Big Oil

By Dan Bacher - IndyBay, July 2, 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 Governor Jerry Brown administration, known for its subservience to Big Oil, is gearing up for a massive expansion of fracking and other extreme oil drilling techniques that will contaminate California's groundwater supplies, pollute rivers and streams, and devastate coastal ecosystems, including so-called "marine protected areas" implemented under his helm.

On July 1, anti-fracking, environmental and watchdog groups responded to the release of final fracking regulations developed under Senate Bill 4, pointing out that the rules promote more fracking and pollution of water supplies in the drought-plagued state.

Senate Bill 4, the green light for fracking bill, was signed by Governor Jerry Brown on September 20, 2013. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the California League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund and other corporate "environmental" NGOs provided green cover for the odious legislation. They backed the bill until the very last minute when they finally decided to withdraw support because of amendments from the Western States Petroleum Association and other Big Oil interests that further weakened the already weak legislation.

In a statement, Food and Water Watch said, "Today the Brown Administration finalized regulations on fracking and other dangerous oil extraction techniques that will allow oil and gas companies to continue to conduct these techniques at the expense of California’s water, air, agriculture and public health."

By Kirsten Stade - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, June 18, 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.

Washington, DC — Strife within the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has burst into the open again with one board member seizing control and ordering immediate suspension of the agency’s entire executive staff, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In less than a week, the CSB will be left with only two board members who cannot agree on governance of the small agency.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents in refineries, factories, and other fixed facilities. It is supposed to have five members but is currently operating with only three, after the White House pressured its own appointed CSB chair, Rafael Moure-Eraso, to resign in March before his nominated successor was confirmed. That left the CSB leaderless, since the White House is declining to designate an interim chair among the remaining three members.

On Friday June 12th, one of the board members Rick Engler circulated an email in which he claimed “the Board voted to designate me the Board Member Delegated Interim Executive and Administrative Authority.” However, there had been no CSB vote. Instead, acting without a quorum, Engler and outgoing Board member Mark Griffon, whose term ends on June 24th, made the designation by email. Their action came over the vehement objection of the third Board member, Manuel "Manny" Ehrlich. But Engler rebuffed Ehrlich’s overture that they act cooperatively to run the CSB until a chair could be confirmed.

This Tuesday June 16th, Engler summarily placed the CSB’s executive staff, Managing Director
Daniel Horowitz and General Counsel Richard Loeb, on administrative leave, forbade them from re-entering the building or talking to any CSB staff. Armed Federal Protective Service agents placed the two in custody and escorted them off the premises.

The stated basis for Engler’s action was that he had ordered an internal investigation into “possible misconduct” identified months earlier by a House Committee and the EPA Inspector General in reports that targeted the former board chair. The reports covered topics ranging from Moure-Eraso’s supposedly “autocratic” approach, use of private email, and staff complaints of a “toxic work environment.”

“In charge for less than a week, Engler has presided over the escalation from a toxic work environment to thermonuclear war,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “These stale and frankly trivial matters do not merit Egyptian-style martial-law retribution meted out here.”

Ironically, it was Engler who was an outspoken critic of the “lack of transparency” and collegiality under Moure-Eraso. Yet, his actions make those of the prior chair pale in comparison.

By James Plested - Red Flag, May 30, 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.

Five trillion US dollars annually – that’s how much is being lavished in various forms of subsidies on the global fossil fuel industry, according to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). US$10 million a minute – more than the health budgets of every country on earth combined.

We’re told that there’s not enough money for decent health care, education or welfare. But the equivalent of 6.5 percent of global GDP is being poured into an industry that’s driving the world to social and environmental catastrophe.

The shocking findings of the IMF’s working paper, “How large are global energy subsidies?”, are based on calculations of the true cost of fossil fuels when all their destructive environmental, health and other impacts are taken into account – what in economic terms are called “externalities”.

