In 2005 General Electric launched their “EcoMagination” campaign, a marketing effort built around selling products that help solve environmental problems and create green jobs.

According to GE’s CEO Jeffery Immelt “Our Ecomagination initiative has created tens of thousands of jobs at GE and in our supply chain.” And if the U.S. steps up and takes the lead on climate mitigation, Immelt promises to “create 250,000 green jobs in the economy.”

So what are GE’s new green jobs of the future going to look like? According to one group of GE “green” workers who have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit in Alabama (complaint below), GE’s vision for a green future looks more like a nightmare.

The case was brought by sixty-two employees of Lacy Enterprises, a company that leases workers to a subsidiary of GE to clean out baghouses at coal-fired power plants and manufacturing facilities. Mandated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act, baghouses are designed to reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants with cloth or synthetic filters or “bags” that capture toxic particulates such as lime, coal black, lead, arsenic and mercury. On the front lines of emerging green economy, GE’s work team traveled around the country cleaning and replacing the filers at coal and cement plants, steel mills and elsewhere.

According to deposition transcripts and interviews from the case the African American work crews were treated with abuse that represents an affront to human rights and dignity. On a regular basis they were called “boys”, “monkeys”, “lazy niggers” by their GE supervisor, according to transcripts. They were forced to work up to 12 hours a day, often with only one half-hour break for lunch, and denied bathroom and rest breaks. Workers were even refused requests for water or a chance “to just get some air because the temperature in the bag house was very high — often over 100 degrees.”

Work crews were denied adequate protection from the dangerous chemicals they handled on a daily basis — including lime, coal black, lead, and arsenic. Their supervisor “resisted giving the crew new face masks because he did not want them to take the time to change them.” On one job in Columbia, Georgia the particulates workers’ handled “burnt their skin because the Tyvek suits they had on were insufficient to protect their skin from the toxins in the baghouse.”

If the crew tried to take breaks when the heat or soot became unbearable they were called “lazy niggers” and told they’d be fired if they didn’t get back to work, according to plaintiff testimony. One worker was fired from a job in Texas for merely trying to wash off coal debris that covered him head to toe.

According to the workers, if they got sick on the job they were denied medical treatment. Exposed to extreme cold on a job in Missouri, one worker’s skin grafts began to ooze and peel off. When he asked for medical help he was called a “sorry ass chicken shit mother fucker” by his GE supervisor and ordered to get back to work. According to another crew member, while working at high altitude in the winter, he suffered a seizure due to hypothermia and almost fell to his death because his supervisor had denied him a break to warm up. When he was taken down by his crew mates, the supervisor refused to call for medical help. When a plant worked called an ambulance, the GE supervisor said “I don’t care what happens to that nigger.”

According to the plaintiff’s lawyer Daniela Nanau, a senior attorney at the Law Offices of Joshua Friedman in New York:

The racial abuse went way beyond slurs. One of the victims suffered a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized as a result, and has not been able to work since. None of our clients, who worked their whole lives in Monroeville, AL, had ever experienced anything like this before. The most powerful industrial organization on the planet took advantage of their poverty, lack of education and opportunity. When they complained, they were sent home by their GE supervisor. Written complaints to his manager were literally forgotten.

Despite these and other damning claims, GE’s fighting hard to block their “green” baghouse workers from having their day in court. This is evidence enough to expose GE’s “Ecoimagination” as a mere marketing gimmick to lure us into forgetting that this the same company responsible for creating at least 78 Superfund sites and whose former CEO famously claimed that “PCBs do not pose adverse health risks.”

The best thing that could happen to American workers would be the creation of massive employment converting America to a low-carbon economy. There is the potential to create millions of jobs, and they can be designed to be good jobs with security, decent pay, and good working conditions. But the support for the whole green jobs effort will be undermined if corporations are allowed to make it into “EcoMagination” writ large.

The abuses suffered by GE’s “green” workers confirm our worst fears that there’s little guarantee so far that green jobs are going to be good jobs. What are now touted as green jobs can all too easily instead be minimum wage jobs with poor working conditions without job security or benefits.

Those of us in the labor, environmental and civil rights movements need to come together to demand that, at minimum, green jobs programs have specific requirements for labor rights and standards with monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. We need to demand that hard-fought civil rights are respected. We need to demand corporations that are repeated violators of labor rights and standards should be banned from receiving green jobs funding. [For more on turning green jobs into good jobs, click here]

Otherwise, if we leave it up to the GE’s of the world, the new green economy is going to be little more that a green-collar sweatshop.

