EcoWobbles - EcoUnionist News #127

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, November 11, 2016

News of interest to green unionists:

Anadarko cutting 58 jobs in East Texas - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, November 7, 2016 - Anadarko Petroleum Corp. may shed more than 50 jobs and shut down three offices in East Texas if it sells off its Carthage oil field for $1 billion by the end of the year.

“Behind the Braids” Wendy’s Boycott Tours hit the Mid-Atlantic! - By staff, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, November 7th, 2016 - Instead of deterring consumers from standing with farmworkers, Wendy’s recent public statement of half-truths, innuendo and outright fabrications fueled both ire and energy among hundreds of consumer allies on the fourth “Behind the Braids” tour, which criss-crossed the Mid-Atlantic states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. 

Davey Hopper: union man - By Huw Beynon, Red Pepper, November 2016 - Dave Hopper – or Davey as he was universally known to his friends – was secretary of the Durham Miners’ Association, once the Northern Area of the National Union of Mineworkers. To celebrate his life, with talk and music, a wake was held in the Sacriston Miners’ Club on 28 July, followed by a humanist service at the historic Redhills miners’ hall the following day. There were no hymns – the music was provided by Bob Marley and Paul Robeson – and Jeremy Corbyn spoke on both occasions. The service was chaired by former Unison general secretary Rodney Bickerstaffe and attended by over 700 people, half inside the hall and the remainder outside, in and around a marquee surrounded by trade union banners.

Deadly pipeline blast gets safety board investigation - By Alejandro Dávila Fragoso, Think Progress, November 5, 2016 - The deadly explosion in a Colonial Pipeline gasoline line in Alabama that killed one man and seriously injured four is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency said Friday; [related]: Pipeline Explosion in Alabama Kills 1, Injures 5 as Gas Prices Rise - By Derek Scarlino, Love and Rage, November 1, 2016 - A deadly Colonial Pipeline explosion in Helena, AL, outside of Birmingham, on Monday also ignited separate wildfires in the affected area. | What Happens When the Most Important Pipeline in the U.S. Explodes - By Matthew Philips, Bloomberg, November 4, 2016 - On Monday, a construction crew in Alabama triggered a massive explosion when a track-hoe struck the biggest fuel pipeline in the U.S. The blast killed one person, injured several, and sparked a wildfire that burned for nearly a day across 31 acres.

Hazelwood to close as energy transition gathers pace in Australia - By Giles Parkinson & Sophie Vorrath, REnew Economy, November 3, 2016 - The dirtiest power station in Australia – and by some estimates the dirtiest among the world’s developed countries – the 1.5GW Hazelwood brown coal generator in Victoria is to close in five months after its owners finally bowed to the inevitable.

In GOP Country, a Small Labor Organization Offers a Model for Fighting Trumpism - By Sarah Jaffe, The Nation, November 4, 2016 - The Workers’ Project in Indiana has been uniting undocumented immigrants with white union workers since long before Trump hit the campaign trail.

More wind workers in Portland shows local manufacturers ready for #VRET - By Pat Simons, Yes2Renewables, November 4, 2016 - In a sign of how the upcoming Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET) can benefit the state’s manufacturing industry through greater local content, Australia’s top wind manufacturer yesterday announced it will put on  50 new workers at the Keppel Prince wind tower factory in Portland.

Obama is pledging more than $2 million to train coal miners to pilot drones - By April Glaser, Recode, October 28, 2016 - As the U.S. transitions to more sustainable forms of energy, the Obama administration has been steadily investing in retraining programs for people who used to work for the once-booming American coal industry, where states like West Virginia and Kentucky are losing thousands of jobs a year.

SEPTA workers strike back - Joe Cleffie, Socialist Worker, November 7, 2016 - NEARLY 5,000 transit workers recently engaged in a strike in Philadelphia, bringing the subways, trolleys and buses of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA)--which each day serve more than 900,000 commuters--to a halt.

Why worker-led monitoring is needed to challenge electronic sweatshops - By David Foust Rodríguez, New Internationalist, November 2, 2016 - Since the seventies, and particularly from the nineties onwards, transnational Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies have established a discourse of corporate social responsibility, accompanied by voluntary codes of conduct, verified by social audits contracted with specialized for-profit firms. However, these codes are limited in their ability to protect workers from labour abuses, exposure to toxic chemicals, poverty wages, and other problems endemic to current business models. A real alternative is monitoring by workers, for workers – funded by public purchasers in the Global North, who use the goods we make in the Global South.

A Workers Plan to Transition to Renewable Energy Jobs, based on workers’ views - By Elizabeth Perry, Work and Climate Change Report, November 1, 2016 - A Workers Climate Plan, submitted to the federal government its climate change consultations in September, was more publicly launched on November 1  at a solar panel installation training facility in Edmonton, Alberta.  The report by Iron and Earth  is much more than a publicity stunt: it offers serious policy suggestions, and also “gives voice to the workers” by reporting the results of a survey of opinions of Alberta’s energy sector workers.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.