Richmond

By Mark Dudzic - Jacobin, January 5, 2017

One of the few bright spots in this year’s election was the victory of the Richmond Progressive Alliance candidates and RPA-endorsed rent control initiative in Richmond, California, a predominantly black and Latino, gritty (though rapidly gentrifying) industrial city of 110,000 in the East Bay.

The alliance, a coalition of community groups, unions, liberal democrats, Greens, environmentalists, and leftists of various stripes, had participated in the governance of Richmond for the previous twelve years despite formidable opposition from the Chevron Corporation, the city’s largest private employer, and the political establishment beholden to it. That the RPA triumphed once again in 2016 was a tribute to its staying power and capacity to mobilize a broad constituency around a working-class agenda.

Company Town

Richmond is a company town. The company in question, Chevron, is not only the city’s largest but also its dirtiest employer. Chevron practically founded the town in 1905 when it opened what was, at the time, the world’s third-largest oil refinery. Other industrial development followed, peaking in World War II with a giant Kaiser shipyard, Ford plant, and dozens of other industrial companies employing tens of thousands of workers. (Richmond is home to the Rosie the Riveter national historic park commemorating the role of women industrial workers during World War II.)

Those workers included many black migrants from the American South squeezed into substandard and segregated housing. The city rapidly deindustrialized after the war, leaving large swathes of abandoned factories and toxic residue. Chevron stayed.

There are few corporate entities more reprehensible than large oil corporations. The prototype, Standard Oil, was created by John D. Rockefeller in 1870 and by the 1880s controlled close to 90 percent of US oil refining and distribution. Broken up by trustbusters in 1911, it spawned dozens of new companies. Three of them (including Standard Oil of California, later Chevron) were part of the “seven sisters” which dominated the world political economy throughout the twentieth century. They have an unmatched record of environmental degradation, political subversion and corruption, and contempt for workers’ rights and government regulation.

Half of the members of my old union, the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers (now part of the Steelworkers), worked for these behemoths. The in-house history of the union was called Challenging the Giants because our union’s identity was forged in struggle with them. Their arrogant unilateralism was the secret behind OCAW’s surprising militancy and internal democracy. Big oil never accepted the post–World War II consensus that unions ought to be integrated as junior partners into a tripartite class-conflict management team.

Company unions persisted at Standard Oil properties into the 1990s, and all the big oil refineries were run as open shops, forcing the union to engage in continuous “close the ranks” internal organizing that, perversely, built rank-and-file power and kept union density above 90 percent at most refineries.

The industry extracted a huge toll on its workers. One refinery worker described his twelve-hour shift as “eleven-and-a-half hours of extreme boredom, thirty minutes of swimming in a pool of toxic shit, and thirty seconds of sheer terror.” Their daily exposure to “thirty minutes of toxic shit” condemns refinery workers to high rates of occupational cancers and other illnesses. The “thirty seconds of terror” has subjected them to over 500 fires and explosions in the nation’s 141 oil refineries since 1994.

By staff - California Environmental Justice Alliance, December 2016

Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) is a groundbreaking new program that will develop comprehensive, cross-cutting, and transformative climate investments at a neighborhood scale to achieve multiple greenhouse gas, public health and economic benefits in our state’s most vulnerable communities. CEJA is deeply engaged in the implementation and working with our members to ensure the program truly meets community needs through a strong, transparent, and community-led process.

In our new report, Transformative Climate Communities: Community Vision And Principles For A Successful Program, we draw from CEJA’s members, partners, and allies to provide a snapshot of what TCC could look like in both urban and rural environmental justice neighborhoods across California. From transforming the goods movement in San Bernardino to comprehensive land use planning in Fresno, the wide range of community-led plans for place-based transformation are all grounded in an integrated, collaborative approach to reducing climate change while comprehensively addressing a legacy of environmental pollution and disinvestment in the most highly impacted communities.

The TCC program can help community-based organizations in crafting sustainability plans and leverage existing ones that address long-standing environmental health and justice challenges, while catalyzing equitable economic development at the neighborhood level. The program will achieve this by awarding large grants to develop and implement neighborhood-level climate sustainability plans drawing from deep resident engagement and in partnership with other important stakeholders.