The most obvious of these externalities is climate change. Phenomena such as rising sea levels, increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events (droughts, floods, cyclones) and bushfires are already costing the world hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

But even this, according to the IMF’s analysis, is only a small part of it. The larger portion of the hidden costs of fossil fuels relates not to climate change, but rather to more “everyday” impacts such as the negative health effects of air pollution.

Astoundingly, the headline figures coming out of the working paper – subsidies totalling US$4.9 trillion in 2013, rising to US$5.3 trillion this year – are likely to be a significant underestimate. For a start, the IMF based its calculation of the cost of climate change on a highly optimistic US government model. The list of damaging impacts of the fossil fuel industry could also easily be broadened. A strong case could be made, for example, that the cost of wars associated with global competition for fossil fuels should also be included.

By Dan Bacher - Censored News, June 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.

Mark Nechodom, the controversial director of the California Department of Conservation, the agency that oversees the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), resigned on Thursday, June 4.

DOGGR is the agency charged with regulating the state's oil and gas industry. Governor Jerry Brown in 2011 appointed Nechodom, who is considered very friendly to the oil industry, to the post in order to expedite permits for oil drilling in Kern County and elsewhere.

The agency has faced increasing scrutiny from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after permitting oil companies conducting steam injection and fracking operations to drill thousands of oilfield wastewater disposal wells into protected aquifers.

The Committee to Protect Agricultural Water, a citizen organization comprised of Central Valley farmers and "individuals concerned about California's drinking water," filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) complaint in Federal Court on June 3, the day before Nechodom resigned.

The RICO Complaint claims that Governor Jerry Brown's office ordered the DOGGR to approve permits to inject contaminated water in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. 

By Gabriel Levy - People and Nature, June 7, 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.

A protest against Azerbaijan’s crackdown on political dissent will be staged in London this Friday, 12 June, as the first European Games open in Baku.

At least 33 human rights defenders, youth movement activists, bloggers, journalists and others have been jailed in the last year in Azerbaijan – where the UK-based oil group BP is the largest foreign investor.

Campaign groups and media have been shut down, and dissidents forced to leave the country, just as economic problems have brought large numbers of Azeris out to protest.

There has been a “major escalation of government repression, pressure and intimidation, directed at NGOs, civil society activists, journalists and human rights defenders”, a resolution of the European Parliament said in September last year. It highlighted:

• Some of Azerbaijan’s most prominent human rights defenders, including Leyla Yunus of the Institute of Peace and Democracy, and her husband the historian Arif Yunus, have been imprisoned on “apparently politically motivated charges”;
• “Eight activists of the non-governmental youth movement NIDA were convicted on [trumped up] charges of hooliganism, drug possession and possession of explosives” after a wave of demonstrations in 2013;
• The Oil Workers Rights Protection Organisation, the only independent group championing the labour rights of Azeri oil workers, has had its bank accounts frozen and faced other forms of harassment; and
• Many more journalists, human rights defenders and activists are facing trumped-up legal charges, and “dozens” of
  others have been imprisoned on charges such as “hooliganism, drug possession, tax evasion and even treason”.

Despite international criticism, the regime has stepped up repression as next week’s games have drawn nearer. Rasul Jafarov, who organised the “Sing for Democracy” protest when the Eurovision song contest was held in Baku, and then took forward that campaign with “Art for Democracy” was sentenced to six and a half years in jail on 16 April, the same day that BP held its annual shareholders’ meeting in London.

On Friday demonstrators in London will go to the corporate headquarters of BP. It’s an excellent choice: there can not be many economies so completely dominated by one foreign company as Azerbaijan’s is by BP.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, June 9, 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 Story:

• Global warming: the ‘slowdown’ that never happened; New scientific analysis shows that the rate of global warming has continued without pause. The ‘hiatus’ simply didn’t happen - Press Release, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, June 4, 2015

Fracking the EPA:

• Don’t Be Fooled by Yesterday’s Headlines, EPA Finds Fracking Contaminates Drinking Water - By Wenonah Hauter, EcoWatch, June 5, 2015
• Fracking Does Cause ‘Widespread, Systemic’ Contamination of American’s Drinking Water - By Josh Fox and Lee Ziesche, EcoWatch, June 5, 2015
• EPA Study: Fracking Puts Drinking Water Supplies at Risk of Contamination - By Sharon Kelly, DeSmog Blog, June 4, 2015
• Long-Awaited EPA Study Says Fracking Pollutes Drinking Water - By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch, June 4, 2015

