New GLS "Labor and Global Warming" Discussion Paper

Global warming will have immense consequences for working people – and for the labor movement. Climate change, and the measures that are taken to prevent or mitigate it, will change every aspect of our lives – including every aspect of how we work. Public policy on global warming will affect every issue that unions bargain over with employers and lobby over with government officials. Yet the discussion of how labor should relate to global warming has barely begun. GLS's newly released discussion paper LABOR AND GLOBAL WARMING describes the early stages of that discussion and identifies key issues it needs to address. It concludes with a 13-point “New Global Warming Policy for Labor.”

This discussion paper grows out of a series of articles originally published on the Global Labor Strategies blog (www.globallaborblog.org) to help frame a new debate on labor's role in the climate change debate. It was prepared by Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith for Global Labor Strategies. The Introduction is pasted below; download the entire report here.

LABOR and GLOBAL WARMING

Introduction

The reality of global warming and its catastrophic consequences are today beyond debate. But American labor is caught in an internal stalemate among those who fear job loss from efforts to deal with global warming, those who have not considered global warming an important union issue, and those who see the climate crisis as a call for immediate action and an opportunity for sustainable economic development.

Labor will confront critical issues to which it must respond at the bargaining table and in the public policy arena. Indeed, organized labor plays a critical role in funding and supporting progressive political action in the United States. Resolving this conflict constructively is a crucial step in developing a new American politics that will do what is necessary to reduce greenhouse gasses – a necessity that is just as important for working people as for everybody else.

This discussion paper grows out of a series of articles originally published on the Global Labor Strategies blog (www.laborstrategies.blogs.com) to help frame a new debate on labor's role in the climate change debate. It was prepared by Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith for Global Labor Strategies.

Comments

[Tom Edminster]

I did read Global Warming paper.
It is suggestive, esp. in contrasting the advances and directions taken by unions and union federations OTHER THAN in the USA. (are we backward, or what??--despite the Apollo Alliance, etc.)
The major shortcoming or "a" major shortcoming of the paper is that is does not reach far enough.
Global Warming is a manifestation of a deeper biological crisis: one that merits more careful examination and more radical solutions in the area of policy and advocacy orientation, esp for unions...who, in the USA, UTTERLY lack an orientation to the state and the public sector, much less "ecology," or the environment. (I would contrast these lackings additionally, with the policy orientations of the Swedish LO..for example.)
"Global Warming paper" should advocate more policies in a direction that emphasize "collective consumption," especially in the areas of transport: strengthen transport that is collective, instead of automobiles.
(Pete Kelly of ISTC in UAW, and Commoner, advocated production for use in the area of public transport: if the US govt was to then bail out Chrysler: why not subsidize the development and strengthening of mass transit??)
(as well, I remember a paper by Dan Luria on "re industrialization," that would be good to look at in terms of positive public investment in production that was orientated towards US "market" and employment @ union standards and wages.)

"collective consumption" goods (esp in transport), and a focus on energy alternatives, LESS distance in transport to sale ("market"),etc.-- would enhance a survival policy fit for planet in peril.

So...MORE reduction in USE of extractive coal and oil based resources, AND policies that enhance investment and PRODUCTION (@ union wages) in "goods" that are "7th generation," including transport, etc.

This is just a "quick hit,' on an issue that needs more attention, research and debate.

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