[Discuss]Labor and Environment... Better Together?

I confess to not knowing nearly as much as I should about either topic. And, of course, environmental issues and priorties differ by region.I have noticed, however, is that oftentimes the interests of labor and those of environmentalists seem to be at odds, mostly because of jobs and those jobs polluting and so on. And that both movements are often described as “diminished” or “dying” lately. Me, I think the one thing has quite a bit to do with the other. Divide and conquer and all that.

So, I have a two-fold purpose to this diary.

To start a discussion on the labor/unions and environmentalist movements (hopefully joined by people who know way more than I do), and ways in which working together are only possible, but desirable, and would benefit both. To have a true progressive movement, I would think that there is a necessity for the revitalization of both, as wherever unions lose ground, wages tend to stagnate and democracy seems to as well. And, of course, we still all have to breathe and drink water.
As some of you may recall, I am attempting an on-going project between the BooTrib and my online magazine, trying to draw what are usually non-blog readers to blogs. My original idea was to publish a special issue, but I think possibly that I have a better way.

Come to the other side, and I’ll tell you.
The first discussion was in this diary, which started off being about Religions and Women, and if you’ll notice, the comments are the best part of it, and the interaction. And that’s really the best part of blogs in general.

So, I’m working on how to put it up as a conversation, showing the give and take, and how one comment leads to another thought, and more discussion. Also leading to practical suggestions for action. I will be putting a link from the conversation piece, and from the front page of the mag leading to this diary discussion while it is in progress (and to future ones). Hopefully people will click on it, sign up and join in, and also join in future action type things. The front page link will be up Monday, the other when I figure out how best to present the conversation article.

So… better together? And if so, how? If not, why not? Are labor/environmental relations better in countries outside the US? How do they combine sometimes competing interests? Discuss! (Please, and thank you.)

4 Comments

rba on May 8, 2005 at 2:20 pm

The common ground for both is the obvious: safety in the workplace. Primarily chemical/hazardous substance exposures. Narrow, but it’s a start. As in all discussions, you have to have common ground – no matter how narrow – to even start a conversation. One side has to reach out to the other, show intent to talk.

In the past I think environmental issues were only raised in the negative: stop that, it’s hurting the Earth. The response from labor was: f*ck you, I need the job. Now I think we understand that a healthy workplace doesn’t mean lost jobs. That the people who had done the research, and pushed for worker protections were in many cases “environmentalists”.

The good news going forward is that the labor and environmental movements are forging stronger bonds in a unified effort for regime change. This is a good thing – regime change. Hopefully they’ll continue to work together after the new democratic congress is elected in ’06.

vida on May 8, 2005 at 4:28 pm

I think management has used this divide, or created it. My husband works with chemicals, most of them dangerous. The plant is reported on and checked by local environmental orgs. and when there is a leak or a spill the workers are fed the line that if only these folks weren’t complaining they’d make more money, after all, it takes money to pay the fines for clean-up etc. For a long while this seemed to work, along with the threat of moving the factory to a place with less oversight. Now it seems that the workers are getting wise to this nonsense and joining with the environmentalists, at least in small ways.
Of course, it’s your job if you get caught talking with them…but I don’t think they’ll be able to keep the two apart for much longer.

Nanette on May 9, 2005 at 12:44 pm

Martin Kaplan gave a speech recently at the Alliance for Global Sustainability conference. Here are some excerpts, which address some of the environmental side of things:

It begins…

The environmental community in this country is presently in turmoil over the challenging paper entitled “The Death of Environmentalism,” an essay by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, which was released at the October 2004 meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. Their thesis is that the environmental community has “strikingly little to show” for its efforts during the past 15 years, and that environmental leaders do not articulate a vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis. […..]

They attribute the success of environmental legislation in the 1960s and 1970s to concepts, methods, and institutions of that period that are now outmoded. Remarkably, they charge that environmentalism is “just another special interest.”

I confess that this has sort of been my thought as well. Well, not so much a “special interest” as a “separated interest”. Then again, it seems to me that a great many of our interests on the left side of the aisle are separated, at least in the US. I think we need an umbrella that we all have to fit under, even if we are squished together ;).

More:
[……]

I would note that the conservation movement is only 100 years old and the environmental movement perhaps 50 years old. We are fortunate indeed that these three writers did not evaluate the status of other historical movements midway in their terms. For example, would they have urged people to give up the fight to abolish slavery because it took a couple of hundred years? Would they have urged giving up the goal of women’s suffrage, perhaps around 1900, nearly a quarter of a century before women achieved the right to vote?

Ah, and here is an example of business and the workers/environmentalists divisions that have been manufactured.
[…..]

But thoughtful, tough warnings have been met with corporate denial by many who should be leading the effort to protect our society if they truly realized how serious are the problems we face. The selfish response of many in industry has been matched or exceeded by the purposeful ignorance of many in government who have sought to delay any response on climate change by arguing that the maintenance of current jobs is more important than anything else.

Their approach reminds me of the valiant resistance by most of the New England fishing industry to any limitations on their fishing of the Great Banks because limitations would mean lost profits and lost jobs. They challenged scientific advice and proceeded to overfish the Great Banks to the point where the New England fishing industry has collapsed, causing the loss of many more jobs than would have been the case if there had been responsible management of the problem.

And the ending:

This is not just a challenge to universities. It is a challenge to governments and corporations and the media, and to people of all countries, cultures, and religions. And it is not simply the responsibility of “environmentalists.”

I cannot put it any better than professor Mary Evelyn Tucker, coordinator of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Harvard, who places the responsibility clearly on all of us: “A sustainable future requires a sustaining vision of that future. This vision needs to evoke depths of empathy, compassion, and sacrifice that have the welfare of future generations in mind. We are called, for the first time in history, to a new intergenerational consciousness and conscience — and this extends to the entire Earth community.”

I wish all of us much success.

There is lots more to this, the rest can be read here: Reflections on Sustainability and Universities and Whether Environmentalism Has Died

I’m just including bits and pieces of it for informational and conversational purposes.

Nanette on May 9, 2005 at 12:47 pm

Didn’t quite realize how big it would be when posted 🙂

rba on May 8, 2005 at 2:20 pm

The common ground for both is the obvious: safety in the workplace. Primarily chemical/hazardous substance exposures. Narrow, but it’s a start. As in all discussions, you have to have common ground – no matter how narrow – to even start a conversation. One side has to reach out to the other, show intent to talk.

In the past I think environmental issues were only raised in the negative: stop that, it’s hurting the Earth. The response from labor was: f*ck you, I need the job. Now I think we understand that a healthy workplace doesn’t mean lost jobs. That the people who had done the research, and pushed for worker protections were in many cases “environmentalists”.

The good news going forward is that the labor and environmental movements are forging stronger bonds in a unified effort for regime change. This is a good thing – regime change. Hopefully they’ll continue to work together after the new democratic congress is elected in ’06.
vida on May 8, 2005 at 4:28 pm

I think management has used this divide, or created it. My husband works with chemicals, most of them dangerous. The plant is reported on and checked by local environmental orgs. and when there is a leak or a spill the workers are fed the line that if only these folks weren’t complaining they’d make more money, after all, it takes money to pay the fines for clean-up etc. For a long while this seemed to work, along with the threat of moving the factory to a place with less oversight. Now it seems that the workers are getting wise to this nonsense and joining with the environmentalists, at least in small ways.
Of course, it’s your job if you get caught talking with them…but I don’t think they’ll be able to keep the two apart for much longer.
Nanette on May 9, 2005 at 12:44 pm

Martin Kaplan gave a speech recently at the Alliance for Global Sustainability conference. Here are some excerpts, which address some of the environmental side of things:

It begins…

The environmental community in this country is presently in turmoil over the challenging paper entitled “The Death of Environmentalism,” an essay by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, which was released at the October 2004 meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. Their thesis is that the environmental community has “strikingly little to show” for its efforts during the past 15 years, and that environmental leaders do not articulate a vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis. […..]

They attribute the success of environmental legislation in the 1960s and 1970s to concepts, methods, and institutions of that period that are now outmoded. Remarkably, they charge that environmentalism is “just another special interest.”

I confess that this has sort of been my thought as well. Well, not so much a “special interest” as a “separated interest”. Then again, it seems to me that a great many of our interests on the left side of the aisle are separated, at least in the US. I think we need an umbrella that we all have to fit under, even if we are squished together ;).

More:
[……]

I would note that the conservation movement is only 100 years old and the environmental movement perhaps 50 years old. We are fortunate indeed that these three writers did not evaluate the status of other historical movements midway in their terms. For example, would they have urged people to give up the fight to abolish slavery because it took a couple of hundred years? Would they have urged giving up the goal of women’s suffrage, perhaps around 1900, nearly a quarter of a century before women achieved the right to vote?

Ah, and here is an example of business and the workers/environmentalists divisions that have been manufactured.
[…..]

But thoughtful, tough warnings have been met with corporate denial by many who should be leading the effort to protect our society if they truly realized how serious are the problems we face. The selfish response of many in industry has been matched or exceeded by the purposeful ignorance of many in government who have sought to delay any response on climate change by arguing that the maintenance of current jobs is more important than anything else.

Their approach reminds me of the valiant resistance by most of the New England fishing industry to any limitations on their fishing of the Great Banks because limitations would mean lost profits and lost jobs. They challenged scientific advice and proceeded to overfish the Great Banks to the point where the New England fishing industry has collapsed, causing the loss of many more jobs than would have been the case if there had been responsible management of the problem.

And the ending:

This is not just a challenge to universities. It is a challenge to governments and corporations and the media, and to people of all countries, cultures, and religions. And it is not simply the responsibility of “environmentalists.”

I cannot put it any better than professor Mary Evelyn Tucker, coordinator of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Harvard, who places the responsibility clearly on all of us: “A sustainable future requires a sustaining vision of that future. This vision needs to evoke depths of empathy, compassion, and sacrifice that have the welfare of future generations in mind. We are called, for the first time in history, to a new intergenerational consciousness and conscience — and this extends to the entire Earth community.”

I wish all of us much success.

There is lots more to this, the rest can be read here: Reflections on Sustainability and Universities and Whether Environmentalism Has Died

I’m just including bits and pieces of it for informational and conversational purposes.
- Nanette on May 9, 2005 at 12:47 pm
  
  Didn’t quite realize how big it would be when posted 🙂

[Discuss]Labor and Environment… Better Together?

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