* Like it or not, climate change is coming: Focus on the inevitability of climate change and impact on the working lives of current union members. For example: Sir Nicolas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, predicts that global warming will have an economic impact greater than the Great Depression and World Wars I and II combined.

* Explore the positive aspects of this change: Massive new investment is needed to completely transform the energy and transportation infrastructure, producing millions of new jobs. Identify those union sectors that will benefit most from the transition to a low carbon economy; promote apprenticeship and training programs for existing union members so they can actively participate in the emerging green economy.

* Forthrightly confront the negative aspects of climate mitigation: Admit that some jobs will be lost and that the green economy should not be built at the expense of working people. Environmental activists and unions need to step forward together with transition and economic development plans to deal with job loss and economic dislocation.

* If we don’t someone else will: If unions and environmentalists don’t proactively develop just green transition strategies together, powerful corporations and their political allies will dominate the transition process. We saw what happened in the era of globalization; this time around we need a new strategy.

* Acknowledge the conflicted history between labor and environmental movements: Environmentalists and other climate change mitigation advocates are often viewed with suspicion by labor because they have often not adequately considered the potential economic and social costs of climate change mitigation policies on workers and their communities. The challenge ahead demands that we band together under the banner: “An injury to one is an injury all.”

* Climate change presents an opportunity to create a just and sustainable economy: Unions need allies—environmentalists, community based organizations, and worker friendly political allies—to ensure that green jobs are good jobs and that labor and employment standards are included in green jobs subsidy programs. If labor is seen as an obstacle to change they will not attract these allies.

KEY QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED OF LABOR LEADERS

What’s your understanding of the impact that global warming will have on your industry(s) and your members?
What do you know about the economic effects of global warming?

How do you see the economic impact affecting your industries and your members?

How do you see efforts at climate protection affecting your industries and your members. Creating new jobs, destroying jobs, changing the character of jobs.

Do you believe what scientists are saying about climate change — do you believe it’s an imminent threat.

What are your personal views of environmental efforts — have you ever worked on environmental issues, like water quality?

What do you see as the labor movement’s responsibility in relation to global warming, and what do you see as your union’s responsibility?

Where do you think your members are on the climate change issue? How do you think your rank and file member see the issue of global warming, and how do they see the union’s role?

Do you think labor’s response to climate change so far is adequate?

Do you think labor needs to engage more around climate change issues?

If so, In what ways?

Would you be willing to have discussions with climate activists and environmentalists and other unions around areas of common interests?

What do you think about continued burning of coal and other fossil fuels?

Can climate protection create jobs for present or future members of your union? If so, how? What jobs? What policies can promote that — what can you do to promote it?

Are there new skills that your membership needs, and do you have existing apprenticeship programs or training programs to prepare your members for the new green economy?

What would help you expand those programs?

If you’ve worked with environmental groups before, what have been the challenges and obstacles to building those relationships.

What conflicts exist? What problems do you anticipate arising between labor and climate protection advocates.

[For more read LNS's activist guide "Labor and Climate Change: A Briefing Paper for Activists"]

[PDF version of this report is available here]

Thousands of “green jobs” have been created by President Obama’s stimulus package; millions more will be created by proposed climate legislation; tens of millions will be required to create the low-carbon economy that scientists say is necessary for the survival of the earth as we know it.  Further, nearly all existing jobs will have to be made “greener” as existing workplaces convert to more climate-friendly production.  Both new and existing jobs that contribute to reducing the emission of carbon and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs) have come to be known as “green jobs.”

Environmentalists and the public should ensure that the new green jobs provide the right to have a union, and then encourage the workers to organize and employers to recognize and cooperate with them.  Here’s why.

Ensuring green jobs are good jobs. In a time of soaring unemployment, inadequate incomes, and deteriorating conditions in America’s workplaces, the idea of creating millions of well-paid, stable jobs by investing in environmental protection has won wide support.  But what are touted as green jobs can all too easily instead be minimum wage jobs with poor working conditions without job security or benefits.  When that’s the case, the economic benefits that have won public support for environment-protecting green jobs turn out to be an illusion – and public support is likely to evaporate.

The surest way to see that green jobs are good jobs is for workers to organize in unions that can bargain with their employers to ensure appropriate standards on the job.  Only when workers are organized can they insist on decent wages, rules for safe and decent work practices, protections against arbitrary harassment and discrimination, and security and stability on the job.  While public policies can and should support such standards, they are almost impossible to enforce unless workers are organized on the job and able to support each other in bargaining with their employer.

