green unionism

By John Paul Wright - YouTube and Soundcloud, 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.

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

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

By David Goodner - Truthout, January 20, 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 debate surrounding labor's support for oil pipelines has largely centered on a false "jobs versus climate" dichotomy. But labor's position is also alienating them from their potential allies while strengthening the hand of their sworn enemies.

There's a popular saying on the left that organized labor would build their own gallows if they were offered the jobs, and nowhere is this more true than in labor's support for the environmentally disastrous Keystone XL, Enbridge Sandpiper and Bakken oil pipelines.

As in much of the debate surrounding climate change, proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline, like Teamster president James P. Hoffa, generally argue that short-term job creation and economic growth trump environmental concerns about the long-term fate of the planet.

"America needs more good-paying jobs that support middle-class families. This project supplies them," Hoffa wrote in a letter published by The Detroit News in December 2014. He went on to claim that environmental concerns have been addressed by state and federal regulators, as well as by the oil company itself.

"It will be safer than any other domestic oil pipeline system built under current code," he added.

In reality of course, it is the jobs argument that is overblown, and it is the environmental threat to the survival of every living thing on earth that labor habitually understates or ignores.

The bottom line is there won't be any jobs, or an economy at all, if the planet is no longer hospitable to human life. There's no such thing as a safe oil pipeline because extracting fossil fuels from the ground and burning them into the atmosphere is what causes catastrophic climate change, not accidental oil spills.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 17, 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 Robots Are Coming! Let's Make Them Work for the Workers - By Thomas Matt, Truthout, January 15, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• BP, ConocoPhillips to cut 530 jobs in the North Sea - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 15, 2015
• Schlumberger to cut 9,000 employees, including in Houston - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 15, 2015; [related]: Schlumberger axes 9,000 workers - By Michael Allan McCrae, Mining.Com, January 16, 2015
• Wage growth for oil workers slowed in 2014, data firm says - By Joshua Cain, FuelFix, January 15, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• By focusing on collaboration, not competition, teachers can save civilization - By Lizanne Foster, Rabble.ca, January 18, 2015
• Offshore Wind in the Atlantic Would Provide Twice the Number of Jobs, Energy as Offshore Drilling - By Jaime McClain, Oceana, January 15, 2015
• Solar Jobs Boom: US Industry Adds 31,000 Workers as Installations Surge - By Pete Danko, Breaking Energy, January 15, 2015
• There are now twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs - By Tim McDonnell, Grist, January 15, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Bhopal Cloud Hovers Over Industrial Safety in India - By Neeta Lal, Truthout, January 20, 2015
• Five Die After Crash In South Texas Oil Field - by Katie Valentin, Think Progress, January 16, 2015
• Forced labor on Thai fishing vessels - By Farah Obaidullah, Greenpeace Blogs, January 16, 2015
• Global union alerts Bougainville about Rio Tinto - Adam Lee interviewed by Radio New Zealand, Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, January 20, 2015
• Oil-by-Rail Reality: Watch What Industry Does, Not What They Say - By Justin Mikulka, DeSmog Blog, January 15, 2015
• Peruvian Youth To Protest Against New Labor Law - Telesur, December 22, 2014
• RCMP union: Solidarity forever? - By John Baglow, Rabble.ca, January 17, 2015
• Report urges injury, death coverage for farm workers - By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal, January 15, 2015
• Soma, Ermenek, Yirca: Can Anti-Coal Activists Defend Coal Miners and Olive Farmers? - By Ethemcan Turhan, Jadaliyya, January 17, 2015
• Textile Workers’ Strike Stirs Discontent In Sisi’s Egypt - By Hossam el-Hamalawy, al-Araby, January 16, 2015
• Women Garment Workers Organize Against Inhumane Conditions in India - By Pushpa Achanta, Waging Nonviolence, January 12, 2015
• Worker dies at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant - By Justin McCurry, The Guardian, January 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, January 17, 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:

• Hundreds Rally Against Proposed Propane Terminal at Planning and Sustainability Commission Hearing - By Yoko, Rising Tide Portland, January 13, 2015
• The climate is ripe for social change: Forget the UN, social justice movements offer the only viable solution to global warming - By Vishwas Satgar, The Mail & Guardian, December 17, 2014

Carbon Bubble:

