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EcoUnionist News #120

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 09/06/2016 - 22:57

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, September 7, 2016

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

Lead Stories:

Ongoing Mobilizations:

The Thin Green Line:

Just Transition:

Bread and Roses:

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

Whistle Blowers:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
Thin Green Line
just transition
whistleblowers
health and safety
agricultural workers and peasants
Brooke Anderson
J.P.Wright
labor and environment

EcoUnionist News #120 - #NoDAPL Update

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 09/06/2016 - 22:56

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, September 7, 2016

The IWW passed the following emergency resolution at its annual, 2016, International Delegate Convention in Oakland, California, on Saturday, September 3, 2016:

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) stands in Solidarity with the resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline. We call on the labor movement and working class to take a stand against environmental racism and join the fight for a just transition as our collective future is at stake. We recognize that the capitalist system that oppresses the working class has always oppressed indigenous people of the world. Therefore we feel that settlers and indigenous workers should unite to take direct action against colonial industrial capitalism and do everything in our power to restore justice to indigenous people and Mother Earth. An injury to one is an injury to all! #nodapl #sacredstonespiritcamp #redwarriorcamp #waterislife

Groups Announce Global Call to Action in Solidarity with Dakota Pipeline Resistance

International protests targeting financiers, other companies to run September 3-17

Photos and News: href="http://nodaplsolidarity.org">NoDaplSolidarity.org

Cannon Ball, N.D.– The Red Warrior Camp, in partnership with the Camp of the Sacred Stones issued an official Call to Action Wednesday for allies from around the world to stand ?in solidarity with the groups by joining the NoDAPL Global Weeks of Solidarity Actions from September 3 – 17.

The groups call on supporters to organize protest actions at Citigroup, TD Bank, and the Japan-based Mizuho Bank locations to highlight the companies’ financing of the $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. If built, the new pipeline is expected to deliver 570,000 gallons of crude oil across 1,172 miles across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, where it will link to infrastructure able to transport the oil to the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the Call to Action:

“Water is a necessity for all life. Water is life. Now is the time for all people from all walks of life to join together to stop the desecration and destruction of water, land and life! Please join our Indigenous led movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline by planning or joining an action near you!”

The need for clean water is also at the heart of a legal challenge against the Army Corps of Engineers, brought by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe with representation from Earthjustice and filed on July 27, 2016. The lawsuit alleges that the Corps’ approval of the permit that allows the oil company to dig the pipeline under the Missouri River just upstream of the reservation and the Tribe’s drinking water supply violates the Clean Water Act and other federal laws. An injunction that would stop construction while legal challenges are heard is expected by September 9.

The groups also launched a new website that includes a mapof protest actions planned, news and updates: NoDaplSolidarity.org.

Find NoDaplSolidarity on social Media:facebook.com/RedWarriorCampand @RedWarriorCamp on Twitter.

Tags: 
NoDAPL
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
indigenous
pipelines
Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)
direct action

Missoula IWW Stands in Solidarity with #NoDAPL

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 09/06/2016 - 22:53

By Erica Johnson, Branch Secretary, Davis Ritsema, Branch Treasurer, C.W. Copeland, Branch Delegate - Missoula IWW, September 6, 2016

Members of the Missoula IWW General Membership Branch are donating to the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp legal defense fund in the coming days and we also urge others to also give what they can. The following declaration of solidarity with the Standing Rock defenders was unanimously approved in meeting today. Fellow workers, friends and supporters, feel free to share widely:

We the members of the Missoula General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World would like to express our full support of and solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and all others resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Sacred Stone Camp at Cannonball, North Dakota. Native peoples and their allies seeking to stop this exploitative and ecologically disastrous assault upon the northern plains have been slandered by both racist local police agencies and the corporate press at large in a way that recalls similar smear campaigns against other historic civil and labor rights movements. As capitalist entities continue on their path of pursuing profit at the cost of the very earth that sustains us all, we draw tremendous encouragement and inspiration from the indomitable defenders taking a stand at Cannonball.

We would also like to take a minute to call upon the Laborers International Union of North America workers currently employed by Dakota Access, LLC/EnergyTransfer Partners to lay down your tools and demand that the out-of-control private security officers be called off the project. LIUNA workers should also demand that your union officers pursue other, more sustainable contracts in the upgrade, repair and construction of civilian infrastructure. This would provide your union with more stable long term work projects that would not come at the expense of soil and water quality or infringe upon the sacred sites of the Lakota and other indigenous peoples. Know well that oil industry billionaires like Kelcy Warren would gladly break your union if they could- see how thoroughly they have already compromised it. The only thing lower than scabbing on organized labor is scabbing on humanity itself- does this cross your minds when company goons unleash attack dogs upon pregnant women and small children before your very eyes?

