November 20, 2012
In the most recent post in our series on Labor and Global Warming, we looked at the United Steelworkers’ extraordinary stand against global warming. In this post we examine the alliance developed between the Steelworkers and the Sierra Club.
The United Steelworkers, the largest private sector manufacturing union in North America, and the Sierra Club, the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the U.S., have been partners for a long time. They worked together to support the 1963 Clean Air Act and the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. They worked together to fight trade agreements that did not include enforceable labor and environmental standards. They cooperated on corporate campaigns against companies that combined bad labor relations and environmental practices.
The Steelworkers and the Sierra Club also shared a common analysis of globalization. As former Steelworker District 11 Director David Foster, now head of the Blue-Green Alliance, said in a recent speech at Columbia University in New York, the pivotal issue today is “how we exercise influence over a global economy that threatens the very framework of the regulatory systems that provided us with labor law, environmental protections, and human rights in the 20th Century.”
According to Foster,
Consumer markets are global. Capital markets are global. And labor markets are global. In such an economy it is not surprising that environmental standards, passed by one community or country, are under increasing pressure.
Their common solution for the Steelworkers and the Sierra Club is “linking the good jobs in a global economy with the expansion of the full range of labor, environmental and human rights’ protections that were achieved in the 20th Century in the US, Canada and the rest of the world’s industrial democracies.” Thus, “our Alliance represents the merging of environmental and economic advocacy and the heart of its argument is that the investments in our environmental challenges will launch the economic opportunities of the next century.”
While the Steelworkers already had joint projects with the Sierra Club in 15 states, the poor showing in the 2004 presidential election led it to seek a deeper strategic alliance with the environmental movement. While it hoped other unions would join later, Foster explained in an article in the New Labor Forum (Winter, 2007) why the Steelworkers decided to initiate the alliance on its own:
The failure of previous AFL-CIO efforts to develop a consensus on environmental issues led the USW to believe that the development of a strategic coalition between the two movements could be best facilitated by a single manufacturing union taking the lead, establishing an infrastructure and overarching message, and then inviting other labor organizations to join. This approach specifically rejected settling for a “least common denominator,” opting instead for direct engagement on issues like global warming that had stymied earlier labor efforts.
Last June, the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers announced the formation of their strategic alliance under the banner of “Good Jobs, A Clean Environment, and a Safer World.” Their joint statement said “This alliance will focus its resources on those issues which have the greatest potential to unite the American people in pursuit of a global economy that is more just and equitable and founded on principles of environmental and economic sustainability.” USW president Leo Gerard said, “Secure 21st century jobs are those that will help solve the problem of global warming with energy efficiency and renewable energy.” Sierra Club director Carl Pope said,
We have reached a point in the development of a global economy where we can either use our planet’s resources for long-term sustainability or to create an ever more dangerous polarization of wealth and poverty. Our new alliance allows us to address the great challenge of the global economy in the 21st century – how to provide good jobs, a clean environment, and a safer world.
David Foster set up shop in the USW headquarters in Minneapolis and began work in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, and Washington, with plans to expand into at least ten more states in the next two years.
The Blue-Green Alliance immediately moved into action with a “Fair Trade and Smart Energy Solutions” tour of Ohio designed to dramatize “the connection between the trade-related loss of manufacturing jobs, and job creation through investment in renewable energy and efficiency.” The mayors of Cincinnati, Dayton, and Cleveland were recruited to join the 240 mayors who have signed the Climate Protection Agreement, pledging to reduce carbon emissions in their cities in line with the Kyoto Protocol. Foster comments: “The success of the Ohio tour confirmed the importance of focusing on the economic benefits of environmental investments in order to build a blue-collar constituency for environmental causes.”
In November, Pope and Gerard attended a forum at the St. Paul UAW local across from a Ford plant scheduled to be shut down in 2008. Together with Twin City mayors they launched a local “initiative on green manufacturing” to promote both good jobs and a healthy environment. It’s been proposed to redevelop the site as a green manufacturer of hybrid vehicles or to produce parts for wind mills, solar power systems, or other alternative energy projects. The UAW local presented a green production proposal to Ford, but the company wasn’t interested.
USW and Sierra Club leaders form a steering committee in each state and bring together grassroots union members and environmentalists for town hall meetings. The Ohio steering committee is focusing on production of renewable energy equipment and legislating a new appliance efficiency standard. The Minnesota committee has focused on developing the state’s considerable potential for wind power.
Last November, Gerard and Pope campaigned in the Midwest for Democratic candidates who supported the Blue-Green Alliance program, such as gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland, who proposed investing $250 million of Ohio’s tax-exempt bond money in companies working on alternative energy.
In the next election, the Steelworkers and Sierra Club will call on all presidential primary candidates to commit to:
• A 2% reduction in carbon emissions every year
• A 2% increase in manufacturing jobs based on a new energy economy
• Rewriting American trade laws to advance labor and environmental standards
David Foster says that the Alliance’s message research tested its initiatives both for their public support and for their capacity to connect to the “larger message of building a positive movement for change.” Their initiative indicates what a new labor approach to global warming might look like in practice.
The next post in our series on Labor and Global Warming will look at the experience and approaches of other labor movements around the world.