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Why we need unions! #HeartUnions

Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 20:12

By Admin - A Green Trade unionist in Bristol, February 3, 2016

We are often told that unions have become irrelevant to modern society, or worse that they are in some way negative.

No institution is perfect, but trade unions do amazing work standing up for their members in the workplace and increasingly in the community (see for example the role unions played locally in helping block the environmentally and medically damaging biomass facility in Avonmouth).  Many of us are given negative perceptions of trade unions because of how they are portrayed in the press (usually only ever mentioned if they’ve been forced into industrial action and then only described as militants needlessly causing trouble) and the legacy of the 1970s.

People who are against unions often argue that in the past ‘over mighty union barons’ ‘held the country to ransom’ and would strike ‘at the drop of a hat’. There may be some small germs of truth in this, but this is a gross exaggeration and is in part the result of attempts to undermine the legitimacy of unions and collective action.  Even if this had been the case the situation in modern Britain is so far removed it makes such comparison meaningless.

Today union membership is at a historic low (though it has moderately increased in recent years), as is the power and influence of unions in our society.  They’re even marginalised in the Labour party these days (though this could change under Corbyn).  We already have some of the most restrictive trade union laws in the ‘democratic’ world which are about to get even more restrictive with the governments draconian new strike legislation, making union action very difficult.  Furthermore, no worker ever takes the decision to strike and lose pay lightly (especially with the financial hardship of recent years), and with unions so comparatively weak and increasingly defensive the situation has to be pretty bad before they feel forced to resort to striking.

Tags: 
green unionism
climate justice
just transition

EcoUnionist News #90

Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 02/07/2016 - 15:04

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 9, 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:

Greenwashers:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
just transition
carbon bubble
disaster capitalism
health and safety
whistleblowers
greenwashing
Thin Green Line
agricultural workers and peasants
Flint
Porter Ranch
labor and environment

EcoUnionist News #89

Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 01/31/2016 - 22:21

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 2, 2016

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

Lead Stories:

Ongoing Mobilizations:

The Thin Green Line:

Bread and Roses:

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

Whistleblowers:

Greenwashers:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
just transition
carbon bubble
disaster capitalism
health and safety
whistleblowers
greenwashing
Thin Green Line
agricultural workers and peasants
Flint
Porter Ranch
labor and environment

Well, If You Ask Me: The Sun's Going Down in Nevada

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 21:54

By Dano T. Bob - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 30, 2016

Boy, the state government and utility commission of Nevada sure know how to kill some jobs! In the most recent installment of the corporate fossil fuel utility attack on renewable energy, Nevada just pulled the plug on viable Net Metering for solar energy, thus all but killing the nascent solar industry there.

Here’s the word from GreenTech Media on the decision from December:

“The Nevada Public Utility Commission voted unanimously in favor of a new solar tariff structure on Tuesday that industry groups say will destroy the Nevada solar market, one of the fastest-growing markets in the country.

The decision increases the fixed service charge for net-metered solar customers, and gradually lowers compensation for net excess solar generation from the retail rate to the wholesale rate for electricity, over the next four years. The changes will take effect on January 1 and will apply retroactively to all net-metered solar customers.

The broad application of the policy sets a precedent for future net-metering and rate-design debates. To date, no other state considering net-metering reforms has proposed to implement changes on pre-existing customers that would take effect right away. Changes are typically grandfathered in over a decade or more.

“While the people of Nevada have consistently chosen solar, the state government today decided to take that choice from them, and damage the state’s economy,” said SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive.

In July, NV Energy proposed reducing the net-metering credit by roughly half — to 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour from the current 11.6 cents — to better reflect the cost of serving solar customers. The plan would have established a three-part structure made up of a monthly basic service charge, a demand charge and an energy charge.

According to The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC), NV Energy’s proposed rate would amount to a $40 monthly fee for most solar customers, who typically save $11 to $15 per month on their electricity bills, thereby eliminating all savings.”

As a radical, I can’t say I love SolarCity particularly. As Elon Musk’s cousins venture into the solar economy, it is a leasing based model instead of ownership, with lots of the benefits going to the company with a lesser upfront cost to customers for installation.