Since the first tentacles of capitalist economy snaked west with the advent of the fur trade, native communities were the first targets of its schemes and the first great resistance against them. Their resistance has continued through gold rushes, land grabs, ethnic cleansing, cultural repression, government allotment swindles and the theft of their very children. The continued struggle at places like Cannonball is a testament to the iron will of tribal peoples. Here's to the defenders at Sacred Stone Camp- we stand in full support of your fight and will proudly strive to render whatever specific or general assistance may be requested. In solidarity:

Erica Johnson, Branch Secretary
Davis Ritsema, Branch Treasurer
C.W. Copeland, Branch Delegate

Tags: 
green unionism
green syndicalism
NoDAPL
Missoula IWW

Twin Cities IWW General Defense Committee’s Statement of Solidarity with the Sacred Stone Camp

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 09/06/2016 - 22:47

By Erik Davis - Twin Cities General Defense Committee (Local 14) of the IWW, July 17, 2016

To the Sacred Stone Camp,

Greetings. Our group is a collection of working class militants that fight for the abolition of the wage system, private property, and capitalism. The Twin Cities General Defense Committee (GDC) Local 14 of the Industrial Workers of the World formed initially as an avenue of legal defense for workers who were facing legal persecution in the 1920’s for their labor organizing, but has now transformed to encompass community organizing and community self-defense. The GDC is committed to pushing, advancing, and participating in struggles that fall under defense of the broader working class. This includes liberation struggles for colonized peoples, and defense of the land and water which we all depend on for life.

We are a union comprised of and run by workers themselves: democratically and horizontally. There are no bosses in our union, unlike the big business unions which have supported the pipeline and the extraction industry bosses. While we know that the bosses and business unions use the poverty and desperation for living wages and security to recruit to and promote the extraction industry, we aim to help break the harmful alliance between unions and the energy bosses and build active working class solidarity with Native people and all those fighting to defend the earth from capitalist exploitation and destruction.

If the Bakken pipeline is built, it will inevitably break, and this break will contaminate the drinking water of millions of people while pushing our ecosystem to the brink of destruction. All of those who put their time, energy, and bodies on the line to stop this pipeline are doing crucial and vital work in defending both life and land from the ruling class. Through these words and our contributions to the Sacred Stone Camp in money, materials, and labor, we hope that our commitment to both your fight for sovereignty and the health of the land and water that all life depends on is made clear.

In Solidarity and Struggle,
Twin Cities General Defense Committee (Local 14)

Tags: 
green unionism
NoDAPL
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
IWW General Defense Committee (GDC)
GDC Local 14
Twin Cities IWW
green syndicalism

An Open Letter to the Labor Movement: Stand in Solidarity With #NoDAPL

Submitted by x344543 on Fri, 09/02/2016 - 15:36

September 4, 2016

Editor's Note: This appeal has been updated to address the attack on the demonstrators were attacked by private security led dogs.

Fellow Workers:

If you've not read or seen the news about the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the vast and growing opposition to it (#NoDAPL) by now, you've not been paying attention.

According to One Account,

Beneath the cover of the endless presidential election season, which in Iowa started a year and a half ago, the Texas-based company Dakota Access LLC (a division of the corporation Energy Transfer Partners [ETP]) has moved methodically ahead with its plan to build this ugly, winding, and ecocidal tube of death. The $4 billion, 1134-mile project would carry 540,000 barrels of largely fracked crude oil from North Dakota’s “Bakken oil patch” daily on a diagonal course through South Dakota, a Sioux Indian burial ground,18 Iowa counties, and a Native American reservation to Patoka, Illinois. It will link with another pipeline that will transport the black gold to terminals and refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.

Right now, several thousand indigenous tribal members (supported by over 160 tribes), land owners, environmentalists, climate justice activists, and supporters of #BlackLivesMatter have gathered together into two camps in rural North Dakota to organize nonviolent resistance to this massive project which will parallel and match the length of the infamous (but rejected by Presidential order) Keystone XL pipeline.  Several others have been protesting all along the pipeline's route over the past couple of weeks. These 1000s strong intrepid folks are supported nationally and internationally by 100,000s.

The leaders in this effort have done all they can working "within the system" to oppose this project to no avail:

Anti-pipeline activists have been playing by all the official local, state, and federal rules. They’ve gone through the established channels of law and procedure. They’ve worked the legal and regulatory machinery to the point of exhaustion. They’ve gone through all available avenues of reason and petition. They’ve written and delivered carefully worded petitions and given polite, fact-filled testimony to all the relevant public bodies. They’ve appealed to the IUB. They’ve appealed to the Army Corps of Engineers and to numerous other federal agencies and offices including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Advisory on Historic Preservation, and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration. They’ve sued in court, defending farmers’ traditional American-as-apple-pie private property rights...And it’s all been for naught because the state is stuck in the deep pockets of Big Carbon. Last week a long-awaited district court ruling in Des Moines gave DA, ETP, Enbridge, and Marathon and their big financial backers what they wanted. DA is free to complete construction on fifteen parcels where the farm owners had challenged the state’s right to enforce eminent domain on behalf of the Bakken snake.