• Oil prices and the devil's ransom - By Alexander Reid Ross, The Ecologist, January 15, 2015
• This Is Just the Beginning of the Great American Oil Bust - By Wolf Richter, Wolf Street, January 12, 2015
• How Wall Street Drove the Oil & Gas Drilling Boom That’s Turning into a Disaster - By Wolf Richter, Wolf Street, January 13, 2015
• Apache workers face layoffs as oil prices fall - By Ryan Honeywell, FuelFix, January 14, 2015
• BP cuts 200 North Sea staff, 100 contractors - Associated Press, FuelFix, January 15, 2015
  Canadian oil firm to cut 1,000 jobs, curb spending - By Colin Eaton, FuelFix, January 13, 2015
• Lewis Energy cuts jobs in wake of oil price crash - By Jenifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 14, 2015
• OPEC Wants to “Crush US Shale” - By Andy Rowell, Oil Change International, January 15, 2015
• San Antonio-based driller cutting 20 percent of workforce - By Jenifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 14, 2015
• Suncor cutting 1,000 jobs, taking $1 billion out of 2015 budget - By Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press, January 13, 2015
• Texas job growth to slow as oil prices tank - By David Hendricks, FuelFix, January 13, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Because another energy is possible: Looking back at 2014 (video) - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, January 14, 2015
• Offshore Wind More Profitable Than Drilling on U.S. East Coast, Report Says - Yale Environment 360, January 14, 2015
• Ohio’s Renewable Energy Freeze Threatens Growth of Solar and Wind Investments and Jobs - By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch, January 14, 2015
• The Solar Industry Created More Jobs In 2014 Than Oil And Gas Extraction - By Katie Valentine, Think Progress, January 15, 2015
• Solar Is Creating Jobs Nearly 20 Times Faster Than Overall U.S. Economy - By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch, January 15, 2015
• Solidarity, PA - By Abby Scher, Dissent, January 2015
• US Solar Jobs Climb 22 Percent as Clean Power Aids Economic Recovery - By Justin Doom, Bloomberg, January 15, 2015
• We Need Less Work, Not More - By Alexandra Bradbury, In These Times, January 15, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Breast cancer: the workplace aspects are too often forgotten by researchers - By European Trade Union Institute, January 14, 2015
• Carbon Colonialism: How the Fight Against Climate Change Is Displacing Africans - By Nafeez Ahmed, Motherboard Vice, December 1, 2014
• The Killer Fog That United Labor and Environmentalists - By Anna Hiatt, New Republic, September 19, 2014
• Pushing through the pipeline - By Nicole Colson and Brian Ward, Socialist Worker, January 14, 2015
• Rio Earth Summit: From Red Scare to Green Scare - By European Trade Union Institute, January 14, 2015
• US Department of Transportation Delays New Rules on 'Bomb Trains' - By Peter Rugh, Vice News, January 15, 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 14, 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:

• To Save the Planet, We Need to Leave Fossil Fuels in the Ground—but Oil Companies Have Other Plans: They say no to any "stranded assets" -  William D. Cohan, The Nation, December 10, 2014

IWW Campaigns:

• I dreamed I saw Joe Hill with a safe crack use kit: Some harm reduction workers in Toronto have just joined the (Industrial) Workers of The World - By Joe Fiorito, The Toronto Star, January 13, 2015
• On the Beaches of Santa Monica, Temp Workers Organize - By Shyolanda Montana, Labor Notes, January 12, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Could Global Tide Be Starting To Turn Against Fossil Fuels? - By Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, January 13, 2015
• 2015: the fossil fuel endgame begins - By Melanie Mattauch, The Ecologist, January 12, 2015
• Halliburton cuts jobs in Houston - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 13, 2015
• Investment firm lays off 150 employees from oil field companies - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 12, 2015
• Oil price debacle likely to drive Alberta into recession - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, January 13, 2015
• Sand boom headed for uncertainty, Moody’s says - By Robert Grattan, FuelFix, January 12, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Coal Companies Dodging Royalty Payments + Manipulating Government Subsidy Programs By Selling Coal To Themselves, Report Says - By James Ayre, Clean Technica, January 13, 2015
• Good riddance to Vermont Yankee - By Steve Ramey, Socialist Worker, January 12, 2015
• 9 Job-Creating Clean Energy Policies That Trump Keystone XL - By NGC Team, Next Gen Climate, January 12, 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 13, 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:

• Carbon Counterattack: How Big Oil Is Responding to the Anti-Carbon Movement - By Michael T Klare, Truthout, January 8, 2015
• Report: The First Worldwide Festival of Resistance in Mexico; Celebrating the Global Fight Against Capitalism in Mexico: Where There is Destruction From Above We Will Rebuild From Below - By Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins, Popular Resistance, January 8th, 2015

IWW Campaigns:

• Debate Heats Up over "As Needed" Workers: Santa Monica Beach Bathroom Workers Fight for Permanent Status - By Marcy Winograd, LA Progressive, January 9, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Bringing Labor Back: Labor-management partnerships will not revive the union movement - By Chris Maisano, Jacobin, January 5, 2015
• Cape Wind Loses Power Contracts, Becomes Victim of Class Warfare - By Stephen Lacey, Greentech Media, January 7, 2015
• Carbon Bubble - The Gristle, Cascadia Weekly, December 30, 2014
• EPA Sued Over Disclosure Rules for Toxic Pollution from Drilling and Fracking - By Sharon Kelly, DeSmog Blog, January 7, 2015
• Greening Malthus: The emphasis on family planning as an environmental fix distracts us from more fundamental reforms  - By Anne Hendrixson, Jacobin, January 8th, 2015
• Propaganda by Proxy: The Payoffs - Dory Hippauf, No Fracking Way, January 8, 2015
• Proposed B.C. coal mine to rely mostly on foreign workers, cost almost double - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, January 9, 2015
• Strikers Win at Waste Management - Teamsters for a Demorcatic Union, January 8th, 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 12, 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:

• Is Obama Really Going to Stop the Keystone XL? - Earth First! Newswire, January 6, 2015

IWW Campaigns:

• The world's first union for harm reduction workers [audio file] - By Scott Neigh, Rabble.Ca, January 7, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• BP details job cuts, capital spending declines in latest economic impact report - By Joshua Cain, Fuel Fix, January 6, 2015
• CAT cutting 120 jobs in Peoria - By Frik Els, Mining.Com, January 7, 2015
• Fracking’s future is in doubt as oil price plummets - By Kieran Cooke, Climate News Network, January 6, 2015
• Layoff notices coming to 175 workers at Grande Cache Coal - CBC News, January 7, 2015
• Shell Canada cutting back oilsands workforce - The Canadian Press, January 9, 2015
• Shell to cut 5 to 10 percent of 3,000 oil sands jobs - By Ryan Holeywell, FuelFix, January 9, 2015
• Small Texas oil company files for bankruptcy protection - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 7, 2015
• U.S. Steel 'Idles' Lorain Plant, Announces More Than 600 Local Layoffs - By Eric Sandy, Cleveland Scene, January 7, 2015
• U.S. Steel to lay off 142 in Houston - Associated Press, January 6, 2015
• Fact Sheet: Renewable Energy Job Numbers - By Laura Small and Yi Xu, Renewable Energy World, January 7, 2015
• Russia Blamed, US Taxpayers on the Hook, as Fracking Boom Collapses - By  Ben Ptashnik, Truthout, January 8, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Coal India unions call off strike in relief for govt - By Krishna N. Das and Jatindra Dash, Reuters, January 7, 2015 [related]: India coal miners end nationwide strike - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, January 8, 2015
• "The Day When Change Will Come": It's Time To Break the Vicious Circle of Capitalism - By Steve Rushton, Occupy.Com, December 23, 2014
• Deep Questions Arise Over Portland's Corporate Water Takeover - By Victoria Collier, Truthout, January 7, 2015
• IOC playing hardball over small mistakes, union leader says - CBC News, January 7, 2015
• Mine accidents in Turkey claimed 361 lives in 2014 - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com January 7, 2015
• Occupational health services in need of emergency care - European Trade Union Institute, January 7, 2015
• Rio Tinto far from ethical, says global union - Bougainville Freedom Movement, Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, January 7, 2015; [related]: Rio Tinto has violated our rights for nearly 60 years and we are seeking $900 million in compensation - By Derrick, West Coast Native News, January 8, 2015
• U.S. Forest Service Cancels $10 Million Plan for National Public Relations Campaign - By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press (reposted on the Earth First! Newswire), January 8, 2015

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