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Josh Fox

Gaswork, the Fight for CJ's Law

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 10/13/2015 - 17:06

By Josh Fox; Introduction by Alex Lotorto - Vimeo, October 6, 2015

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.

This is a tremendous film by Josh Fox about worker safety issues in the oil and gas industry and CJ's Law, part of a concept of worker organizing that I've been talking about for years.

There was a retired steelworker who once told me in 2010 that the only way he foresaw worker organizing in the shalefields would be to run an issue-campaign for a Workers' Bill of Rights that enrolls workers and environmentalists into the same general membership union. In addition to safety, it would strengthen pay theft penalties, provide outplacement or re-training for workers who are laid off during downturns, paid time off, sick leave, personal days, etc.

That union, if it grew to scale, could then leverage themselves against various drilling and supply contractors, and eventually against industry associations like the union trades have done with the pipeline industry association project labor agreements (PLAs). It would take a chunk of change to hire the staff to support a campaign like that and open offices in the shalefields, which is the most difficult piece of the puzzle.

Tags: 
fracking
health and safety
oil workers
Gasland
Josh Fox
green unionism
Alex Lotorto

What the Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know About Fracking

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 10/06/2015 - 14:06

By Josh Fox and Lee Ziesche - EcoWatch, September 12, 2015

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.

TRAILER FOR GASWORK THE FIGHT FOR CJ's Law A NEW SHORT FILM BY JOSH FOX from JFOX on Vimeo.

When we hear politicians and gas companies extoll the virtues of fracking, jobs created by drilling is usually high on their list of talking points. But the jobs created by fracking are not the kind of quality jobs American workers deserve.

They are not the kind of jobs American laborers have fought and died for throughout our country’s history.

They are extremely dangerous, exposing workers to chemicals whose long-term impacts on human health are yet unknown. In fact, the fatality rate of oil field jobs is seven times greater than the national average.

In our new short film, GASWORK: The Fight for C.J.’s Law, we conduct an investigation into worker safety and chemical risk. We follow Charlotte Bevins as she fights for CJ’s law—a bill to protect workers named for her brother CJ Bevins, who died at an unsafe drilling site.

We interview many workers who have been asked to clean drill sites, transport radioactive and carcinogenic chemicals, steam-clean the inside of condensate tanks which contain harmful volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other chemicals, and have been told to do so with no safety equipment.

Tags: 
fracking
tar sands
Gasland
Josh Fox
jobs versus environment
jobs
just transition

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