Bread and Roses:

• Food sovereignty and agroecology-People’s Expo recipe to mend broken food systems - La Via Campesina, June 6, 2015
• Hands on the Land for Food Sovereignty - By Frederica Toscano and Elisa Caricato, La Via Campesina, June 6, 2015
• Peasants are under the thumb of free market - La Via Campesina, June 6, 2015
• Peasants from around the world: views on Expo 2015 - By Frederica Toscano and Elisa Caricato, La Via Campesina, June 5, 2015
• Africa's farmers fight the corporate takeover of seeds, land and food - By Chris Walker, The Ecologist, June 4, 2015
• Big Ag Claims Cancer-Causing Glyphosate No More Dangerous Than ‘Coffee or Working the Night Shift’ - By Mary Ellen Kustin, Environmental Working Group, EcoWatch, June 4, 2015
• G7, be warned: your 'New Alliance' threatens to destroy small-scale farmers; the Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles - By The Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles, The Ecologist, June 4, 2015
• People Should Control the Food System, Not Corporations; Why you should ditch the official EXPO and go to the People's EXPO instead - By Kirtana Chandrasekaran and Stanka Becheva, Common Dreams, June 1, 2015
• Marching on Monsanto and its Government Protectors - By Pete Dolack, CounterPunch, May 29, 2015

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

• Fire at Kentex footware factory kills more than 70 workers - By Jiselle Hanna Sam, rabble.ca, June 8, 2015
• Coal ash spill workers given second chance in court - By Staff, WBIR.COM, June 5, 2015
• Watch: Nancy Hutchison speaks at Justice for Injured Workers rally - By Rebel Sage, rabble.ca, June 4, 2015
• Communities Deserve A Say in Chemical Security - By Taylor Smith-Hams, GreenPeace Blog, June 3, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Norway confirms $900bn sovereign wealth fund's major coal divestment - By Damian Carrington, The Guardian, June 5, 2015
• Oil field services hit hard in jobs report - By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, FuelFix, June 5, 2015

Just Transition:

• Jobs, justice, climate: A new climate movement is rising from below - By Naomi Klein, rabble.ca, June 8, 2015
• 1.2 Million US Green Jobs Reported In Q1. Here’s Why That’s A Problem - By Silvio Marcacci, Clean Technica, June 5, 2015
• Systemic Problems Require Systemic Solutions: Time to Talk About the Next System - By Gus Speth, The Leap, June 5, 2015
• If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It!Potential Impacts of Privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority - By Joel Yudken, Economic Policy Institute, June 4, 2015

Other News:

• RMT responds to collapse in East Coast performance - By RMT Press Office, rmt.org, June 4, 2015
• Vast Federal Biological Collections at Risk; U.S. Geological Survey Shirks Responsibility for Managing Troves of Specimens - By Kirsten Stade, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, June 4, 2015
• Striking workers occupy Telefónica HQ in Barcelona - By Timothy Ginty, RoarMag, June 2, 2015
• Take over of the National Gallery: privatisation, oil sponsorship and Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ - Press Release, Reclaim the Power, June 1, 2015

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

By Dan Bacher - Daily Kos, May 25, 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 same region devastated by the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969 is now the scene of a massive clean up of crude oil by the state and federal governments and volunteers. The international and national media have spread throughout the world the startling images of the oil soaked beaches, birds, fish and ecosystem in a deluge of TV, radio, newspaper and internet reports.

The oil spill resulted from the rupture of an oil pipeline owned by Plains Pipeline, a subsidiary of Plains All-American Pipeline, near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County on Tuesday, May 19. A 24-inch wide, 11-mile long section carrying oil from offshore platforms and an Exxon Mobil processing plant onshore leaked as much as 105,000 gallons of crude oil. An estimated 21,000 gallons made into the ocean, devastating nine miles of coastal waters and beaches.    

