green unionism

By Carol Linnitt - DeSmog.Ca, November 6, 2017

In October, B.C. Premier John Horgan made a visit to the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter on the banks of the Douglas Channel in Kitimat.

He praised the facility for being “a great example of how companies can improve conditions for workers and reduce pollution all while improving their bottom line.”

What he didn’t mention was the ongoing battle at Rio Tinto Alcan over a provincial permit that allowed the company to increase sulphur dioxide pollution by more than 50 per cent, or the union representing 800 workers at the smelter that appealed that permit, saying the increase in pollution was a direct threat to their health.

Exposure to sulphur dioxide aggravates the respiratory systems of asthmatics and is known to negatively affect the respiratory systems of children and the elderly.

At the heart of the controversy is a decision by the B.C. Ministry of Environment in 2013, which allowed the smelter to increase its sulphur dioxide emissions into the Kitimat airshed during a $5 billion expansion project. The ministry approved the increase in emissions under an environmental monitoring plan that would measure, but not prevent, the impacts of the pollution on human health until 2019, when the plan would be revisited.

B.C. did not require the company to install scrubbers, commonly used in smelters to remove airborne pollutants from emissions, a decision that still bothers Sean O’Driscoll, president of the smelter’s union, Unifor local 2301.

“Having a monitoring program ongoing, with suitable human health mitigation plans required to be implemented at a later day, has folks feeling like they, their children and neighbours are being treated like guinea pigs,” O’Driscoll told DeSmog Canada.

Sarita Gupta interviewed by Dimitri L - Real News Network, November 1, 2017

Dimitri L.: This is Dimitri Lascaris for the Real News in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are at the Labor Convergence on Climate organized by the Labor Network for Sustainability. I'm here today with Sarita Gupta, the executive director of Jobs with Justice. Thank you for joining us.

Sarita Gupta: Thank you. It's great to be here with you.

Dimitri L.: I'd like to talk about the mission of your organization, and particularly how we can get organized labor leading the transition that we need to undergo in order to solve the climate crisis currently confronting us.

Sarita Gupta: Great question. I think that it is essential for working people and unions to be at the table and shaping the future of our economy, in particular in the context of this transition that we're in the midst of. There's so much crisis playing out for working people right now, and I often frame it as there's three storylines that are playing out in the American public and for working people. One is of economic hardship and the inability of people to ... Frankly, people are working harder than ever and can't make ends meet. Then you have the story of the climate crisis that we're in, as we hear more and more about the impacts of hurricanes, most recently Harvey and Irma, and so much more. The third is this. Who do we blame for all of this? More often than not, around the economy, the blaming plays out in the form of racism and xenophobia, and so this othering plays out.

I think it is so essential for the labor movement and for working people to actually understand at the end of the day that these stories are incomplete stories, because they don't ever actually get at why are we in the situation that we're in. Who is truly to blame, and how do we build enough power to shift the direction that we're going in around the climate crisis and the future of our economy?

We are investing time and energy into figuring out how to work and build a grassroots base at the local level of labor leaders and trade union activists, who together want to do the kind of broad-based education and organizing, and really strategically looking at their industries and figuring out how to shape the future of their industries in ways that allow working people to be in the driver's seat of what their sectors look like. There's many examples of really tremendous work that's happening, everything from waste workers out in California who are doing this to examples of healthcare workers who are really working hard to help their members, help healthcare workers, understand that there will be a bigger need for their services as we have more environmental health impacts of the climate crisis. How can they be part of pushing for the kinds of solutions that we need?

There's multiple examples like that that are out there, and I think we want to be a part of helping seed those examples to both solve for the climate crisis and to solve for the issue of working people actually having the ability to come together and negotiate not only over their wages but conditions and overall well-being right now, that we really need bargaining power. We have to be clear about who holds that power and how we as working people really take the reins of shaping the future of those industries.