But, “green” jobs are “green” jobs and the solar market in sunny Nevada was booming! Whatever the faults of Solar City’s capitalist owners, it’s the solar workers who’re suffering at the hands of this policy change.

Tags: 
If You Ask Me
Dano T Bob
solar power
solar communism
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
Nevada
just transition
renewable energy workers
renewable energy

EcoUnionist News #88

Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 01/24/2016 - 22:05

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 26, 2016

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

Lead Stories:

Ongoing Mobilizations:

The Thin Green Line:

Bread and Roses:

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

Whistleblowers:

Greenwashers:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
just transition
carbon bubble
health and safety
whistleblowers
greenwashing
Thin Green Line
agricultural workers and peasants
Flint
Porter Ranch
labor and environment

Activists deliver plan for just transition to EPA offices nationwide

Submitted by x344543 on Sat, 01/23/2016 - 16:34

By Kate Aronoff - Waging Nonviolence, January 20, 2016

Image: Activists deliver the Our Power Plan to the EPA’s regional office in San Francisco on January 19, 2016 (Facebook/CEJA)

Yesterday (January 19, 2016), activists at each of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 10 regional offices issued their own corrective on the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. Days before the end of the federal comment period, the Climate Justice Alliance’s Our Power Campaign — comprised of 41 climate and environmental justice organizations — presented its Our Power Plan, which identifies “clear and specific strategies for implementing the Clean Power Plan, or CPP, in a way that will truly benefit our families’ health and our country’s economy.”

Introduced last summer, the CPP looks to bring down power plants’ carbon emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels within 15 years. The plan was made possible by Massachusetts vs. EPA, a 2007 Supreme Court ruling which mandates that the agency regulate greenhouse gases as it has other toxins and pollutants under the Clean Air Act of 1963. Under the CPP, states are each required to draft their own implementation plans by September of this year, or by 2018 if granted an extension. If they fail to do so, state governments will be placed by default into an interstate carbon trading, or “Cap and Trade,” system to bring down emissions.

Michael Leon Guerrero, the Climate Justice Alliance’s interim coordinator, was in Paris for the most recent round of UN climate talks as part of the It Takes Roots Delegation, which brought together over 100 organizers from North American communities on the frontlines of both climate change and fossil fuel extraction. He sees the Our Power Plan as a logical next step for the group coming out of COP21, especially as the onus for implementing and improving the Paris agreement now falls to individual nations.

“Fundamentally,” he said, “we need to transform our economy and rebuild our communities. We can’t address the climate crisis in a cave without addressing issues of equity.”

Tags: 
Our Power Plan
Barack Obama
Climate Justice Alliance (CJA)
just transition
green unionism

Paris climate talks produce hot air

Submitted by x344543 on Sat, 01/23/2016 - 16:09

By Carl Sack - Socialist Action, January 20, 2016

Photo: Demonstration for climate justice near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Dec. 12. David Sassoon / Inside Climate News

After 10 days of talks at the COP 21 climate conference in Paris, negotiators from 195 countries celebrated the adoption of an agreement that calls for a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5o Centigrade above pre-industrial levels.

On one hand, the agreement goes farther than any previous accord to acknowledge the need for a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Its preamble includes the “principle of equity” that rich countries must do more than poor countries. It even pays lip service to indigenous rights, gender equality, and a “just transition of the workforce.” It calls for holding the global average temperature “well below 2o C above pre-industrial levels”—the suicidal temperature ceiling advocated by the U.S. and European countries—and aspires to limit the temperature rise to 1.5o C. Many poorer nations pushed for the 1.5o target.

On the other hand, despite the enlightened preamble, the document is utterly empty of any concrete measures to curb planet-destroying carbon emissions. It relies on countries to set their own “intended nationally determined contributions” or INDCs, which are to be updated every five years. The language used is revealing; INDCs are voluntary pledges that are non-binding and therefore have no real impact.

The agreement does not lay out any roadmaps for how individual countries will achieve their pledges. It fails to even mention reducing the consumption of fossil fuels beyond a vague reference to “domestic mitigation measures.” Even if all countries were to follow through on all of the pledges made just prior to the Paris conference, scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research peg the result as a disastrous 2.7o C warming by the year 2100—just 0.9 degrees below the “business-as-usual” scenario.

