This is the second of a series of pieces on Labor and Global Warming.
The majority of union members, like the majority of Americans, undoubtedly want action on global warming. But the US labor movement has particular structural problems that make it difficult to confront broad social issues like global warming.
One the one hand, since the days of Samuel Gompers, founding president of the AFL in the 19th century, U.S. unions have represented particular groups of workers – first workers in the same craft, then increasingly workers in the same industry. On the other hand, the federation of unions – the AFL, the CIO, and more recently Change to Win – have in principle represented the interests of workers as a whole.
This dual function produces a tension at times that has blocked action on key issues.
A long standing tradition of organizational solidarity has sometimes meant that the immediate sectoral interests of member unions has trumped broader class interests. It’s a genuine conundrum. After all, the reality is that workers join unions to protect their jobs and immediate economic interests and unions join federations to further their organizational interests through mutual support. American labor’s position on global warming has been a tragic case in point of a failure to resolve this tension.
Most Americans want action on global warming and they want it fast. A new poll by Yale University Center for Environmental Law and Policy shows that 83% of Americans see global warming as a serious problem and some 70% think the government is not doing enough. The release of UN reports, including one this past week indicating that we are already experiencing the impacts of global warming, will likely add to calls for action.
The way we live and work will change radically in the coming years either as a result of action or inaction. Corporations are already launching well publicized “business friendly” approaches to global warming. Now, labor must develop a coherent response that meets the specific needs of its members at the bargaining table and the general needs of its members as human beings confronting a potentially catastrophic event. Labor must stake out a position if it is to remain a vital social and political force. Tackling the tension between the specific sectoral interests of unions and their more general class and social interest is the essential first step in that process.
Put “global warming” and “climate change” into the AFL-CIO website’s search engine and what you discover is the story of labor’s past involvement with the global warming issue.
Two recent entries indicate labor’s growing concern with global warming. One describes a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists exposing Exxon Mobile’s borrowing of tobacco-industry tactics to confuse the public about the threat of global warming. The other describes the recent formation of a “Blue-Green Alliance” between the Steelworkers and the Sierra Club to press for a labor-friendly environmental agenda.
But search further back and a far less environmentally-friendly history emerges.
In February, 1997, as negotiations began for what came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol, the AFL-CIO Executive Council issued a statement on the “U.N. Climate Change Negotiations.”
We believe the parties to the Rio Treaty made a fundamental error when they agreed to negotiate legally-binding carbon restrictions on the United States and other industrialized countries, while simultaneously agreeing to exempt high-growth developing countries like China, Mexico, Brazil and Korea from any new carbon reduction commitments. . . . The exclusion of new commitments by developing nations under the Berlin Mandate will create a powerful incentive for transnational corporations to export jobs, capital, and pollution, and will do little or nothing to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon. Such an uneven playing field will cause the loss of high-paying U.S. jobs in the mining, manufacturing, transport and other sectors.
“Carbon taxes, or equivalent carbon emission trading programs, will raise significantly electricity and other energy prices to consumers. These taxes are highly regressive and will be most harmful to citizens who live on fixed incomes or work at poverty-level wages. . .
The AFL-CIO Executive Council further urges that in the ongoing negotiations to amend the Rio Treaty on climate change, the United States insist upon the incorporation of appropriate commitments from all nations to reduce carbon emissions; and seek a reduction schedule compatible with the urgent need to avoid unfair and unnecessary job loss in developed economies. The President should not accept and the Congress should not ratify any amendment or protocol that does not meet these standards.”
Subsequent actions by the AFL-CIO’s Executive Board reaffirmed opposition to the Kyoto Agreement.
The union opposition to Kyoto reflects the tendency of the American labor movement to represent narrow sectoral interests, rather than the interests of workers as a whole. It was spearheaded by a coalition of unions called United for Jobs and the Environment.
The UJAE describes itself as a “partnership” of unions. It lobbied, and continues to lobby, against the Kyoto agreement and against environmental legislation in the U.S. that it considers unfavorable to labor. While its concern with the possible negative impact that measures to reduce greenhouse gasses might have on the employment of miners and other workers is entirely legitimate, it has made little effort to explore ways that a “just transition” might protect them. And while its desire to include all countries in a global agreement reducing greenhouse gasses is laudable, keeping the United States out of the Kyoto protocol is hardly an effective way to encourage other countries to engage in international climate control cooperation. It’s hard to ignore the alignment of its position with mining, electrical, and other energy companies.
The twists and turns in the language of the most recent AFL-CIO Energy Task Force statement on “Jobs and energy for the 21st Century” indicates the difficulty the Federation’s is having coming up with a common policy on global warming. It acknowledges the scientific evidence that fossil fuels are contributing to global warming. It calls for “balanced measures” to combat global warming. Its only positive suggestion for combating global warming is to target revenues from any auction of carbon permits to finance “improvements in technology that will allow clean energy to be produced at prices close to what consumers pay for energy from conventional sources, and to encourage deployment of this technology in manner that promotes domestic production and jobs for American workers.”
The Energy Task Force statement emphasizes, however, that “The Federation opposes extreme measures that would undermine economic growth, harm particular sectors, or placing ourselves at a disadvantage to other nations.” And it argues that any mandatory tradable-permits program should initially seek only to “gradually slow the growth in greenhouse gas emissions” and should contain a “safety valve” cost cap “to protect the economy.” Further, “U.S. efforts to address climate change should be conditioned on similar actions by U.S. trading partners and developing countries.”
It is difficult to find on the AFL-CIO website any significant expression of concern about global warming and its impact on working people either in the U.S. or around the world. Nor have we been able to find any indication that the Executive Council has endorsed positive alternatives to combat global warming.
A search of “Global Warming” on the Change to Win website produces only the message “Sorry, your search was empty!” Asked about global warming, CtW’s Andy Stern, however, has said “I think the air we breathe and the water we drink and whether the world we live in is going to sustain itself is a big union issue.” [Northwest Labor Press, nwlaborpress.org November 3, 2006 Volume 107 Number 21.] SEIU recently sent out emails encouraging people to participate in the nationwide “StepItUp2007” actions April 14th calling for an immediate cut in carbon emissions and a pledge for an 80% reduction by 2050.
Some unions are now seeking an approach to global warming that reflects the needs of all workers, indeed all people, for protection against this menace. For example, a number of unions are working with the Cornell Global Labor Institute on a “North American Labor Assembly on Climate Crisis: Building a Global Movement for Clean Energy” May 7 and 8, 2007 in New York City. Trade union sponsors and endorsers currently include:
1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East
Canadian Auto Workers (CAW)
United Federation of Teachers (UFT) Local 2
United Steelworkers of America (USW)
UNITE HERE!
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
California Faculty Association
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 805
Social Service Employees Union Local 371
American Federation of State City and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)
International Union, UAW
United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE)
The conference would provide a great opportunity for organized labor to seize the high ground on an issue that will reshape the workplace as well as the daily life of people all over the world in the coming decades. So far, neither the AFL-CIO nor Change to Win has even listed the conference on its website, let alone put its muscle behind it – or any other effort to address global warming. But officials representing the AFL-CIO and SEIU have recently joined the panels. With Democrats making global warming a central issue in the new Congress, now is the time for a dramatic response.
The next article in this series will describe how the Steelworkers Union has built an alliance with the Sierra Club that makes the threat of global warming the basis for a constructive program for both jobs and the environment. If readers are aware of additional activity in the labor movement around global warming, please let us know.
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