Dimitri L.: Based on some numbers I've seen, you've got quite a challenge, because for example I understand that something on the order of 32% of the members of the UAW actually support Donald Trump, who has claimed, whether he believes it or not is another matter, but he claims that the climate crisis is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I would imagine that there is an educational task line before you that's rather challenging. Why do you think that this significant portion of the labor movement is attracted to the rhetoric of Donald Trump, and how can you most effectively counteract that rhetoric?

Sarita Gupta: I think what I'm learning through our work locally is that often we try to engage people with lots of facts, and I think that's true around the issue of climate. We get into the science, and we get into the numbers. When you do that, you lose people in that debate and discussion, versus really having a hearts and minds strategy. The issues of the climate crisis are actually impacting everybody. How do we start the conversation from the ways in which people are now experiencing the climate crisis?

For example, with Hurricane Irma happening in Florida, our local coalition in central Florida did worker surveys to get a sense of what were workers experiencing, especially low-wage workers, around being able to take time off to prepare for the hurricanes. Were they expected to work during the hurricanes? Were they retaliated against if they didn't show up at work because of flooding, and whatnot? Because these are the important stories to uncover about how workers are truly being impacted by this crisis, and then how do we solve for those impacts and bring people into the conversation of what is a sustainable economy that works for both people and the planet in the future.

That requires creating the spaces for people to share from their own experience and then translate into what is really happening, and then what solutions we fight for. That's actually how I think we deal with the issue of so many union members who are swayed by what Trump has to say. We have to fundamentally help people understand that this is bigger. Frankly, in some ways this is bigger than politics. It's really about what the future holds. What's the restructuring of the economy going to look like? How do we ensure working people are actually respected and can live with dignity? How do we hold onto our humanity through these changes? We have to get people at their values proposition versus politics and the issue. That doesn't connect to who they are at heart.

Dimitri L.: Thank you very much for joining us today, Sarita. I know you want to go back to the panelists, and we really appreciate the time you've taken to speak with us.

Sarita Gupta: Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Dimitri L.: Thank you. This is Dimitri Lascaris for the Real News.

Elisabeth Malkin interviewed by Juan González and Amy Goodman - Democracy Now, November 1, 2017

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today’s show with shocking new revelations about the assassination of renowned Honduran indigenous environmental leader Berta Cáceres. On Tuesday, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, a team of international lawyers released a new report that shows how the plot to murder Cáceres was months in the making and went up to the highest levels of the company, whose hydroelectric dam project Cáceres and her indigenous Lenca community were protesting. The report’s release celebrated the effort to push back against the brazen impunity with which the murder was carried out.

PROTESTERS: Berta no se murió, Berta no se murió. ¡Justicia! ¡Justicia!

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: “¡Justicia! Berta!” “Justice for Berta!” they chanted, upon the report’s release.

In 1993, Berta Cáceres co-founded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, or COPINH. For years, the group faced death threats and repression as they stood up to mining and dam projects they said were destructive to their ancestral land. Then, on March 2nd, 2016, Cáceres was gunned down just before midnight in her hometown of La Esperanza. At the time of her death, she was organizing indigenous communities to resist the Agua Zarca Dam on the Gualcarque River, saying it threatened to contaminate her community’s water supply.

AMY GOODMAN: Now a team of five international lawyers have found evidence that the plot to kill Cáceres went up to the top of the Honduran energy company behind the dam, Desarrollos Energéticos, known as ”DESA.” The lawyers were selected by Cáceres’s daughter, Bertita Zúniga, and are independent of the Honduran government’s ongoing official investigation. They examined some 40,000 pages of text messages and say the conversations are proof that the orders to threaten COPINH and disrupt its protests came from DESA executives. The investigation also revealed DESA exercised control over security forces in the area, issuing directives and paying for police units’ room, board and equipment. In their new report, the lawyers write, quote, “The existing proof is conclusive regarding the participation of numerous state agents, high-ranking executives and employees of Desa in the planning, execution and cover-up of the assassination.”

For more, we go to Mexico City, where we’re joined by Elisabeth Malkin. She’s a reporter for The New York Times, has read the new report and details its findings in her article, “Who Ordered Killing of Honduran Activist? Evidence of Broad Plot Is Found.”