Worse, like its predecessors, the Paris agreement endorses counterproductive market-based carbon-trading schemes. Carbon markets introduced under the Kyoto Protocol (called the “Clean Development Mechanism”) have attracted rampant corruption, promoted big development projects like hydropower dams that displaced sustainable communities, and ultimately collapsed due to a lack of demand for carbon offsets. Forest protection credits, sold as carbon offsets under the UN REDD program, have accelerated corporate land grabs in developing countries and hastened the conversion of natural forests into private monoculture tree plantations.

Provisions of the agreement could also be interpreted as promoting speculative carbon-capture technologies and risky geo-engineering schemes.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen called the agreement “a fraud” and “a fake.” “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises,” Hansen said in an interview with The Guardian. Hansen supports a carbon tax with public redistribution of the proceeds as a means of curbing fossil fuel use.

Perhaps proving Hansen’s point, the Paris talks do not seem to have spurred any immediate action to curb emissions by the world’s worst polluters. In fact, just before the Paris talks, President Barack Obama signed a transportation bill including a provision that fast-tracks environmental review of new oil and gas pipelines and strictly limits lawsuits aimed at stopping such projects. Just after the talks, he signed a spending bill that ended the 40-year-old oil export ban, allowing U.S. fossil fuel corporations to ship crude oil overseas.

Tags: 
COP21
greenwashing
climate justice
ecosocialism
just transition
renewable energy
renewable energy workers

Making the Promises Real: Labor and the Paris Climate Agreement

Submitted by x332349 on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 16:10

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, January 20, 2016

As nearly 200 nations gathered in Paris approved the UN Climate Change Agreement, the AFL-CIO issued a statement that broke new ground on climate. While the AFL-CIO opposed the Kyoto climate agreement and never supported the failed Copenhagen agreement, it “applauded the Paris climate change agreement as “a landmark achievement in international cooperation” and called on America “to make the promises real.”

Although it has frequently pointed out the harm that workers and communities might face from climate protection policies, the AFL-CIO has never proposed a “just transition” plan to protect them. Its Paris statement noted that “workers in certain sectors will bear the brunt of transitional job and income loss.” Recognizing that reality, it endorsed the Paris agreement’s recognition of “the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs.” It called for investment in the affected communities and “creating family-supporting jobs like those that will be lost.”

This statement lays the groundwork for organized labor to take a new approach to climate change. How can labor now move forward to implement that approach? What should labor’s post-Paris climate program be?

Strategies For Climate Justice And A Just Transition

Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 01/18/2016 - 19:06

By Environmental Justice League of RI - RI Future, January 15, 2016

The Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island (EJLRI) has created a brilliant position paper, “National Grid’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Liquefaction Facility: Toxic Hazards in the Port Providence: Proposals for a Just Transition” that eviscerates National Grid‘s plans to build a new liquefaction facility for fracked LNG at Fields Point in South Providence. Over the next few days RI Future will be presenting the EJLRI’s position paper in its entirety.

Solutions and Alternatives

The information presented in the previous posts show that in addition to not being necessary, National Grid’s proposed LNG Liquefaction Facility would be dangerous and would contribute to existing environmental racism. LNG Liquefaction is not needed in Rhode Island in general, and it certainly should not be placed in the most toxic and most impoverished part of the state.

The immediate solution is to stop this facility from being built. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) needs to deny National Grid LNG LLC’s application, and the RI Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM) and RI Coastal Resources Management Council (RI CRMC) need to deny the state level permits.

That being said, ­ the proposed liquefaction facility is not the only problem outlined in this position paper. Even without the added significant risks of the liquefaction facility, the existing LNG storage tank, the Motiva oil terminal, the Univar chemical plant, the Enterprise LPG terminal, and other facilities in the area all pose significant environmental health hazards, and create the overall context of environmental racism. Toxic and hazardous facilities are dangerous for communities and dangerous for workers. Yet families are dependent on them for jobs, municipalities are dependent on them for tax income, and the way our socio­economic system is set up we are all collectively dependent on the products they produce. Regardless of our dependency, the reality of climate science is that the fossil fuel / petrochemical industry is rapidly pushing our planet past its limits, producing present and future catastrophic impacts, and making people sick, ­especially front-line communities of color and indigenous communities. Our dependency on these industries is literally killing us.