Empowering environmental guardians on the job. Workers have a strong stake in making their workplaces safe from environmental hazards, and in protecting their communities and the wider world from workplace-originated pollution.  But in workplaces without union rights and representation workers are often intimidated from raising such concerns; the rule is likely to be, “shut up or get fired.” Unions have often empowered workers to demand their employers be environmentally responsible and to serve as whistleblowers when they aren’t.  In a famous example, the union protected the right of EPA employees to speak out in the public interest when the Bush administration tried to silence them for telling the truth about global warming. Workers with union protections have often served as the eyes, ears, and voice of the community in the workplace.

Training the green workforce. Even though millions of workers are unemployed and looking for work, the emerging green industries are full of bottlenecks because there is a shortage of workers with the right training.  Unions are already playing a significant role in recruiting, training, and placing workers in those jobs.  For example, Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 683 in Columbus, Ohio, recently launched “Working Green,” a new section on its website featuring the latest news about green jobs for members, contractors, and others looking to break into the new energy economy. [http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/09/14/green-jobs-could-mean-more-union-jobs/ ]  The Utility Workers Union (UWUA) has established the “Power4America” Training and Development Trust Fund to provide training and apprenticeship for new energy initiatives.

In existing jobs, properly trained workers are crucial to avoiding poor practices that harm the environment; unions are a key source of pressure to ensure adequate training in environmentally-sound practices.  In oil refineries, for example, unions have long fought for and won more adequate staffing and training.  The United Association (UA), which represents plumbers and pipefitters, recently established a Certificate Program in “green awareness” for experienced trades workers.  The National Labor College is adding a new Green Workplace Representative Cetificate Curriculum.

Greening the labor movement. Organized labor, which once largely ignored or even opposed measures for climate protection, has become an enthusiastic advocate for green jobs, and has increasingly portrayed itself as a supporter of climate protection.  But it still has a long way to go; for example, it still opposes the targets for carbon emission reduction that climate scientists say are necessary.  Creating a broad swath of labor union membership that depends on green jobs will create more pressure for strong pro-environment policies in the labor movement.

Strengthening the labor-environmental coalition. Nothing could do more to strengthen labor’s commitment to its alliance with the environmental movement than concrete evidence that greening grows labor’s ranks.  When organized labor sees the value of that alliance it can deliver real results:  For example, the Teamsters union reversed its long-maintained support of oil drilling in the ANWAR Arctic preserve because it decided its alliance with the environmental movement was more important.  The United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club formed the Blue Green Alliance (BGA), which now includes other unions and environmental groups, to deepen labor-environmentalist coalition work and fight together for green jobs.  The Sierra Club’s support for the Employee Free Choice Act had a significant impact on organized labor’s support for environmental protection – it was one of the main factors that led the Teamsters to pull out of the ANWAR drilling coalition, for example.  The joint union-community campaign to clean up the Los Angeles ports has led to a major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by one of California’s leading polluters; labor’s commitment was greatly strengthened by a joint community-labor strategy that would make it possible for port drivers to join a union.

Creating a political force to protect and expand green jobs. Organized labor is already serving as a primary force supporting the green jobs programs in the Obama stimulus package and in proposed climate legislation.  If green jobs are union jobs, organized labor will have an interest not only in creating them, but in protecting them against counterattack so that they become part of a green transformation of the economy.

Countering unilateral corporate power. Protecting the public interest is such hard work primarily because of the enormous power exercised by corporate private interests.  Unions are perhaps the single most powerful countervailing force, helping redress the imbalance between corporations and the public in the political arena. Expanding union membership is a crucial means to counterbalance corporate power over a wide range of issues.

Corporate accountability and transparency. Unions control large pension funds and they have increasingly been using their investments to demand socially responsible policies.  Labor helped found Ceres, a network of investors, environmental organizations, and other public interest groups that promotes green investment to encourage sustainability.  It has similarly been involved the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which promotes disclosure on economic, environmental, and social performance through its Sustainability Reporting Framework.    Increasing union membership will increase labor’s ability to help demand corporate social responsibility and transparency.  A large membership of green workers, organized with the help of environmental and other allies, will give organized labor a further incentive to use its financial clout for environmental and other public interest purposes.

Fighting the Right. Efforts to fight global warming and protect the environment have been blocked by an organized rightwing ideology that willfully substitutes fantasy for scientific reality and opposes as an un-American, Communistic plot anything that involves collective social regulation.  Progress on environmental and indeed all progressive concerns depends on reducing the power of the right to block reforms.  Organized labor is one of the strongest forces opposing the right, and it is bound to be a dedicated fighter for that purpose because the right opposes labor both ideologically and organizationally.  Further, organized labor is able to reach out to many of the same constituencies as the right, educating them to grasp their interest in social solutions rather than go-it-alone individualism.  For both reasons, strengthening organized labor and increasing its membership and influence is in the public interest and in the interest of the environment.

