Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED)

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, May 26, 2015 (Image: Judi Bari stands defiant outside of the Oakland Federal Building, ca: 1996).

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.

Special Note: Due to the recent (voluntarily, fortunately) location of this site's main administrator, some of these stories are a little delayed. We apologize for any delay in timely reporting. Bear with us; we're all working class volunteers. ;-)

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

Lead Stories:

• WARNING: The TPP is a hazard to your health and our Democracy! - Pattie Lockard, Nurse Talk Radio, National Nurses United, April 23, 2015
• Who’s Really Paying for Our Cheap Clothes? - By Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch, April 20, 2015

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

• Government Finds $60 Billion Company Responsible For Deaths Of Four Workers, Fines It $99,000 - By Bryce Covert, Think Progress, May 18, 2015
• Nine oil well deaths lead to warning about inhaling chemicals - Associated Press, May 18, 2015
• Global union action against asbestos - By Brian Kohler, Industriall Global Union, May 13, 2015
• 2 workers dead, 10 hurt in Mexico oil rig accident - Associated Press, May 5, 2015
• Workers end two-week long strike at BHP’s nickel mine in Colombia - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, May 4, 2015
• AFL-CIO Report: The High Toll of Job Injuries and Deaths - By the AFL-CIO, Portside, May 1, 2015
• A Global perspective on hazardous chemicals in the workplace - By Friis Bach, Environmental News Network, April 28, 2015
• Make Your Voice Heard, Speak Out for Safe Jobs, Protect Workers Now! - Blue Green Alliance, April 28, 2015
• 3 gold miners die in Ghana - By Andrew Topf, Mining.Com, April 26, 2015
• On 2-Year Anniversary of Rana Plaza Factory Collapse, Activists Announce Major Victory for Victims - By Miriam Shestack, In These Times, April 24, 2015 [related] Two Years After Rana Plaza Tragedy, Rights Abuses Still Rampant in Bangladesh's Garment Sector - By Kanya D'Almeida and Naimul Haq, Truth Out, April 24, 2015
• Women Around The World Rise Up To Remember Rana Plaza - By Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams, April 24, 2015
• World day for safety and health at work: the ETUC calls for occupational cancer prevention measures - European Trade Union Confederation, April 20, 2015

Gulf South Rising:

• Money spent cleaning up BP’s mess skipped those who needed it most - By Brentin Mock, Grist, April 21, 2015
• Deepwater Capitalism - By Quincy Saul, CounterPunch, April 20, 2015
• Gulf Fishermen Still Struggling Five Years After the BP Spill - By Mike Ludwig, Truthout, April 20, 2015
• Gulf South Rising: Demonstrations Across US on Fifth Anniversary of BP Oil Spill - Earth First! Newswire, April 20, 2015
• Five Years After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, We Are Closer Than Ever to Catastrophe - By András Tilcsik and Chris Clearfield, The Guardian, April 17, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Canadian oil field services company cuts 2,000 jobs across North America - Bloomberg, May 13, 2015
• Houston engineering company cuts 1,700 jobs amid first quarter loss - By Jordan Blum, FuelFix, May 12, 2015
• More oilfield jobs lost despite modest rebound in crude prices - By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, FuelFix, May 8, 2015
• Hercules Offshore has cut 40 percent of workforce amid low oil - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, April 29, 2015
• BP cuts hundreds of jobs as profits fall by nearly $1 billions - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, April 28, 2015
• Linn Energy to close Denver office, shed 55 jobs - By Rhiannon Meyers, FuelFix, April 24, 2015
• Weatherford increases job cuts to 10,000 - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, April 22, 2015
• Baker Hughes increases layoffs to 10,500 - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, April 21, 2015
• Nabors has laid off thousands in 2015, including more than 40 percent of its drilling unit employees - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, April 21, 2015
• Halliburton lays off 9,000 workers - By Michael Allan McCrae, Mining.Com, April 20, 2015
• U.S. Steel to increase job cuts in Harris County - By Robert Grattan, FuelFix, April 20, 2015
• Hercules sells four rigs as Gulf drilling work disappears - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, April 20, 2015