The oil spill that began off Refugio State Beach was inevitable, when you consider the capture of the regulatory apparatus by the oil industry in California. Until people challenge the power of Big Oil in California and the industry's control over the state and federal regulatory agencies, we will see more of the Refugio-type of oil spill disasters in the future.

During the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative process from 2004 to 2012, state officials and corporate "environmental" NGOs made sure that Big Oil and other corporate polluters weren't impacted by the creation of alleged "marine protected areas" along the California coast. The MLPA Initiative, a controversial "public-private partnership" between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation (RLFF), was supposed to create a network of "marine protected areas" along the California coast.

In an article published widely in June 2010, I warned that the "marine protected areas" created under the MLPA Initiative don't protect the ocean from oil spills and pollution. (http://yubanet.com/...)

"These marine protected areas, as currently designed, don't protect against oil spills," said Sara Randall, then the program director of the Institute for Fishery Resources and Commercial Fishermen of America. "What's the point of developing marine protected areas if they don't protect the resources?"

MLPA Initiative advocates claimed that other state and federal laws and administrative actions "protect" the ocean from oil spills and new offshore oil drilling, so there was no need for specific bans or restrictions on oil industry activities in and near "marine protected areas."  

In violation of the provisions of the landmark Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) of 1999, the "marine protected areas" failed to protect the ocean from oil spills, oil drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.  

Of course, MLPA Initiative advocates neglected to address why Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association in Sacramento, was allowed to CHAIR the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and to sit on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast, as well as on a NOAA federal marine protected areas panel. (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/...)

They dismissed any questioning of why a Big Oil lobbyist was allowed to oversee "marine protection" in California as "wild conspiracy theories."

To make matters even worse, the WSPA President's husband, James Boyd, served on the California Energy Commission from 2002 to 2012. From 2007 to 2012, he served as the Commission's Vice Chair, the second most powerful position on the Commission! (http://www.energy.ca.gov/...)  

However, as we can see from the current oil spill disaster off the coast of Santa Barbara, the state and federal regulatory agencies and the MLPA Initiative's so-called "marine protected areas" weren't able to prevent a big oil spill like the one now taking place from occurring - and the fishermen, Tribal members and grassroots environmentalists who criticized oil industry lobbyist oversight of the MLPA Initiative process were absolutely right about their fears that the new "Yosemites of the Sea" wouldn't protect the ocean.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, March 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:

• Lessons Discarded: Ten years after a Texas City refinery blast killed 15 and rattled a community, workers keep dying - By Mark Collette, Lise Olsen and Jim Malewitz, Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle, March 21, 2015
• Anatomy of a Disaster: Studies pinpointed what went wrong in Texas City, but unsafe conditions persist - By Mark Collette, Lise Olsen and Jim Malewitz, Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle, March 22, 2015
• Blood Lessons: Ten years after a fiery explosion killed 15 in Texas City, preventable deaths continue at refineries - By Jim Malewitz and Jolie McCullough, Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle, March 22, 2015
• A Deadly Industry: Assembled data shows how and where refinery workers continue to die - By Jim Malewitz, Jolie McCullough, Ben Hasson and Lise Olsen, Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle, March 22, 2015
• Survivors Remember: For two former BP workers, disaster and its aftermath remain vivid - By Mark Collette and Lise Olsen, Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle, March 22, 2015

USW Refinery Workers Strike News:

• Remembering lives lost in tragedy; Candlelight vigil highlights victims of BP blast - By Christopher Smith Gonzalez and T.J. Aulds, Galvaston Daily News, March 23, 2015
• Shell workers in Deer Park end strike - By Andrea Rumbaugh, FuelFix, March 20, 2015
• Vigil mourns 15 oil workers who died in Texas blast 10 years ago - By Joseph S. Pete, NWI Times, March 23, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Experts: New Mexico oil patch could lose 2,000 jobs - Associated Press, March 25, 2015
• Oil field services company cuts 200 of 250 employees in Arkansas - Associated Press, March 21, 2015
• Oilsands producers face harsh reality of rout: There’s no one to save them this time - By Jeremy van Loon and Rebecca Penty, Bloomberg News, March 23, 2015
• Texas landmen left out of work as oil patch boom times go bust - Bloomberg, March 23, 2015
• US coal market in ‘structural decline’, warning to global investors - By Sophie Vorrath, Renew Economy, March 25, 2015