Rebuilding strong communities and the middle class. It is no accident that the Obama administration’s green jobs initiative has been spearheaded by Vice-President Joe Biden’s “Middle Class Taskforce.” The expansion of green jobs is likely to be at the center of any effort to counter the erosion of good jobs and job standards that has decimated the American middle class.  With help and inspiration from labor-backed groups like Green for All, union training and recruitment programs are already creating pathways out of poverty for people in America’s most deprived urban and rural areas.  Further, such jobs are mostly likely to be and to remain “good jobs” as well as “green jobs” if the workers in them are organized and able to mobilize the support of other workers determined to make them that way.  Finally, workers are most likely to support environmental protection and other progressive social measures if they are part of a broader program that offers a better way of life for all.

Building a more democratic society. The effort to build a sustainable world is only likely to succeed if it is part of a broad, multifaceted movement that addresses a wide range of the issues that touch people’s lives.  Whether it is universal healthcare, protecting the environment, or ensuring justice on the job, people need a broad alliance that can move society in a more progressive direction.  For the past thirty years, Corporate America and the rightwing have conducted a “class war” to weaken the labor movement precisely to hobble one of the main forces supporting such progress.  Conversely, building a more democratic society is most likely to succeed if it includes rebuilding the labor movement.  The rapidly expanding green sector is a crucial place to start.

Making green jobs union jobs

The US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establish the right of all people to self-organization and self-expression.  American labor law and International Labor Organization agreements to which the US is a party guarantee the right to organize, bargain collectively, and take concerted action on the job.  These rights are often compromised by courts and government agencies that are biased against workers.  As we create a rapidly expanding sector of government-promoted green industry, we should ensure that such rights are incorporated from the beginning.

A robust version of these rights should be incorporated as an enforceable employer code of conduct in all government contracts for “green jobs.” Workers alleging violation of the code should have access to an independent tribunal that can order correction of the violation or, if violations are frequent, termination of the contract.  The code of conduct should include:

• The right of workers to freedom of speech.
• The right of workers to assemble.
• The right of workers to petition for redress of grievances.
• The right to concerted action as guaranteed in the National Labor Relations Act even to workers not represented by unions.
• The right to employer neutrality regarding efforts to unionize.

It is the job not only of the labor movement, but also of everyone who understands the value of making green jobs union jobs, to ensure those basic rights.  And it is our job to provide support and encouragement for workers who want to organize.  If workers’ right to make their own decision about unions is truly respected, they can be trusted to make the right decision.

Summing up

A union brings collective bargaining, democracy on the job, protections for whistle blowers, rising standards of living, stronger tax base for the community, and much more.  Overall, the standards unions negotiate help build communities up.  The economic impact for the family and the community are clear.  Workers who have a union receive fair pay and benefits and they have a voice on the job.  They are protected against unilateral management action. When you have a collective bargaining agreement (a contract) in place, you know what your raises are going to be, and you know what your health insurance premiums are going to be – you can spend accordingly and plan your life.  More tax money goes into local communities.   But there’s more.  Unionized workers are more stable, more productive, and produce with higher quality. Unions help train and educate workers, and the protections provide a workforce with the freedom to act without recrimination.  The protection a union contract provides results in a workforce empowered to blow the whistle when necessary.  That means they can perform as effective worksite stewards, and therefore as effective environmental stewards.

If we want the benefits of green jobs to be sustained, we should make sure they are union jobs.

[PDF version of this report is available here]

["Labor and Climate Change" is a briefing paper that provides activists inside and outside the labor movement a way to understand the interests and concerns of different segments of organized labor in climate change issues.  It was the last major work by Tim Costello, who died in December, 2009.]

This briefing paper provides a strategy for addressing organized labor’s stake in climate change. Its goal is to provide activists inside and outside the labor movement with the information they need to help shape effective, worker friendly climate protection policies and garner support for them from organized labor.

The findings are based primarily on a detailed survey of the climate change record, self-interest, and decision making process of 17 labor organizations.  These unions and federations were selected to reflect the range of industries, occupations, and organizational cultures of the US trade union movement. The results of these surveys were compiled into profiles which include basic information, analysis, contact data, and other relevant information. The complete profiles are over 300 pages. They draw on both available public information and on a series of private conversations with top union officials and other knowledgeable sources.  And we have identified over 400 labor leaders at the local, regional and national level.