In order to ensure the long-term successful implementation of the program, we lay out the key principles of the Transformative Climate Communities program in our report:

1. Direct and extensive community engagement
2. Equity for most impacted residents
3. Multiple, integrated benefits
4. Showcase equitable, sustainable land use planning
5. Catalytic, leveraged investments
6. Investment without displacement
7. Creating a pipeline of communities

In addition, we provide some of the indicators for environmental, health, socioeconomic, community and political transformation that can be achieved though comprehensive, cross-cutting climate investments from the TCC.

CEJA’s work on the TCC program grows out of our Green Zones Initiative, where we recognized early on that in order for place-based models to be successful, communities need to have the power to guide development and investments. Green Zones require closely coordinated and leveraged public spending targeted to our most overburdened communities, with deep resident engagement to direct investment. The Transformative Climate Communities program is this vision come to life.

Through its community-level planning and investments, the TCC program can help to achieve a just transition away from inequitable and polluting development patterns that have plagued so many communities. It can help us maintain California’s global climate leadership and move us toward a new future that weaves together environmental and climate sustainability, economic opportunities, and strengthened local democracies.

Download PDF Here.

By Steve Early - CounterPunch, November 22, 2016

In the two election cycles prior to 2016, the global energy giant Chevron spent more than $4 million on city council or mayoral races in Richmond, CA. Big Oil’s independent expenditures were so large two years ago that they drew widespread condemnation as a particularly egregious example of the unrestricted corporate spending unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision.

In our Chevron refinery town of 110,000, rent control was on the ballot this year. That’s not an issue that Chevron cares anything about. So, as company spokesman Leah Casey explained to the Richmond Confidential last month, her employer “decided not to participate in the 2016 local Richmond election,” preferring to remain “focused on keeping the refinery running safely and partnering with the city and the community on our modernization project.” (As a nearby neighbor, I found Chevron’s new “focus” particularly reassuring.)

This fall, the California Apartment Association replaced the oil company as our biggest local spender. According to Kathleen Pender in the SF Chronicle, the CAA and its allies raised $2.5 million to defeat rent control in multiple Bay Area communities on Nov. 8. In Richmond, the CAA pumped nearly $200,000 into its losing effort here (three times more than rent control advocates raised). By a 65 to 35 percent margin, Richmond voters approved a new system of rent regulation, a rent rollback to July, 2015 levels, and the legal requirement that landlords have “just cause” for evicting tenants.

Once again, Richmond progressives were celebrating a singular local triumph over “big money in politics” on election night. The strongest pro-rent control candidates in the 2016 council race, both RPA members, finished first and second in a field of nine. In similar fashion two years ago, three members of the Richmond Progressive Alliance running for re-election to the city council won an upset victory–despite Chevron’s record-breaking spending against them.

Among that year’s winners was a persistent nemesis of Big Oil, former mayor Gayle McLaughlin, the California Green who sought to increase Chevron’s local taxes and county property tax bill to raise more revenue for cash-starved city services.

By various - International Transport Federation, et. al., November 2016

In the recent election, Chevron-backed campaigns lost bigtime, despite the $61 million the company has spent to influence California elections since 2009. That’s far more than any other oil company spend in state elections. The report, by the International Transport Workers Federation, was released Nov. 17 at the Chevron gates by a coalition including the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), and more.

Members of the coalition said the report, The Chevron Way: Polluting California and Degrading Democracy, will educate the public about the corrupting influence of corporate money and alert politicians that they will be judged on whether they act in the public interest or in Chevron’s interest.

In this election, in State Assembly and State Senate races, candidates heavily backed by Chevron lost. In Monterey County, Chevron spent $1.5 to oppose a ballot measure to ban fracking and expanded oil drilling. Despite being outspent 33 to 1, the measure passed.

In Richmond, Chevron sat out this election, having spent $3 million in the last election, when its candidates lost anyway. This year, two additional progressive candidates won seats on the city council and a longstanding Chevron candidate was voted out.

