Enough Blue-Green Bickering

By David Moberg, In These Times. Posted May 7, 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 when President Bush pushed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as part of a deficient energy plan and promoted an empty voluntary corporate response to global warming, environmentalists and unions were 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 rather than rely solely on market price signals, Barrett and Hoerner propose that government directly encourage technologies that would increase energy efficiency and offset part of the cost of the carbon tax, such as energy-efficient buildings codes, higher vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, and tax incentives for super-efficient vehicles and renewable energy production.

Unlike many environmentalists, Barrett and Hoerner take seriously the potential for economic disruption to low-income families and workers in certain industries that would be caused by a shift in energy policy. They would phase in the carbon tax, rebating much of it to working families. To avoid unfair competition from countries that don't reduce global warming gases, they would require importers of energy or energy-intensive materials like steel to pay equivalent taxes or fees as U.S. producers, and they would provide generous income support and full-time education to displaced workers, like coal miners, and their communities. Overall, they conclude, the result of such a policy shift would be dramatic environmental progress, modest economic gains and much greater national energy security.

"I think that [this report] means that if folks with good intentions get together and stick with it, they can figure out solutions to problems that address everyone's concerns," says Perkins, who is leaving the AFL-CIO policy staff to work at the George Meany Center. She hopes the report will trigger a debate within the labor movement, and the blue-green working group has sponsored workshops in states from New Jersey to Montana to let local labor and environmental leaders discuss the issues. Perkins thinks that change will come by developing such links between the movements. "If we don't do that at the grassroots level," she says, "you're never going to change anything."

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