Just Transition:

• Renewable Energy Employs 7.7 Million People Worldwide, Says New IRENA Report - By Staff, Sustainable Energy for All, May 19, 2015
• The Coal Industry Is a Job Killer - By Mike Gaworecki, DeSmog Blog, May 13, 2015
• General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT) joins TUED - By Bishnu Rimal, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, May 7, 2015
• EPA’s Proposed Carbon Rule Would Create Hundreds Of Thousands Of Jobs, Report Says - By Samantha Page, Think Progress, April 22, 2015
• Labor Troubadour Connects Working People to Climate Change Cause - By Staff, Blue Mountain Center, April 16, 2015

1267-Watch:

• Oakland residents deliver “coal” to developer to protest coal export plan - By Jess Dervin-Ackerman and Ethan Buckner, Rising Tide North America, May 15, 2015
• RNs, Sierra Club survey Richmond neighborhoods on health impact of coal trains - By California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, May 7, 2015
• Railroad union urges tougher safety standards to help prevent oil train derailments - By Associated Press, Daily Journal, April 26, 2015
• Court victory vindicates BLET position on two-person train crews - Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, April 21, 2015
• Survivor of rail yard explosion is emotionally, mentally shaken - By Nicole Goodrich, ABC KETV 7, April 17, 2015

Other News:

• Marathon workers say no to labor offer in Galveston - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, May 19, 2015
• SA gold miners face repeat of brutal 2014 platinum strike - By Frik Els, Mining.Com, May 13, 2015
• Farm Worker Advocates Target Ben & Jerry's - By Mitch Wertlieb and Melody Bodette, VPR, May 12, 2015
• LyondellBasell workers vote to end strike - By Andrea Rumbaugh, Houston Chronicle, May 7, 2015
• Public Process—Nearly Avoided—Just Killed that Proposed North Portland Propane Terminal - By Dirk VanderHart, Portland Mercury, May 7, 2015
• Hudbay's Manitoba miners down tools - By Andrew Topf, Mining.Com, May 3, 2015
• Here's the ad that is upsetting the union at Stillwater Mining - By Michael Allan McCrae, Mining.Com, April 27, 2015
• The Undemocratic Job-Killing Trade Scheme That Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership - By Leo Gerard, USW President, In These Times, April 27, 2015
• Secret Papers Reveal Lawson's 1981 Plot to Use Army Against Oil Workers - By Brendan Montague, DeSmog UK, April 20, 2015

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

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 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 Stories:

• Register now for the Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment Conferences: Richmond, California (March 14, 2015) and Olympia, Washington (March 21, 2015) - railroadconference.org

USW Refinery Workers Strike News:

• BP Cleanup Crews, Refinery Workers, Fenceline Communities and the Effects of API-Funded Science - By Karen Savage, Bridge the Gulf, February 6, 2015
• Building unions return to Kentucky refinery despite Steelworkers' Picketlines - By Jarrett Renshaw, Reuters, February 6, 2015
• CBE Supports Striking Refinery Workers - Communities for a Better Environment, February 7, 2015
• First Nationwide Oil Worker Strike In Decades Grows Even Bigger - By Ari Phillips, Think Progress, February 8, 2015
• Steelworkers strike extends to BP plants outside Texas - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 7, 2015
• Supporters join steelworkers on strike at Tesoro: Union leaders call for nationwide “Day of Action” as a sign of solidarity - By Evan Marczynski , Go Skagit, February 8, 2015
• Union says U.S. refinery strike widened; cites unfair labor practices - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, February 7, 2015
• US Oil-Worker Strike Reaches BP Plants With Talks on Hold - By Lynn DoanAngela and Greiling Keane, Bloomberg, February 6, 2015
• USW Oil Workers at BP Refineries in Indiana and Ohio Join Unfair Labor Practice Strike - By Lynne Hancock and Tony Montana, USW Press Release, February 7, 2015
• United Steelworkers rally in downtown Houston after rejecting Shell contract offer - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 6, 2015
• White House urges USW to strangle oil workers’ strike - By Jerry White and E.P. Bannon, World Socialist Website, February 6, 2015