This project would represent a disaster for the world's climate. Already humanity is experiencing a climate emergency--as the increase in the Earth's average overall surface temperature has surpassed 1°C--brought on by fossil fuel capitalism. Every sensible scientific peer reviewed study dictates that in order to avoid the destruction of the ability of humanity (and much else living) to survive on our planet, the global increase must reach no higher than 2°C, at most (and most agree that an increase beyond 1.5°C would be bad enough). In order to do this, at least 80% of the known fossil fuel "reserves" must remain in the ground. This pipeline would make that prospect increasingly difficult, because it is designed to facilitate the continuing extraction of the Bakken Shale in North Dakota.

Worse than that, this pipeline represents the further colonization of indigenous lands, particularly that which lie adjacent to or solidly within the path of this project.

None of this is necessary. Studies show that all of the world's energy needs can be met by a combination of conservation, 100% renewable energy generation--which is entirely feasible using existing technology, and a reordering of the world's economic systems to facilitate production for need, not profit. The 100,000s of people who oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline understand this.

In spite of this massive opposition however, one group, in particular, has remained disturbingly silent, and that's labor unions.

Tags: 
NoDAPL
green unionism
indigenous
just transition

(Preliminary) Workers' Climate Plan

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 17:30

By Lliam Hildebrand, et. al. - Iron and Earth, September 2016

Iron & Earth, a Canadian non-profit organization led by skilled trades workers with experience in Canada’s oil industry, is developing a Workers’ Climate Plan. This preliminary report describes how Canadacan become a leader in renewable energy, and a net exporter of renewable energy products, services and technology, by harnessing the industrial trade skills of current energy sector workers. A growing number of oil and gas trades people support a transition to renewable energy so long as it provides a just transition for current energy sector workers. By utilising Canada’s existing energy sector workforce, organizations and infrastructure, Canada can accelerate the transition to renewable energy, decrease the cost, and make Canada’s renewable energy sector globally competitive.

Throughout September and October, Iron & Earth will continue to reach out to energy sector workers over the phone and in person to speak about the Workers’ Climate Plan in more detail. Iron & Earth is consulting with a range of energy sectors take holders in partner ship with the Alberta-based EnergyFutures Lab in order to devise a set of recommendations based on worker demands. This will informan expanded Workers’ Climate Plan which we will release in November 2016 ahead of The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22). In this preliminary, abridged version of the Workers' Climate Plan, we share insights from current energy sector workers for the consideration of the Working Group on Clean Technology, Innovation and Jobs, as they compile their reports for the ministerial tables in September 2016.

Read the report (PDF).

Tags: 
Iron and Earth
green unionism
labor and environment
just transition
green jobs
jobs
tar sands
mine workers
Canada
New Brunswick
Alberta
British Columbia
renewable energy
renewable energy workers
publications
reports

(Working Paper #7) An Illness to One is the Concern of All: The Health Impacts of Rising Fossil Fuel Use

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 12:40

By Svati Shah and Sean Sweeney - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, September 2016

This paper has been written to help unions representing workers in all sectors get a clear sense of what is presently happening in terms of the health impact of fossil fuel use and what could also happen if present patterns in energy use continue into the future. The data are presented in a way that unions can use to more effectively advocate both for their members and the broader public.

Unions in health care can play—indeed are playing—an important role in addressing both the climate-related and the pollution-related dimensions of the unfolding health crisis, as can health and safety personnel working with or for unions in different sectors. But the health-related impacts of rising pollution levels and climate change are expected to affect the lives of workers across a range of occupations. Unions representing workers in emergency services, workers in transport systems, or workers who must work outdoors in agriculture or construction also have a particularly important role to play. The situation requires as unified a response as possible.

One of the striking features of fossil fuel use today is how much it reflects and reinforces class inequalities. It is well known that rich countries consume far more energy per per-son than poorer ones, but within both rich and poor countries there is often a huge gulf between the energy consumed by the rich and the energy consumed by the poor and working class. The same is true of emissions. A December 2015 study released by Oxfam calculated that the poorest half of the global population are responsible for only around 10% of global emissions yet live overwhelmingly in the countries most vulnerable to climate change while the richest 10% of people in the world are responsible for around 50% of global emissions.

Trade unions with the capacity to play more of an active role in resisting the expansion of fossil fuel use can be confident of the fact that they will be intersecting with a rising global movement that is confronting fossil fuel extraction, including “unconventional fuels” like shale gas and shale oil. The concerns that drive this movement are numerous. Along with climate and air quality concerns, struggles have been built around questions of water scarcity and contamination and the fight to defend land and livelihoods from “extractivist” energy companies.

