Transportation is the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions after electricity generation.  The US transportation system alone produces more greenhouse gasses than any country in the world except China. About one half of the transportation emissions comes from commercial transportation—trucks, planes, ships, rail, and buses. The other half comes from private automobiles.

Serious efforts to combat climate change will include changes in the transportation and logistics industries that will have major impacts—both positive and negative—on employment in key industries. Unions representing transportation workers in trucking, rail, ports, busses, mass transit, and airlines will have to address these changes. (more…)

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.  Couple things to keep in mind:

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. (more…)

[This is the first in a series of posts designed to provide 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 building trades unions of the AFL-CIO are among the unions most immediately affected by climate change mitigation programs.  They are also among the most active labor movement players on climate change issues.  They have been enthusiastic backers of green jobs programs and in particular the green jobs components of the Obama stimulus package.

Most of the building trades unions, including some unions that do not belong to the AFL-CIO like the Teamsters and the Laborers, belong to the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO.  The Building Trades Department has itself taken a strong position promoting green jobs. (more…)

[Cross-posted with Huffingtonpost.com]

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. (more…)