Just Transition:

• Congressman: The Keystone XL Pipeline Is Worth Building Even If It Only Creates One Job - By Scott Keyes, Think Progress, March 19, 2015
• Keystone XL Pipeline = Less Jobs Than You Think - By Drew Toal, NextGen Climate, March 19, 2015
• Too Much Oil; Taking on climate change will require massive state investment and the destruction of the fossil fuel industry - By Matt Huber, Jacobin, March 22, 2015

1267-Watch:

• Editorial: No time to lose on rail safety - By Montreal Gazette Editorial Board, Montreal Gazette, March 13, 2015
• Improving Track Maintenance is Key to Oil Train Safety; Track Related Defects are a Leading Cause of Train Accidents in U.S. - By Clark Ballew, PR Newswire, March 23, 2015
• Jen Wallis, Steering Committee member of Railroad Workers United, Part 2 [audio] - By Jen Wallis, We Do the Work, March 17, 2015
• Oil trains: track inspection finds "critical defects" on North Country line - By Brian Mann, North Country Public Radio, March 18, 2015
• Rail industry’s improved tank cars failing to prevent spills - By Daneil Tyson, Register-Herald, March 17, 2015
• Train crash site was due to get crossing gates - By Allison Ross, The Courier Journal, March 17, 2015

Health and Safety:

• Bangladesh: Business as Usual as Garment Brands Stall Progress - By the International Trade Union Confederation, Portside, March 13, 2015
• Canada regulator probing TransCanada’s pipeline safety code violations - By EBR Staff Reporter, Energy Business Review, March 19, 2015; [related] National Energy Board investigates TransCanada over pipeline safety-code violations - By Brent Patterson, Rabble.Ca, March 20, 2015
• Honeywell lockout at Illinois uranium plant coming to an end - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.com, March 23, 2015
• Salvadoran Maquila Plants Use Gang Members to Break Unions - By Edgardo Ayala, Inter Press Service, March 23, 2015
• Steelworkers Withdraw From Lakeland Sawmill Inquest - By Stephen Hunt and Brad West, United Steelworkers, March 23, 2015
• Thousands of Sweatshop Workers In China Go On Strike - By John Vibes, True Activist, March 17, 2015

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

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, March 19, 2015; image by Jon Flanders

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 Conference: Olympia, Washington (March 21, 2015) - railroadconference.org
• Florida’s Climate Change Gag Order Claims Its First Victim - By Farron Cousins, DeSmog Blog, March 18, 2015
• A Rational Agriculture Is Incompatible with Capitalism - By Fred Magdoff, Monthly Review, March 2015
• Who Controls Our Food? - By Nick Dearden, New Internationalist, March 4, 2015

USW Refinery Workers Strike News:

• After 6-Week Strike, Oil Workers Say They Have “Won Vast Improvements in Safety and Staffing” - By David Moberg, In These Times, March 16, 2015
• All across Australia, solidarity with USW oil workers - United Steelworkers, March 17, 2015
• Holding the line against Big Oil - By Lee Sustar, Socialist Worker, March 18, 2015
• Minor fire extinguished at Shell Martinez, Calif. refinery - Reuters, March 13, 2015
• New Fire At Troubled Exxon Refinery Quickly Extinguished -By Sacha Feinman, Think Progress, March 12, 2015
• Refinery deal struck, Bay Area gasoline prices set to fall - By George Avalos, Bay Area News Group, March 13, 2015
• Solidarity in the heartland: Chicago Fight for $15 joins striking BP oil workers on the picketline - By Bob Simpson, Daily Kos, March 13, 2015
• Striking Motiva workers approve contract - By Sarah Scully, Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2015
• Striking oil workers emerge victorious thanks in part to green group solidarity - By Kate Aronoff, Waging Nonviolence, March 13, 2015
• Striking refinery employees could come back to work by end of March - By Andrea Rumbaugh, FuelFix, March 18, 2015
• Striking workers days away from returning to plants - By Sarah Scully, Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2015
• U.S. Refinery Strikes Now Turn to Local Negotiations - By Lynn Doan and Barbara Powell, Bloomberg, March 12, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Bakken Oil: The Anarchy of the Market - By Richard Mellor, We Know What's Up, March 17, 2015 [editor's note: the IWW EUC does not endorse the article writer's definition of "anarchy", so please do not send us angry letters!]
• Carbo Ceramics cuts jobs, dividend as oil plunges - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, March 17, 2015
• ConocoPhillips to lay off 200 Canadian workers - By Robert Grattan, FuelFix, March 18, 2015
• Evacuate the Economy (or By the Way, Your Home Is On Fire) - By Rebecca Solnit, Common Dreams, March 11, 2015
• Faces of Coal - By Nuck Mullins, The Thoughtful Coal Miner, March 17, 2015
• Global Wave of New Coal Plants is Going Bust, New Report Finds - By Mary Anne Hitt and Nicole Ghio, The Sierra Club, March 16, 2015
• Legendary Coal Miner Says We Must Stop the Insane Practice of Mountaintop Removal - By Jeff Biggers, EcoWatch, March 16, 2015
• Oil producer Nexen cuts workforce by 400 - By Ryan Holeywell, FuelFix, March 17, 2015
• Texas Oil/Gas Industry Barometer Falling; Job Losses Climbing - By Joe Fisher, NGI Shale Daily, March 13, 2015

Health and Safety:

• America is literally on fire: How out-of-control oil spills are destroying our population centers - By David Dayen, Salon, March 10, 2015
• Amid Evidence of Illnesses, Activists Call on Electronics Industry to Boost Workplace Safety - By Nicki Lisa Cole, Truthout, March 17, 2015
• Cement-factory roof collapses in Bangladesh, dozens feared trapped - By Julhas Alam, Associated Press, March 12, 2015
• Dangerous Trains, Aging Rails - By Marcus Stern, New York Times, March 12, 2015
• Oilfield safety a concern as companies cut costs during downturn - Bloomberg, March 12, 2015
• Friday the 13th Nightmare for Workers on Chevron’s Barrow Island - By Ashleigh Telford, Maritime Union of Australia, March 13, 2015
• Kelowna man dies fracking - By Bill Everitt, Kelowna News, March 12, 2015
• Linc Energy alleged to have exposed workers to dangerous gases at experimental plant near Chinchilla, west of Brisbane - By Mark Willacy and Mark Solomons, Australian Broadcasting Company News, March 17, 2015
• McDonald’s Workers Nationwide File OSHA Complaints Alleging Hazardous Work Conditions - By Jennifer Baker, Revolution News, March 17, 2015
• Rail workers initiate forums to discuss fight for safety - By Jack Parker and Jim Altenberg, The Militant, March 23, 2015
• 10 Reasons Why BP Got Off and Offshore Oil Drilling Just Got More Dangerous - By Antonia Juhasz, Rolling Stone, March 12, 2015
• A Terrible, Terrible Choice; Gulf of Mexico Oil Industry Veteran Speaks Out - By Cherri Foytlin, Bridge the Gulf, March 13, 2015
• Union alleges Kitimat smelter emissions turn residents into 'guinea pigs' - The Canadian Press, March 17, 2015
• Union warnings of lethal overcrowding ignored - By RMT Press Office, RMT.ORG, March 13, 2015

Other News:

• Building people power before the Paris climate summit - By Jeremy Brecher, Waging Nonviolence, March 5, 2015
• Seattle doesn’t want Shell’s stinkin’ Arctic drilling fleet - By Ana Sofia Knauf, Grist, March 5, 2015

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