America's Green-Labor Alliance

By David Moberg, In These Times. Posted March 28, 2002.

For both environmentalists and trade unionists, the Bush administration has been a disaster. A broad alliance between the two movements-beyond individual campaigns, such as opposition to "fast track" trading authority-has never seemed more essential. Yet as President Bush pushes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as part of a deficient energy plan and promotes an empty voluntary corporate response to global warming, environmentalists and unions are at odds.

The divisions clearly weaken green groups in their fight against anti-environmental policies. They also hurt the labor movement by alienating both important allies and large segments of the public (including strong majorities of union members) that oppose the administration's anti-environmental positions. These "blue-green" tensions further undermine prospects for progressive political victories and for building a broad, popular movement that challenges the power of corporations.

Six years ago, shortly after he took office as president of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney hoped to head off these perils. He wanted to foster an alliance with greens and work out in advance a common labor position on thorny environmental issues. He asked Jane Perkins, formerly both a union official and head of Friends of the Earth, to work as the labor movement's liaison with environmentalists. Perkins pulled together a "blue-green working group" of top staff from several unions and environmental leaders to discuss global warming.

But the Mineworkers and some building trades resisted even talking about possible common ground. Instead, unions opposed to environmental protection policies have struck out on their own, claiming that pro-environment policies-like limiting greenhouse gases or preserving wilderness-will cost jobs. The Teamsters, United Mine Workers and several building trades unions have openly endorsed Bush's energy policy and ANWR drilling.

Despite the failure thus far to cement a national blue-green alliance, significant progress has been made in building relationships and developing local alliances that could form the foundation for continuing work. More progress is likely to come mainly from grassroots and local initiatives as well as the actions of individual pro-environment unions and their leaders, not from the AFL-CIO. The blue-green working group, however, did prove that it is possible for unions and environmentalists to devise a package of policies that can promote clean energy and protect jobs.

In February, leaders of the Service Employees, Steelworkers and UNITE (apparel and textile workers) joined with major environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council, to endorse a study by economists James Barrett, recently with the Economic Policy Institute, and J. Andrew Hoerner of the Center for a Sustainable Economy. "We in the labor movement are not going to make a choice between good jobs and a safe environment," UNITE president Bruce Raynor said on the release of the report. "We're for both."

Barrett and Hoerner propose a modest, steadily increasing tax on the carbon content of energy. Such a plan would reduce use of the energy sources most responsible for global warming-such as coal and oil-by encouraging greater efficiency and switching to less harmful power sources, including renewables like solar and wind. But unlike many other carbon tax proposals, which rely solely on market price signals, Barrett and Hoerner recognize that engineers have already identified a wide range of opportunities to increase energy efficiency-and often productivity as well-using existing technology that is cost-efficient but not implemented as widely as it should be, such as compact fluorescent light bulbs or efficient electric motors.

Barrett and Hoerner's "Clean Energy and Jobs" report proposes a technology policy, tailored to the specific opportunities for greater efficiency in businesses, government and household use, which can both offset some of the costs of the carbon tax and increase efficiency faster than a carbon tax alone. Their proposal would not only promote energy-efficient buildings and mandate higher fuel-efficiency standards for autos and light trucks, but provide tax incentives for super-efficient vehicles and renewable energy production.

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