Greens find new ally in unions
2008-12-15 11:27
Poznan, Poland - Some US labour groups that have long feared environmental campaigns as a threat to American jobs are starting to see advantages in going green.
This evolution was clear at the UN climate talks in Poland, where several American labour groups and environmental activists made joint appeals for policies that would promote high-tech renewable energy as the answer to both climate change and job losses.
About 25 representatives of US unions were in Poznan - about twice the number at last year's UN talks in Bali, Indonesia - representing workers from the electrical, transit, steel, service and other sectors.
"There is a very wide cross-section of American unions that reflects the growing engagement of American unions' support of climate change policies," said David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance.
The group was founded by the United Steelworkers, North America's largest manufacturing union, and the Sierra Club, the United States' largest and oldest grass-roots environmental group.
Joint vision
"There's a power in the joint vision that we just don't have functioning on our own," added Foster, who was for 16 years a United Steelworkers regional director.
The Blue Green Alliance was founded in 2006 and expanded this autumn to include three more unions and another green group.
Environmental protection and labour rights have intersected before, especially in past battles to eliminate toxins and other pollutants from the workplace.
But the two sides have also found themselves at odds. Unions have often seen nature lovers as idealists willing to sacrifice American jobs for the sake of endangered species. Some coal industry workers remain hostile to efforts that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by closing down coal-fired plants.
But both groups also have felt growing pressure over the past decade because of manufacturing job losses in the American heartland and what they see as an erosion of workers' rights and weakening environmental protection.
Environmentalists want clean energy - such as wind and solar power - to reduce gases that degrade the environment. It is in their interest that new jobs in the sector offer good pay and benefits, to win labour's support for their agenda.
David Hawkins, director of climate programmes with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, attributes the deepening co-operation to the need to fight opponents who say you cannot protect the environment and preserve jobs at the same time.
"They keep on shouting that scare campaign at every opportunity they get," Hawkins said. "An alliance is a powerful way of sending the message that you can have both."
- AP