The findings also draw on contact with a broad swath of unions not surveyed in detail. Here we draw on scores of private conversations about climate change with top leaders, participation in many labor-oriented conferences on climate change, and decades of experience in the labor movement.

To make this information actionable, this briefing paper also provides an introduction to the structure and decision-making processes of the US labor movement that we hope will help newcomers navigate the complex world of organized labor.

In a nutshell

Today the American labor movement—like the rest of American society and like labor movements throughout the world—is being forced to grapple with climate change and climate change mitigation.

Organized labor’s approach to climate change is primarily employment based. Unions like the green job gains; but they fear the potential job losses from phasing out carbon fueled industries.   This should not be surprising since unions are organized primarily to look after the specific employment interests of workers.

But a narrow focus on the short term has led some unions to neglect the longer term effects of climate change on jobs, workers, and their communities and the action needed to address them.  Unless labor develops a full-fledged response to climate change it is likely to left by the roadside in what will be the pivotal challenge of the 21st century.

Labor has come a long way in the last two years. Today, almost all unions have a “green jobs” focus. Both national labor federations and many individual unions recognize the threat of climate change and call for policies to address it.  The AFL-CIO has even established a Center for Green Jobs to promote green jobs, establish appropriate job standards, and help train workers to fill them.

But on the difficult question of transitioning away from existing high carbon energy sources and industries labor faces big challenges.  Indeed it is important to remember that even the most far sighted trade union leaders have a very difficult job: They must represent the immediate interests of existing members, some of whom may face job losses in the transition to a low carbon economy, while keeping in mind the longer term social and ecological concerns.

Your browser may not support display of this image. Labor matters in the fight against climate change. Even in its weakened condition, it retains enough political clout to help or hinder the passage of meaningful climate change legislation. It will be up to activists inside and outside of the labor movement to help make clear labor’s stake in climate protection.  That task begins with a clear understanding of the complicated dynamic around climate change in the labor movement.

While unions are bargaining opponents of their employers over wages and working conditions, they have a long tradition of building alliances with them over public policy issues that affect growth in their sectors.   This too often leads unions to follow the narrow self-interest of their industry instead of developing independent positions representing the interests of labor as a whole. A recent, and striking, example is the UAW’s long alliance with the big car companies in opposition to strong fuel economy standards – a policy which contributed not only to carbon emissions but to the current crisis in the American auto industry.  Such shortsighted sectoral alliances can be a significant obstacle to drawing labor into the climate change fight.

But there are grounds for optimism. Although labor’s response has often been confused and contradictory, there is a growing awareness that re-tooling the energy and transportation infrastructure and retrofitting existing buildings to make them more energy efficient can both save the planet and create a new sustainable economy that will benefit all. One illustration of that change is the UAW’s support (along with ten auto companies) for the new, more stringent fuel economy standards proposed by President Obama in May, 2009.

Meeting the challenge posed by climate change will require some wrenching changes in the way we live and work. Navigating those changes in ways that result in a more sustainable, more just, society will require changes in public opinion, government policy, the economy, and technology. Change in the labor movement is part of that process:  Labor can serve either as an accelerator or as a brake on the process as a whole.

The full Briefing Paper is available here:  Labor and Climate Change: A Briefing Paper for Activists (PDF Format)

As 250 international union delegates arrived in Copenhagen for the global climate summit, a statement by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and a joint statement by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) called for a 25 to 40 percent reduction on 1990 levels for developed countries by 2020.

Sean Sweeney, director of the the Cornell University Global Labor Institute, who worked with the US labor delegation to be fully engaged in the UN process at the Copenhagen conference, said:

The statements are a clear sign that U.S. unions want to bring scientific necessity into alignment with job creation and green economic development. Many other unions are also moving in this direction. Engaging with unions overseas has also helped U.S. unions to see support for climate protection is also an act of international solidarity.

Unions and targets

Both union statements gave support to the more limited climate protection measures proposed by President Barack Obama on the eve of the Copenhagen summit. They also endorsed the climate legislation introduced by Senators Kerry and Boxer. But they argued that reductions to address the climate emergency must go substantially further. They noted that President Obama’s commitment of 17 percent reduction on 2005 levels is only 4 percent below 1990 levels, which have been widely used as a benchmark in international scientific discussions.

The SEIU-LIUNA statement points out this means extreme, perhaps impossible reductions will be necessary later to meet the targets science says are necessary.

To reach an 80% reduction by 2050, the scientific consensus, with an only 4% reduction by 2020 means that there must be a 76% reduction over the last three decades or roughly 25% per decade. We find it difficult to justify backloading this obligation in a way that shifts the burden of reducing carbon emissions from ourselves to our children and grandchildren. Accordingly, we would support more aggressive carbon emission reduction policies.