Crude by Rail:

• CP Rail, Teamsters union tensions near boiling point; Latest fight involves union members training management to drive trains - By Kyle Bakx, CBC News, February 6, 2015
• Teamsters Membership Authorize Strike Action at CP - By Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, CNW, February 7, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Baker Hughes to close plant, cut 60 jobs in Louisiana - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, February 6, 2015
• Siemens to cut 7,800 employees - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, February 6, 2015
• The Oil Price Collapse Is Not Just Another Bust Cycle - By Michael T. Klare, The Nation, February 4, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Syriza can show ‘another energy is possible’ - By Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, February 7, 2015

March for Real Climate Leadership:

• Anti-Fracking Protest Shuts Down California State Building, Street - Earth First! Newswire, February 6, 2015
• Anti-Fracking Activists Stage Direct Action in San Francisco, 12 Arrested - Rising Tide North America, February 6, 2015
• Californians March for Real Climate Leadership Against Fracking - Revolution News, February 7, 2015
• 'Game-Changing March for Climate' as Californians Rise Up Against Fracking; Thousands kick off protest to demand Governor Jerry Brown halt toxic drilling in stated - By Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams, February 7, 2015
• Protesters march in Oakland, push for Jerry Brown to ban fracking - By Victoria Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, February 7, 2015

Other News

• Bulgarian anarcho-syndicalists protest railway cuts, privatization’ - By Karetelnik, Libcom.org, February 5, 2015

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

By Sean Sweeney - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, November 7, 2014

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.

On November 2, 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Synthesis Report, the final in the “Fifth Assessment Report” process. It builds on three reports released by the IPCC since early 2013.

The IPCC is a senior UN panel made up of thousands of climate scientists and this report marks its fifth ‘assessment’ since 1990 of the state of the climate and the present and future impacts of global warming.

The Synthesis Report reiterates what the IPCC has been telling us for a decade or more: “Climate change is being registered around the world and warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.” The period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1,400 years in the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are “unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years”.

The report may be the same as previous IPCC reports in terms of the main messages and conclusions, but one thing is different. The 20 years of political inaction around climate, with its sad mixture of back-slapping and back stabbing by negotiators at scores of summits and meetings, has now created a situation where only bold and transformative interventions offer any hope of controlling runaway global warming. Even relatively conservative commentators and analysts now accept this to be true. Among the most important of these interventions involves expanding and deepening social ownership and democratic control of the world’s energy systems—energy democracy. This is needed in order to facilitate an energy transition from fossil-based power to renewable energy, a transition of sufficient speed and scale to be able to seriously address the climate crisis.

Among those embracing energy democracy are a growing number of unions working in partnership with allies in different social movements. Not all unions are convinced that energy democracy is either desirable or possible—especially given the political and economic power of the oil, coal and gas companies. And those unions either supporting the idea or at least open to it are engaging in serious discussions regarding what energy democracy would look like and how it could, alongside addressing pollution and emissions, also seriously address energy poverty, create jobs and advance equality. But everyone involved in the trade union debates on climate change accepts that ‘business as usual’ is simply not an option and the energy system has to be transformed within two or three decades. The IPCC’s report has again sounded the alarm about climate change, but we cannot evacuate the building because we have nowhere else to go.

By Steven Wishnia - The Indypendent, September 12, 2014

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.

From teachers to transit workers, civil servants to electricians, the People’s Climate March will have more organized-labor participation than any environmentalist effort in U.S. history.

