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November 6, 2009 | | |
| When Blue Meets Green: Labor Unions and Environmentalists, Long at Odds, are Joining Forces, Says Leading Green Magazine The labor and environmental movements have found a reason to work together -- green jobs. The November/December 2009 issue of E - The Environmental Magazine (now posted at: www.emagazine.com) takes an inside look at what's being called the Blue Green Alliance. Despite a strained history, nonprofits like the Sierra Club and union groups like the United Steelworkers now realize that they share many of the same goals -- creating a new, well-paid American workforce, ensuring safe workplaces and advancing public health. When the environmental movement was first gaining prominence in the 1960s and '70s, Teamsters and other union members worried that the regulations they were promoting had the potential to hurt jobs. Unions worried that, for instance, clean air standards would cost companies too much and spur layoffs. Today's Blue Green Alliance discounts this argument, countering that, in the long run, a society focused on building a clean and healthy environment will provide good jobs. Teamsters President James P. Hoffa says: "We have been forced to make a false choice in the past -- good jobs or a clean environment. The pundits said that if we wanted clean air, the economy would suffer and jobs would be sent overseas. Well, look what happened -- we let the big corporations pollute and the jobs went overseas anyway. But today is a new day." July of 2008 marked one sign of improved labor-environmental relations, when the Teamsters withdrew from the coalition to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This was a dramatic switch on a key issue. "The solution to our nation's energy problems is not ANWR," explains Hoffa. "We cannot drill our way out. We must find a long-term approach by investing in alternative energy sources, which will create good union jobs." Now the alliance between labor and environmentalists is at the political forefront. In February 2009, the Blue Green Alliance held the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference that announced its power and scope on a national basis. Some 2,600 participants converged on Washington, D.C., to hear speeches by Senators Amy Klobuchar, Sherrod Brown and other members of Congress, as well as Hoffa, an array of governors, and national union and environmental leaders. Speakers called for a global green New Deal that would rebuild the middle class based on wind and solar power, a smart new electrical grid, environmental retrofitting and other innovations. The Search for Good Green Jobs
Despite the excitement over the new green economy -- and the $30 billion being spent on the renewable energy sector by the federal economic stimulus bill -- the clean energy sector has yet to produce the promised crop of high-paying manufacturing jobs. As a report by Good Jobs First, "High Road or Low Road?" explains, most wind and solar companies in the U.S. are nonunion and many do not pay a living wage, directly contradicting the Blue Green Alliance's call for good green jobs. Given that a third of nonunion building jobs pay less than the federal poverty wage, unionization is crucial for green jobs to revitalize the middle class. Instead, explains the report, some wind and solar employers are running "aggressive anti-union campaigns," and are even off-shoring production to China and Mexico. But, "a unionized workforce tends to have higher skills and more longevity," says Lee Smith, managing director of the National Photovoltaic Construction Project (NPCP), which uses Sharp Solar products exclusively (Sharp is one of the very few unionized U.S. alternative energy companies). "An experienced crew of unionized workers will outperform nonunion day laborers any day of the week." Smith adds that an order from Sharp Solar can be filled in a few weeks, while one from China "comes months later." Smith also believes that people producing solar panels should be able to "afford to put them on their house," pointing out that, at the start of the automobile age, Henry Ford paid his workers decent wages knowing they'd be able to afford cars. "Pay people a decent wage," says Smith, "and they'll be able to buy your product." What's more, Smith says, if environmentalists "don't support domestic production and fair wages, labor will turn elsewhere." To nuclear and coal, specifically, where the workforces are unionized.
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| | E - The Environmental Magazine distributes 50,000 copies six times per year to subscribers and bookstores. Its website, www.emagazine.com, enjoys 100,000 monthly visitors. E also publishes EarthTalk, a nationally syndicated environmental Q&A column distributed free to 1,800 newspapers, magazines and websites throughout the U.S. and Canada (www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek). Single copies of E's November/December 2009 issue are available for $5 postpaid from: E Magazine, P.O. Box 469111, Escondido, CA 92046. Subscriptions are $29.95 per year, available at the same address.
E - The Environmental Magazine
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