It said that “an aggressive and science-based approach to emissions reductions” is “absolutely necessary” for “achieving a sustainable environment.”

Until now few if any US unions and neither of the major labor federations, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, have supported specific emission reduction targets or even gone on record for the principle of making the reductions called for by scientific consensus. This is largely because only a few unions with a direct stake in the issue, notably in the energy and manufacturing sectors, have opposed such measures.

Their stand brings these three unions in line with the position of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), an organization that represents national union federations with membership of 175 million workers in 155 countries. It organized the international trade union delegation to the Copenhagen conference and strongly supported the IPCC targets.

An article published by the BNA reported that the AFL-CIO had issued its own position paper at the Poznan climate talks supporting ITUC concerns for “decent work, green jobs, industrial regeneration, border adjustment mechanisms and worker adjustment mechanisms” but failing to indicate support for the targets and timetables at the core of the ITUC position. The BNA reported that, “U.S. labor unions balked at backing ITUC’s position, given fears that deep cuts would ‘devastate’ heavy manufacturing in the United States as well as the coal and steel industries.”

Labor’s traditional approach to climate policy was largely shaped by industries in the manufacturing and energy sectors. That is likely to change, however, as a result of the changing sectoral center of gravity with organized labor. According to a recent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, barely one union member in ten works in manufacturing. An even smaller proportion work in fossil fuel production.

Today the overwhelming majority of union members are in services and the public sector. But they have barely begun to weight in significantly on climate policy. If the new statements by the transport, service, and laborers unions are any indication, they are likely to favor stronger climate protection with more stringent emission reductions. This reflects not only the interest of their members in a livable world for their children, but the fact that the great majority of potential green jobs are in the building, transporation, public, and service sectors.

Why targets matter for green jobs

Both statements emphasized that emissions reduction targets were important to the green jobs agenda. According to the SEIU/LIUNA statement, “A clear science-based target will drive a massive increase in the generation of green jobs, pubic mass transit, renewable energy, green manufacturing, energy-efficient construction and building retrofits, as well as in other sectors.”

The statement went on to describe strong targets as critical to provide incentives for creating green jobs. “The more ambitious the target, the stronger the political signal to private investors and innovators who wish to serve the green economy.”

It also argued that absence of strong targets could have the opposite effect.

A weak target slows green job growth, serves as a drag on the global effort, and will not serve climate stability over the long term. Jobs that conserve energy, fight sprawl and congestion, and retool and re-equip our industries according to green and sustainable principles are the wave of the future for the US and with world.

The TWU statement adds that a science-based approach to emissions reductions will be good for our economy and for working families. “With the US suffering over 10 percent unemployment and falling living standards, we need to fulfill the promise of green jobs sooner, not later.”

The statements called for a “just transition” to the green economy to provide full protections for workers negatively impacted by climate policies. The TWU statement notes that the transition to a low carbon economy must be pursued in a way that is “fair to workers and supportive of impacted communities.” According to the SEIU/LIUNA statement, “Workers in energy intensive industries should not be asked to shoulder a disproportionate burden.”

Why union positions matter

Union positions can make a big difference on climate legislation. Coal and manufacturing unions have played a significant role in provisions in current legislation that are favorable to their industries. CQ says AFL-CIO support is essential to passing any climate change bill; Jason Grumet, director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, says, “If you don’t have organized labor, you can’t get something through.” Strong union support for science-based target could play a significant role in strengthening current legislation.

The US will also face an enormous number of climate related policy decisions in the near and more distant future, ranging from what provisions should be in international treaties to national policy on fuel efficiency standards to sidewalks and bicycle lanes for local streets. Organized labor can be a significant player in all of them. It can also play a big role in how those policies are actually implemented in industries and workplaces. And it can help educate its sixteen-and-a-half million members about what climate change means for them and their children and what has to be done about it.

The SEIU/LIUNA statement concludes,

Our nation stands at the threshold of a dramatic transformation toward a clean, green and sustainable economy. Ambitious reduction targets for 2020 and beyond can help drive this transformation.

The new union statements supporting science-based targets could be the start of a significant trend that could put organized labor in the forefront not only of the green jobs movement but also of the broader movement to protect the climate. Support for targets and strong policies to implement them will position labor as a progressive social force and a leading player in the emerging movement for sustainability. According to Joe Uehlein, former director of the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Campaigns and a founder of the Labor Network for Sustainability:

This is an opportunity for all of labor to step up to the plate for what science says is necessary to protect the planet. That’s what we have to do if we want our society to be sustainable. That isn’t only good for the planet – it’s good for labor.

