N. American unionists meet in response to climate crisis

by Christine Frank / June 2007 issue of Socialist Action newspaper

NEW YORK—The Global Carbon Project recently reported that the rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions has tripled to 3 percent per year this century compared with the 1.1% rate of increase seen in the 1990s. This is because both developed and developing nations are using more fossil fuels than ever, especially dirty coal.

At the same time, the Southern Ocean, a vital carbon sink, is losing its ability to take up more of the CO2 because of changes in the stratospheric winds. This positive feedback mechanism, combined with the world’s economy burning hydrocarbons like there is no tomorrow, is driving us steadily toward a complete breakdown of Earth’s climate system.

To spur concrete action to mitigate global warming, forces in the labor movement have taken the initiative and held a number of regional and international conferences on the climate crisis in such places as St. Paul, Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Sao Paolo.

Under the auspices of Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute, 200 trade-union leaders and academics at labor institutes from North America and 50 from other continents met in New York on May 7 and 8 to discuss ways that labor can confront the climate crisis. The event had the support of nearly two dozen international unions and labor bodies, with groups such as the Blue/Green Alliance of the Steelworkers and the Sierra Club represented.

Our health and safety on the job and in our communities depends upon the well being of the natural world. More and more workers are rejecting the false dichotomy of jobs versus a healthy environment that has traditionally been posed by employers. They are coming to realize that reorganizing the economy along sustainable lines can provide new jobs.

A sustainable economy can be achieved by retooling industry and converting to green manufacturing. The transition to the eco-friendly production of wind turbines, photovoltaics, and magnetically levitated high-speed trains can be a completely just one for all frontline workers who will be affected, especially those in the energy sector such as coal miners and petroleum and electrical utility workers.

No one need sacrifice their job, livelihood, or family’s economic security. Therefore, sections of the labor movement have called for retraining programs for workers who will be part of the shift to a carbon-neutral economy. This way the burden of global warming cannot be unjustly placed upon the backs of those who produce the necessities of life.

A just transition must likewise be ensured for the fence-line communities who are hardest and disproportionately hit by natural disasters and the environmental degradation of their barrios, ghettoes and tribal lands from the presence of mining operations, the petro-chemical industry, and toxic wastes. As was pointed out at the New York conference, pollution tends to roll downhill to where oppressed nationalities live.

Trade-union leaders at the conference dealt with many practical questions such as the fact that all of the wind farms being erected in the United States are manufactured in Germany, Denmark, or India and then shipped half way round the globe—burning vast amounts of diesel fuel and emitting tons of carbon dioxide in the process. This is occurring when it would make far more sense to produce them locally to provide jobs for skilled industrial workers in this hemisphere and reduce the carbon footprint of making and transporting them.

Auto production facilities such as Ford’s Twin Cities Assembly Plant (TCAP) in St. Paul, Minn., which is slated to close in 2008, putting 1885 hourly and salaried employees out of work, could be retooled to produce clean mass transit or wind harvesters. In Minnesota, taconite that is mined on the Iron Range could be made into steel for train locomotives and carriages or blades and towers for windmills without the ore ever having to leave the state.

Another important area that can provide green jobs is in retrofitting buildings for increased energy efficiency, solar installations, and ecological green roofs. Remediation to heal damaged ecosystems is also an important source of jobs, especially for unemployed youth.

Another issue discussed was the concept of sustainable collective bargaining. At a round-table discussion, Health and Safety Director Lynn Hinkle of UAW 879 talked about his local’s experience in negotiating greener policies at Ford’s TCAP in St. Paul. They helped cut down on the packaging waste stream and cleaned up the effluent going into the Mississippi and coming out of the smokestacks. These advances are further justification for retooling the plant for eco-friendly operation.

During a major panel discussion, Joe Radisich, vice president of the West Coast International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), explained how air pollution levels in the port of Los Angeles had reached dangerous levels that were causing increases in asthma, cardio-pulmonary disease, and cancers among the workers and the residents of nearby communities.

There are no clean-air regulations on the open seas because the ships are under no nation’s jurisdiction, so the union decided to take matters into its own hands. The ILWU put pressure on the shipping lines to get them to reduce the filthy emissions coming from the ships’ smokestacks. As a concession, the ship owners have agreed to reduce them by 20percent over four years.

In the roundtable discussion on sustainable agriculture and biofuels, trade unionists debated the senseless policy of burning food in the form of corn or cane sugar ethanol in the gas tanks of advanced nations. Using carbohydrates instead of hydrocarbons is not the way to slow global warming. The net energy efficiency of biofuels is miniscule because they still emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide in terms of the petrochemicals used to grow them and in their combustion.

Alejandro Villamar-Caldera of the Mexican Network Against Free Trade raised the need to fundamentally transform capitalist transport from reliance upon trucks and private automobiles to clean mass transit for hauling freight and passengers.

Faith in the low-hanging fruit such as biofuels show the weaknesses of the union leadership who dominated the conference. There were differing opinions expressed about energy-efficient cars versus mass transit, wind, and solar power versus so-called clean coal, dubious carbon capture and sequestration technologies, and dangerous nuclear power stations, which are by no means carbon neutral.

Both the AFL-CIO, which initially opposed the Kyoto Protocol (weak and ineffectual as it is), and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) circulated statements in support of phony and pernicious carbon-trading schemes that are being proposed in Congress. However, they want to tweak them so that U.S. goods do not become less competitive on the world market.

Likewise, Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, spent a good deal of his address complaining about the lack of environmental regulations in other countries and the need for more rigid standards in trade agreements, with his primary concern being the competitiveness of Canadian and U.S. goods. This smacks of protectionism cloaked in an environmental consciousness.

They are also willing to take things entirely too slow by settling for a minimum renewable energy standard of only 25 percent by 2020 and 80 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Considering the rapid pace of climate change, it will be a case of too little, too late since what is really needed is completely weaning our society off of fossil fuels as soon as possible with a crash program of wind and solar power.

Because the conference was non-delegated, the body adopted a non-binding resolution. It calls for decisive action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate, and sustainable development recognizing workers rights and a just transition to remove economic hardships. It also proposes pressuring employers to reduce their GHGs and provide decent-paying green jobs.

It calls for trade-union unity and coordinated education, action, and mobilization, the formation of Blue/Green alliances as well as joining forces with community organizations. Points were also made concerning the world’s poor, who will suffer the most from climate change along with the impacts of globalization and free-trade policies.

If implemented in a serious way, this program could actually accomplish something, but it implies the building of a broad and vigorous social movement of working people that is international in scope to save our planetary home.