainable jobs and just transition.