Chevron makes billions in profits from its huge retail and refining business in California, but has aggressively cut tax payments to federal, state and local governments. In 2015, the company paid no net income tax in the US, but instead banked nearly $1.7 billion in tax credits.

In 2015, Chevron had over $45 billion stashed in offshore accounts, including the company’s 211 active Bermuda subsidiaries, and the company’s global effective tax rate fell to below 3%.

Read the report (PDF).

By Paul Paz y Miño and Kevin Koenig - True Cost of Chevron, May 22, 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.

By Steve Zeltser - The Daily Censored, February 16, 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.

The epidemic of refinery explosions and derailments  leading to massive explosions seem to increase by the week. Behind this collapse of health and safety protection according to advocates is the failure to protect health and safety whistleblowers. The fear of workers to complain about serious health and safety problems is a key part of this failure. Now a Federal lawyer at OSHA Darrell Whitman has charged along with health and safety whistleblowers that the agency management and the DOL have not been enforcing the law to protect not only the whistleblowers but the health and safety of all Americans.

In an explosive document sent to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez in May 2014, Federal OSHA attorney Darrell Whitman, charged that there is systemic corruption in the agency that is preventing the protection of health and safety whistleblowers. As a result of making these charges with extensive documentation, Whitman has himself become a target of workplace bullying and moves to terminate him from the agency. In fact according to Whipple his supervisor Joshua Paul who is also an attorney at the agency ordered him to falsify federal documents  which is a criminal felony. On February 21, 2015 the agency sent a mover to his house and took his documents and badge preventing him from doing his work.
Whitman has a lot of years under his belt. He has been working over 10 years for state and Federal agencies so he knows a bit about how the Federal government operates.

His latest job was as an investigator in the OSHA program that investigates health and safety complaints by workers in industries from oil, rail, trucking and other companies in OSHA region 9 which covers nearly 40 million workers in the West.
As one of the 6 OSHA staff in this unit, there have been only three that actually doing investigations. Whitman investigates whether OSHA complaints by workers are valid and then makes a determination of whether or not their complaints are serious enough to gain a merit status. Under Federal law this merit status provides full back pay and can provide punitive damages to workers who are terminated for making their health and safety complaints.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 1, 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.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Register now for the Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment Conferences: Richmond, California (March 14, 2015) and Olympia, Washington (March 22, 2015) - railroadconference.org
• How Scrappy Community and Labor Activists Took on a California Oil Giant—and Won - By Jane Slaughter, In These Times, January 26, 2015
• Shut It Down Now! Former Nuclear Plant Technician Bob Rowen on Nuclear Power - By Steve Zelter, TruthOut, January 30, 2015
• Union rejects second refinery workers contract proposal - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, January 27, 2015

Crude by Rail:

• California Cities and Citizens Speak Out Against Oil Trains - By Ethan Buckner, Forest Ethics, January 26, 2015
• The Dangers of Hauling Crude Oil by Rail - By John Kristensen, Railroaded, January 25, 2015
• Oil Train Spills Hit Record Level in 2014 - By Tony Dokoupil, NBC Nightly News, January 26, 2015
• Why New "Improved" Oil Trains Are Not Nearly Good Enough: a closer look at the many flaws of CPC-1232 tank cars - By Eric de Place, Sightline Daily, January 28, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Big Oil needs a Plan B. It hasn’t got one - By Giles Parkinson, ReNew Economy, January 29, 2015
• BP cuts jobs in Houston as it trims Gulf of Mexico business - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 28, 2015
• BP will freeze pay for most of its employees - By Robert Grattan, FuelFix, January 26, 2015
• ConocoPhillips tells employees to expect layoffs - By Robert Grattan, FuelFix, January 29, 2015
• Drilling contractor may cut 2,000 field jobs as rigs idle - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 30, 2015
• The False Promise of Local Fracking Jobs - By Susan Christopherson, The Conversation, January 27, 2015
• Glencore mulls shutting down South African coal mines, lay offs - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, January 28, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Just Transitions Speaking Tour with Bob Massie - Yes 2 Renewables [FOE], January 30, 2015
• Parents, Teachers and Students Ask School Districts to Go 100% Renewable Energy - By Stefanie Spear, EcoWatch, January 27, 2015
• SMA Solar to cut 1,600 jobs as European demand slides - By Christoph Steitz and Maria Sheahan, Reuters, January 27, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• 400 parts per million and class struggle - By Victor Wallis, Climate and Capitalism, January 25, 2015
• ALEC Forces the Question: Will Labor Really Go Local? - By Simon Davis-Cohen, Truthout, January 25, 2015
• Bangladesh Garment Workers Win Bargaining Pacts at 5 Factories - By Jennifer Kuhlman, AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, January 27, 2015
• Bribery Is a Bargain for Big Oil - By Steve Kretzmann, Oil Change International, January 22, 2015
• Former DNR employees say regulator stifles public information - By Jacob Barker, St Louis Post Dispatch, January 26, 2015
• The Heat Is On: Via Campesina and Allies Challenge Climate Capitalism - La Via Campesina, January 27, 2015
• The Precariat and the Basic Income: Part 1 - By Andrew Curry, The Next Wave, January 26, 2015
• The Precariat and the Basic Income: Part 2 - By Andrew Curry, The Next Wave, January 27, 2015
• 'Tiny houses' no solution to the unaffordability crisis - By Mike Stewart, Rabble.Ca, January 28, 2015
• Uber Accused of Lax Safety Practices by Delhi Woman - By Mike Isaac, New York Times, January 29, 2015
• Union workers press their case for contract demands at Lyondell refinery - By LM Sixell, FuelFix, January 28, 2015
• Up to 6,000 carcinogens, mutagens and reprotoxins floating around EU - European Trade Union Institute, January 30, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 26, 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.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• The Agents of Unregulated Globalization vs. the Agents of the Fight against Climate Change - By Jeanette Bonifaz, Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 9, 2015

Crude by Rail:

• CSX reports record fourth quarter results - Trains [paywall alert], January 21, 2015
• Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 "Bomb Train" Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll - By Steve Horn, DeSmog Blog, January 23, 2015
• Interim Settlement Reached in Lac Megantic Oil Train Disaster, but Culprits Say "It Wasn't Us" - By Roger Annis, Truthout, January 22, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Alberta One Of Hardest Hit By Lower Oil Prices - By Andy Tully, OilPrice.Com, January 20, 2015
• Baker Hughes to lay off 7,000 - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 20, 2015
• BHP to cut 40 percent of its U.S. shale drilling - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 21, 2015
• Halliburton suggests North American layoffs could come - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 20, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• A Boom in Solar Jobs - By Rick Cohen, Nonprofit Quarterly, January 22, 2015
• In US, There Are Twice as Many Solar Workers as Coal Miners - By Kirsten Korosec, Fortune, January 17, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Brazilian Workers, Students Battle Fare Hikes Pushed By Workers Party - By Steve Payne, In These Times, January 22, 2015
• Building Bridges with MST - By La Via Campesina South Asia, La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015
• Elizabeth Mpofu speaks before 50,000 people at the “we are fed up” demonstration - La Via Campesina, January 21, 2015
• Kosovo miners return from underground, ending 3-day strike - By Andrew Topf, Mining.Com, January 26, 2015
• 150-foot span of Willits Bypass collapses into Haehl Creek; Several workers injured - By Adrian Baumann and Michael Mott, Willits News, January 22, 2015
• Oil And Gas Production Is Exposing Californians To At Least 15 Different Kinds Of Pollutants - By Katie Valentine, Think Progress, January 22, 2015
• Outside Senators’ Clean Water Act proposal threatens Bristol Bay salmon, culture, jobs - By Tim Bristol, Save Bristol Bay, January 22, 2015
• Report faults Chevron - By D Ross Cameron, Contra Costa Times, January 24, 2015
• Scientists and Doctors Sound Alarm Over Health Dangers of Oil Spill Dispersants - By Dahr Jamail, Truthout, January 20, 2015
• Stop the Free Trade Agreements [brochure] - La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015
• U.S. refinery workers, oil firms start talks for new contract - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, January 21, 2015
• Via Campesina solidarity visit to Douro small wine growers - By La Via Campesina News Team, La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC