Steelworkers
& Sierra Club: Good Jobs, a Cleaner Environment, a Safer World
In one of the most
important moves to occur in American political life in recent years, the United
Steelworkers (USW) and the Sierra Club are increasingly forming alliances to
fight for good jobs, a cleaner environment and a safer world. These efforts to
organize union members and environmentalists around shared interests—including
fair trade, clean energy and chemical site security—are proving effective at
bridging the “jobs versus environment” divide.
The Steelworkers and Sierra Club are two of the most
powerful membership organizations in the country. The Steelworkers, which in April merged with the Paper, Allied-Industrial Chemical
and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), represents more than 850,000
workers and is the now the largest industrial union in North America. Sierra
Club is the oldest and largest environmental organization in the country, with
750,000 members.
“One of the
imperatives facing the progressive movement in the U.S. is figuring out how to
speak with a strategic voice,” said David Foster, Director of Steelworkers
District 11. “A labor movement that sees
itself in opposition to or apathetic toward the environmental movement has no
place in the 21st Century. Nor does an environmental movement that
abandons the goals of organized labor.”
“Acting together,
however, we have possibilities that will excite the nation.”
LONGSTANDING PARTNERSHIP
Historically, both the
Steelworkers and PACE, the union it recently merged with, have worked closely
with environmentalists. In 1973, for
example, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, which later merged with the
Paperworkers to become PACE and is now part of the Steelworkers, enlisted
support from environmentalists to help wage a successful strike over health and
safety issues at Shell
refineries in four states. Some in the
union called this “the first environmental strike.”
A bit earlier, support
from unions like OCAW and the Steelworkers was crucial to passage of the Clean
Air Act in 1970.
Another example of
collaboration was a 1998-2000 lockout of 3,000 steelworkers at Kaiser Aluminum
in Spokane, Washington, during which the Steelworkers united with the Headwaters’
Coalition and other environmentalists to fight financier Charles Hurwitz and
his Texas-based Maxxam Corp. Maxxam owned both Kaiser Aluminum—a Steelworker
shop—and Pacific Lumber, a firm that harvested large tracts of Northern
California redwoods. As part of the alliance, Steelworkers filed suit to
challenge Pacific Lumber’s logging and environmentalists backed initiatives to
aid workers at Kaiser. Members of both groups also played a prominent role in the
World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999.
In recent years, the
Steelworkers and Sierra Club have continued to work closely. Foster and Dan Becker, Washington Director
of Sierra Club’s Global Warming Program, have for the past several years co-chaired
an ad-hoc Blue (as in “Blue Collar”) Green Working Group of unions, including the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) and UNITE/HERE, which represents
primarily textile
workers and hospitality workers, and environmental organizations including the
Union of Concerned Scientists. And USW President Leo Gerard and Sierra Club Executive
Director Carl Pope co-chair the Apollo Alliance, a broad coalition within the
labor, environmental, business, urban, and faith communities in support of
energy independence. This group envisions a unionized green energy industry in
the United States.
There’s more. The
Steelworkers and Sierra Club teamed up during the 2004 presidential campaign to
fight for working families and a clean environment behind Democrat John Kerry.
Last fall they also joined with SEIU, the Union of Concerned Scientists and
others to release a report and launch an ad campaign about the job creation
potential of clean energy technologies, such as solar power and wind turbines.
Around the country,
“Blue Green Alliances”—anchored by local and statewide Sierra-Steelworker
partnerships— are emerging in states including Minnesota, Washington, Ohio, Missouri,
and Iowa.
ALLIANCE TAKES ON CAFTA
In May, Foster and
Sierra Club outgoing President Larry Fahn partnered on a four-day speaking tour
in Washington and Oregon to address the negative environmental and labor
effects of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The agreement would
extend the failed NAFTA model to six additional countries: El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica and the Dominican Republic. The pact was signed by
the Bush administration in May of 2004 and is now awaiting approval—without
amendments—in the US Congress.
During their road
trip, Foster and Fahn met with union members, environmentalists, members of
Congress and with editorial boards and other media.
The tour was an inspiring demonstration of combined
political strength, making a dramatic impression on several Washington State
members of the US Congress. In May, after months of hearing from an array of
constituents, US Representatives Adam Smith (D-Ninth District), Rick Larsen
(D-Second District) and Brian Baird (D-Third District) came out in opposition
to CAFTA. And they co-authored an op-ed piece in the Seattle Times voicing
opposition to CAFTA’s shortcomings on labor and environmental protections.
“CAFTA, as negotiated by the Bush administration,
would actually weaken the existing workers’ protections currently available
under the United States’ existing trade-preference programs with the region,”
wrote US Representatives Smith, Larsen and Baird. “Similarly, on environmental
protection, rural development and public health, the agreement falls short.”
In a prepared
statement, Foster and Fahn thanked the efforts of the Congress members, “who have
taken free trade positions in the past but still can understand the costly
effects that this agreement would have on Washington’s working families and the
rest of the Americas.”
They said future trade
deals should “not only increase our competitiveness around the world but also
advance and develop a balanced economic and environmental policy that creates sustainable
jobs and simultaneously protects the environment.”
“This CAFTA agreement
would threaten the sovereignty of states and countries to set their own labor
and environmental standards by allowing multinational corporations to place
profits over these fundamental societal interests.”
TAKE ACTION
Tell Congress to
oppose CAFTA. Visit the Steelworkers’ online Action Center here.
LEARN MORE
To find out more about
the destructive environmental impacts of CAFTA, view Sierra Club’s Responsible
Trade web site here.
To find out more about the harmful labor effects of CAFTA, visit the Steelworkers' Unfair Trade web site here.