Rising Global Temperatures: Staggeringly high temperature rise by 2100, especially over land, of up to a 10°F increase over much of the United States and extreme temperatures of up to 122°F threatening most of the central, southern, and western U.S.  Already the Earth’s ten hottest years ever recorded all have occurred since 1997.

Dramatic Sea Level Rise: Sea level rise of more than 6 feet by 2100, with levels expected to rise faster along the U.S. East Coast than in any other densely populated part of the world. The first 40 inches of rise alone would flood 13,000 square miles of the US, forcing Southern Louisiana and South Florida to be abandoned. By 2050 in New York City rising sea levels combined with a category 3 hurricane would sink lower Manhattan, southern Brooklyn and Queens underwater.  Globally, it would create more than 100 million environmental refugees.

National and Global Water and Food Crisis: Scientists predict a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest US. China is already in the process of moving more than a 150 million “eco-refugees” due to its water crisis. As soon as 2020, African crop yields could be reduced by up to 50%.

Mass Extinctions: By 2100 40-70% of plant and animal species face extinction. Marine biologists anticipate huge “dead zones” in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for up to two millennia.

More Extreme Weather Events: Scientists calculate that a 1.8 ºF increase in sea-surface temperatures would result in a 31% increase in the global frequency of category 4 and 5 storms per year. Computer models suggest seas may warm by a further 3.6 ºF by 2100. Over the last 60 years, heavy rain and snow storms have become 24% more frequent in the U.S.

Financial Effects: If no action is taken to address human emissions of greenhouse gasses, the consequences could cost as much as 20% of world GDP. The US is ranked number one in world in vulnerability to financial losses from climate change.

Health Effects: Health experts now deem climate change and global warming as posing the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. Climate linked disease tolls will double by 2030 if no action is taken, and experts say children and the elderly are the most at risk. Scientists anticipate the rapid spread of fatal diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and encephalitis, and cholera. As early a 2005, scientists has already found climate change to be contributing to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year.

Melting Icecaps: More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003.  North Pole is poised to be largely ice-free by 2020. Ice loss by glaciers in Greenland doubled between 1996 and 2005. If completely melted, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would result in more than 200 feet of sea level rise.

C02 Levels Climbing at Alarming Speed: In 2008 world CO2 levels jumped to their highest estimated level in 20 million years.  Last time CO2 levels were this high it was 5° to 10°F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher.

The Forecasts are Getting Worse Not Better: Last year MIT scientists reported that global warming could be twice as bad as forecasts estimated just 6 years ago. With new data flooding in month after month, “worse case scenerio” are now looking worse and worse.

US workers have a lot to gain in Copenhagen. Passage of a strong deal that reduces global warming pollution worldwide will help put the US on the path to a new clean energy economy that will create millions of American jobs.

In support of a new global climate deal, people all over the US and in every corner of the world will join together this weekend for a massive global day of action. Thousands of candlelight vigils, marches, “signature walls”, and other events will take place from December 11-13th. Show your support by attending one of the over 400 actions in the US.  Go to http://tcktcktck.org/realdeal to find an event near you.

Surprised?  There’s a reason you haven’t heard much about the extent of climate change threat to the US.  Strange bedfellows are trying to conceal the threat posed to the US by global warming.  No, they’re not the crowd that denies global warming even exists, or that it isn’t caused by man-made greenhouse gasses.  They’re people who don’t deny the scientific findings about climate change, but who for political reasons underplay its devastating impact on the US.

One group of strange bedfellows are the advocates from and for developing countries who emphasize the indisputable face that the impact of climate change will be most devastating for the poor countries of the global South.  They argue that the rich countries are overwhelmingly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, but the effects are disproportionately on the poor countries.  They use this argument to justify their demand that the costs of climate change fall on the rich rather than the poor.   However valid their argument it tends to obscure the damage that is occurring to rich countries as well.

The other group of strange bedfellows are the advocates for the fossil fuel producers and users who don’t want to sound like anti-scientific cranks, but who want to be free to go on pouring carbon pollution into the atmosphere.   They downplay the fact that climate change is already having devastating impacts on the US.

Even on the broader ranking that includes deaths as well as financial losses, the US was number eighteen of the world’s 176 nations.  For the year 2008, we were number five.

The Global Climate Risk Index uses the most reliable available data to evaluate the impact of extreme weather events.  While no single event can be attributed to a single cause, the overall increase in extreme weather events corresponds to scientific predictions based on rising greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.  As the study notes, climate change is “an increasingly important factor for the occurrence and intensity of these events.”