Read the report (PDF).

If it's jobs they want, Labour and the unions must back renewables, not Hinkley C!

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 08/30/2016 - 18:53

By Ian Fairlie - The Ecologist, August 30, 2016

On July 28, the Prime Minister's Office announced a delay until the autumn to allow a review to take place re the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C proposed by the previous Government.

Since then, press criticisms of the mooted Hinkley C have continued unabated led by flagship editorials from the FT and The Economist.

These echo widespread concerns by the National Audit Office (NAO) in its recent preliminary report - Nuclear Power in the UK.

A detailed reading reveals serious question marks about the proposed project. According to The Times of July 31, the NAO will publish another damning report on Hinkley as soon as the Government has made its decision.

It would be infinitely preferable for the NAO's considerations to be made available to the Government before legally binding decisions were taken on Hinkley C, rather than afterwards.

This is not a minor matter: the Government is understood to have ready a draft Investor Agreement - essentially an irrevocable contract for electricity from Hinkley C for 35 years at a cost of £29.7 billion to British energy consumers, as estimated in the above NAO report. This is a discounted sum: economists consider an undiscounted sum of about £37 billion should really be applied. Whichever figure is used, this is an unconscionable sum.

But it is not just the NAO which is concerned: other institutions including the Treasury's National Infrastructure Commission, chaired by Lord Adonis, and its Infrastructure and Projects Authority. Members of Energy UK are also worried.

And two years ago, as stated in the UK Government's report of October 8, 2014 to the European Commission on state aid for Hinkley, the then Infrastructure UK arm of the Treasury evaluated the Hinkley project as 'Speculative BB+'.

Even this junk rating would have depended on the proper functioning of the proposed EPR at Flamanville in France which is by no means assured. In 2016, two years later, it is likely Hinkley's investment rating will be even lower.

Tags: 
nuclear power
nuclear power workers
green unionism
renewable energy
renewable energy workers
labor and environment
trade unions
green jobs
just transition

EcoUnionist News #119

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 08/30/2016 - 18:30

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, August 31, 2016

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

Lead Stories:

Ongoing Mobilizations:

The Thin Green Line:

Just Transition:

Bread and Roses:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
Thin Green Line
just transition
whistleblowers
health and safety
agricultural workers and peasants
agroecology
labor and environment

The Dark Side of Local

Submitted by x344543 on Sat, 08/27/2016 - 12:33

By Margaret Gray - Jacobin, August 21, 2016

We live in the shadows,” explained Javier, a Hudson Valley farmworker, while describing his life to me. “We are treated like unknown people . . . We are not paid well and cannot ask for more.” A worker on another farm said, “They treat us like nothing; they only want the work . . . Whether we like it or not, we have to like it.”

Some of today’s liveliest political conversations concern agricultural production and distribution. But these discussions are also among the most confused.

Exploitative conditions on factory farms have rightly drawn the attention of academics, activists, and journalists. Indeed, the vast majority of research on farmworkers focuses on the largest farming sites. Consumers are offered countless reasons to avoid produce from them — but few alternatives other than to “buy local.”

Much contemporary food writing argues that when we buy locally grown food directly from farms, we not only secure fresher, more seasonal produce, but we also create an intimate, trusting relationship with the farmer. This supposed bond reinforces the common understanding that the local food production process is more wholesome than the industrial agricultural system.

Food writers and scholars have highlighted the many positive aspects of local food systems: economic and social justice, the sense of community facilitated by face-to-face interactions with food producers, and the civic engagement and democracy promoted by alternative agri-systems.

For example, as Barbara Kingsolver argues in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, “‘locally grown’ is a denomination whose meaning in incorruptible.” Later in the book she addresses the poor pay and conditions of workers on factory farms, citing their average annual income of $7,500. Clearly, she intends readers to feel grateful that local farms offer a more just and well-paid alternative.

Or take another prominent example: in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a landmark in the new food literature, Michael Pollan describes two types of farming — industrial and pastoral — and offers no in-between.

In promoting local diets as healthy and righteous alternatives to the capitalist-industrial monoculture food system, such writers have sold us an idea premised on a false dichotomy.

On one hand, they demonize factory farms for poisoning the land and local waterways, for confining and mistreating animals, and for exploiting their workers in the name of earning profits. On the other hand, they promote local agriculture as the antidote to the factory farms’ corporate ills.

By shopping at the farmers market or joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, consumers support smaller (though not necessarily small) farmers, keep food dollars local, encourage limited pesticide use, and ensure animals are treated humanely.

Tags: 
Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ)
La Via Campesina
agricultural workers and peasants
agriculture
agribusiness
green unionism
greenwashing
green capitalism
organic food

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