As an organization, the EJ League is interested in big­ picture, long­ term, real solutions to interlocking crises that impact communities of color, marginalized communities, and planetary ecosystems. We are members of three national coalitions of grassroots, membership ­based organizations: Right to the City, Grassroots Global Justice, and Climate Justice Alliance. Together, and lead by our members and our communities, we are developing and sharing solutions that address these intersecting crises from the grassroots. These community­ based solutions are in opposition to the corporate top­ down false solutions that pretend to address a single symptom while reinforcing the underlying root causes of the problems.

True solutions are rooted in the work of grassroots internationalism, and using the framework of a “Just Transition”. We are collectively building a different context and a different system, an economy for people and the planet. The Just Transition framework emerged from partnerships between environmental justice and labor organizations. In the words of the Just Transition Alliance, “together with front-line workers, and community members who live along the fence ­line of polluting industries, we create healthy workplaces and communities. We focus on contaminated sites that should be cleaned up, and on the transition to clean production and sustainable economies.”

Tags: 
green unionism
just transition
Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS)
Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED)
movement politics
intersectionality
Rhode Island

Jobs, justice, climate: The struggle continues

Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 01/17/2016 - 18:16

By Martin Empson - International Socialism, January 6, 2016

A review of Paul Hampton, Workers and Trade Unions for Climate Solidarity: Tackling Climate Change in a Neoliberal World (Routledge Studies in Climate, Work and Society, 2015), £90

The complete and utter failure of the world’s governments to take meaningful action on climate change was once again apparent at the COP21 talks in Paris in December 2015. In Britain, the Conservative government was barely into its new term before it announced policies that undermined even the minimal commitments its predecessors had made. Their policies favoured fracking and other fossil fuels over renewable energy, airport and road expansion over public transport, and introduced reductions in funding that should have helped insulate homes.

Discussions about how we get a sustainable society—reduce emissions and force action upon unwilling governments—are ever more important. For socialists one key aspect of this debate in recent years has been the question of climate jobs and the role of trade unions.

Paul Hampton is head of research and policy for the Fire Brigades Union. His new book begins by locating the source of the climate crisis with capitalism. While noting that capitalism is a system based on the accumulation of wealth for the sake of accumulation, with inevitable environmental impacts, he also points out that the increased use of machinery to increase relative surplus value in the exploitative ­relationship between capital and worker also has an environmental aspect. Thus, the ­“technological revolution”, powered by the burning of fossil fuels for energy, is part of what Hampton calls the “subsumption of climate to capital”. The importance of fossil fuels lies in their “flexibility, fitting capitalist society’s particular relationship to nature” and their centrality to the capitalist economy is the outcome of the development of capitalism, rather than “market forces or pluralistic decision-making”. Thus Hampton argues climate change cannot be seen as a result of “market failure”, as mainstream economists like Nicolas Stern argue, but as a result of how capitalism works. To avoid runaway climate change a “critique of capitalism…is the logical starting point”.

How does this fit in with the role of trade unions—which tend not to be revolutionary anti-capitalist organisations? The first point that Hampton makes is that unions, and by extension, workers have mostly been overlooked in “mainstream social science”. Bosses are often discussed as “climate actors”, those with the potential to enact changes such as reduction of emissions. But the people they employ are often ignored.

This is a mistake for two reasons. The first is that, as Hampton points out, workers have a vested interest in dealing with climate change because they are not only “likely to be among those most vulnerable to the physical impacts of climate change and to have fewer resources to adapt” but they are “also likely to be the victims of government policies designed to tackle climate change, especially those that shift the costs of mitigation and adaption from capital onto labour” (p39). It is for the latter reason that socialists and environmental activists must argue for a “just transition”, so that those who face losing jobs because of action on climate change, such as the closure of a highly polluting factory or the transition from fossil fuel generation to renewable energy, do not lose out.

Tags: 
green unionism
just transition
energy democracy
COP21
labor and environment

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