These figures include only extreme weather events.  The real cost of global warming for the US would also have to include rising sea levels, water shortages, species extinctions, expanding diseases, agricultural costs, forest fires, and many other factors.

Americans need to start thinking of climate protection not just as something we might do to help the most threatened people in poor countries, but as something we must do together with them to protect both them and ourselves.  It’s not a question of charity, nor just a question of whether we owe developing countries a “climate debt.”  It is a question of mutual self-interest.

Tim’s Obituary

Tim Costello, an architect of innovative strategies for the labor movement and the author of numerous articles and books on labor and globalization, died at home on December 4, 2009.  The cause was pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Costello was born in Boston on June 13, 1945 to Thomas and Claire (MacPhee) Costello, and raised in Dedham, MA.  As a teenager he worked with his father as a construction laborer and learned from him the value of worker organization, often typing the correspondence of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, the union for which his father served as president for many years.

As a young man, Mr. Costello went to work as a fuel oil delivery driver and became active in the Teamster’s union and the union reform movement.  Always an avid reader and writer, he set up an office in the back of his truck where he spent many hours in self-education.  He also studied at Goddard College in Vermont, the New School in New York, and the University of Massachusetts-Boston, from which he graduated.  He gradually came to be recognized in the Boston area as an unusual combination of worker and intellectual.  In his book Taking History to Heart, James Green described Mr. Costello as “`Cosmic’ Tim, who seemed to have trucked everywhere and read everything.”

The effort to address the worst environmental catastrophe in human history is coming in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Business and governments have used economic adversity as an excuse to limit efforts to address climate change.   As representatives of unions from around the world join the climate conference in Copenhagen, they are advocating a very different approach: a “global green new deal” which uses massive investment in climate protection to create millions of new green jobs and jumpstart the global economy. 

In the depths of the Great Depression, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated launched the New Deal – a set of government programs to provide employment and social security, reform tax policies and business practices, and stimulate the economy.  It included the building of homes, hospitals, school, roads, dams, and electrical grids.   The New Deal put millions of people to work and created a new policy framework for America democracy.

Unions from around the world, represented by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), have worked with the UN to develop a strategy for utilizing the current crisis to reconstruct a greener and more just global economy.

This approach has been endorsed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.  At the Poznan climate change conference a year ago he said that the financial crisis requires massive global stimulus, and that a big part of that spending should be investing in a green future.  “An investment that fights climate change, creates millions of green jobs and spurs green growth.”  What the world needs, in short, is a “Green New Deal.”

The ITUC partners with the United Nation Environment Program (UNEP) in the Green Economy Initiative, which advocates “mobilizing and re-focusing the global economy towards investments in clean technologies and ‘natural’ infrastructure such as forests and soils.”  According to UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, the financial, fuel, and food crises result in part from “speculation and a failure of governments to intelligently manage and focus markets.”  Enormous economic, social and environmental benefits are likely to arise from “combating climate change and re-investing in natural infreastructures – benefits ranging from new green jobs in clean tech and clean energy businesses up to ones in sustainable agriculture and conservation-based enterprises.”

According to UNEP, the objectives of a “Global Green New Deal” should be to create jobs and restore the financial system and global economy to health; to put the post-crisis economy on a sustainable path that deals with ecological scarcity and climate instability; and third to end extreme poverty.  It spells out investments and policy reforms to achieve these goals.

The ITUP has also partnered with UNEP on a “Green Jobs Initiative” whose program is summed up in the report Green Jobs: Toward Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World.  It describes the role of green jobs in “averting dangerous and potentially unmanageable climate change and protecting the natural environment” while  “providing decent work and thus the prospect of well‐being and dignity for all in the face of rapid population growth worldwide and the current exclusion of over a billion people from economic and social development.”  It describes how green jobs are already growing in many parts of the world, but that many of them will not become good jobs unless deliberate policies are followed to make them so.

Indeed, the world labor movement emphasizes that addressing both the problem of climate change and the problem of economic decline require government leadership and cooperation among governments.  As the ITUC’s statement to the Copenhagen climate conference put it,

“Economic transformation can not be left to the “invisible hand” of the market.  Government-driven investments, innovation and skills development, social protection and consultation with social partners (unions and employers) are essential if we want to make change happen.”

“As the Stern Review reminds us, climate change represents the biggest market failure in history.  We cannot rust the same failed market mechanisms to successfully steer out of this crisis.  The problem has to be solved through regulation, democratically-decided and implemented public policies and most importantly political leadership.”