More than 50 unions, including some of the city’s biggest, are among the organizations sponsoring the march. The Service Employees International Union, the nation’s second largest, has endorsed it, and its two main New York locals, the health care workers of Local 1199 and the building service workers of Local 32BJ, are heavily involved. Also on board are District Council 37, the city’s largest public employee union; Transport Workers Union Local 100; Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Communications Workers of America, who represent city employees as well as telephone and cable-TV workers; and the city, state and Connecticut affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers.

The sponsors also include labor-based groups such as the Left Labor Project and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and “worker centers” that seek to organize low-wage and undocumented workers. Trade Unions for Energy Democracy is bringing union leaders from more than 10 countries, including the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, Korea, Canada and South Africa.

“Labor is marching because climate change affects all of us,” says Local 32BJ President Hector Figueroa. “We live in the communities that get destroyed by storms like Sandy. We work in the buildings that get flooded. We get hit by health epidemics like asthma that are rampant in our communities, and we care about the world that we will leave for our children and grandchildren.” 

“Labor has come to the conclusion that it is a workers’ issue, some of us faster than others,” says Estela Vazquez, a Local 1199 vice president.

By Abby Scher - Truthout, September 14, 2014

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.

New York City and key national unions like the Service Employees International Union and Communication Workers of America are stepping up to support the People's Climate March in NYC September 21, in a broad coalition. But some green radicals from labor groups say unions need to create their own climate protection strategy that democratizes the energy sector.

There is a grinding nature to labor solidarity. Having never been active in a union before, I never experienced it until becoming the National Writers Union rep to organizing meetings for the Sept 21 Climate March happening in New York City right before a UN summit. Now I'm feeling it. It's not enough to get your union on board; has your president signed a statement? It's not enough to get your local; how about your international? And of course, words are cheap, so how many members are you mobilizing, and how are you doing it? Everyone in the room knows that grunt work feeds whatever power labor has. Astonishing for people who haven't been watching the labor movement in the last few years, New York's unions are digging deep to support the march that calls on world leaders to take action to avert catastrophic climate change.  

The march takes place just two days before President Obama and world leaders gather for an emergency Climate Summit at the United Nations called by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Moon wants to ensure they sign a new international climate treaty when they gather again in Paris in December 2015.

The unions are among 1,000 endorsers of the People's Climate March challenging the big corporations and governments that have stymied any real agreement. It's been 26 years since the UN launched the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and then the treaty process two years later, but we're stuck - even as scientists educate us on the urgency to act.

Will unions be part of the problem or part of the solution? The International Trade Union Federation endorsed the march, as has the Canadian Labour Congress and the Connecticut and Vermont labor federations. But in New York, local and state unions are the ones stepping up - including some of the building trades, which, on a national level, help block the AFL-CIO from showing any climate leadership.

By Sean Sweeney - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, June 3, 2014

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 Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA)  has released a major policy instrument, the Development Platform for the Americas (English version here) or Plataforma de Desarrollo de las Americas (PLADA).  Spanish original is here. The report was released in Santiago, Chile, at a meeting with Chilean president Michelle Bachelet on May 6 in the presence of more than 5,000 trade unionists and friends.

The year-long process of discussion and debate leading to the launch of PLADA reflects growing support among unions and social movements for democratic control of energy and other strategic sectors as well as the need for governments to halt the for-profit exploitation of the commons.

TUCA is the largest regional workers´ organization in the Americas.  It represents more than 50 million workers belonging to 53 national trade union organizations based in 23 countries. TUCA is the regional structure of the International Trade Union Confederation. A number of TUCA affiliates participate in TUED, from Argentina, Canada and the United States.

PLADA calls on the region’s various social and political forces to “work together to build alternatives in the battle for a new hegemony.” The document is structured around four pillars or dimensions – political, economic, social and environmental – which will be geared towards achieving sustainable development.