By Jeff Schuhrke - In These Times, October 25, 2017

Rejecting both economic nationalism and free-market fundamentalism, workers across North America are building transnational solidarity and demanding labor rights for all.

Last week, nearly 60 representatives of unions and civil society organizations from Mexico, Canada and the United States gathered in Chicago for a two-day meeting to discuss strategies for collaboration as their governments renegotiate the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The meeting was coordinated by the United Electrical Workers (UE), UCLA Labor Center and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, an international civic education institution affiliated with Germany’s Left Party. While many Mexican unions are dominated by the government, only the country’s more independent and democratically run labor organizations attended.

“We’re discussing what kinds of relationships can be built, either bi-nationally or tri-nationally,” Benedicto Martínez, a national co-coordinator of Mexico’s Frente Auténtico del Trabajo, or Authentic Labor Front (FAT), told In These Times. “At the forefront of our vision would be the rights of people, including better wages, better education, better healthcare and immigration rights.”

Critics argue that NAFTA has accelerated the global “race to the bottom,” where governments dismantle workplace and environmental protections in order to attract capital investment.

“NAFTA has had many negative impacts. Big companies come to Mexico accommodated by the government as workers’ rights are constantly violated,” Julia Quiñones, coordinator of the Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s, or Border Workers’ Committee (CFO), told In These Times.

CFO organizes maquiladora workers in the northern Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Chihuahua. The foreign-owned maquiladoras along the U.S.-Mexico border, which produce goods for export, embody the most pernicious aspects of “free trade”: exploiting low-paid, majority-women workers and polluting their surroundings.

By staff - IBEW 569, November 3, 2017

Whether a utility, municipal program, CCA or another provider or program, providers and subcontractors shall:

1. Energy Identification: Inform customers of the percentage of renewable, greenhouse-gas-free electricity offered. Power may be labeled as “clean” or “green” if it comes from renewable energy generated from solar, wind, geothermal and other eligible renewable energy resources in California and defined by California law in the Public Utilities Code as Category 1.

2. Exclude RECs: Provide renewable energy from actual renewable sources customers can trust while creating union jobs in the community for local workers. Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) undermine these goals. There is no guarantee power content that includes voluntary RECs is clean or green therefore it must not be marketed as “clean” or “green” so as not to mislead the public.

3. Communication to Consumers: Send at least three written notices to potential customers, and each notice will include a description of the percentage of the power mix that comes from California solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro-electric or other state certified green power sources.

4. Creating Union Jobs: Procure power from union-generated sources; employ unionized customer service representatives; sign Project Labor Agreements on each Power Generation Project; sign Project Labor Agreements on Energy Efficiency Projects/Programs; agree in writing to neutrality in the event employees or subcontractor employees wish to unionize.

5. Community Benefits: Sign Community Benefits Agreements to include local projects and local hiring and prioritizing projects, programs and actions to reduce emissions in disadvantaged communities that rank in the top 25 percent of CalEnviroScreen’s ranking for San Diego region communities.

6. Local Project Build-Out: Emphasize development of new renewable resources from proven developers in San Diego and adjacent counties and strictly limit the use of non-renewable energy sources that are recognized under the California RPS to the amount permitted as “Qualified Renewable Resource.”

7. Energy Efficiency: Develop a resource plan that integrates supply-side resources with programs that will help customers reduce their energy costs through improved energy efficiency and other demand-side measures. As part of this integrated resource plan, actively pursue, promote and ultimately administer a variety of customer energy efficiency programs that can cost-effectively displace supply-side resources.

8. Workforce Impacts: Determine if the program will 1) result in negative impacts for employees of the incumbent utility (including layoffs, work hour reductions, etc.) and 2) if the wages, fringe benefits and job protections are similar to those offered by the utility to employees in comparable job classifications.

By Gordon Lafer - Labor Notes, November 1, 2017

After Harvey, Irma, and Maria, many thousands of homes have been lost and lives wrecked. People in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico need decent paying jobs while they try to put their lives back together, and the one industry that will be booming is construction.

By Amy Goodman - Democracy Now, October 31, 2017