\nthe largest secular civic event in the world. But when it was founded in 1970, according to Earth Day’s first national
\ncoordinator Denis Hayes<\/a>,
\n“Without the UAW, the first Earth Day would have likely flopped!”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Less than a week after he first announced the idea for Earth
\nDay, Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin
\npresented his proposal to the Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO. Walter Reuther, president of the UAW,
\nenthusiastically donated $2,000 to help kick the effort off—to be followed
\nby much more. Hayes recalls, “The
\nUAW was by far the largest contributor to the first Earth Day, and its support
\nwent beyond the merely financial. It
\nprinted and mailed all our materials at its expense—even those critical of
\npollution-belching cars. Its organizers
\nturned out workers in every city where it has a presence. And, of course, Walter then endorsed the
\nClear Air Act that the Big Four were doing their damnedest to kill or
\ngut.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some people may be surprised to learn that a labor union
\nplayed such a significant role in the emergence of the modern environmental
\nmovement. When they think of organized
\nlabor, they think of things like support for coal and nuclear power plants and
\nopposition to auto emissions standards.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When it comes to the environment, organized labor has two
\nhearts beating within a single breast. On the one hand, the millions of union members are people and citizens
\nlike everybody else, threatened by air pollution and water pollution and the
\ndevastating consequences of climate change. On the other hand, unions are responsible for protecting the jobs of
\ntheir members, and efforts to protect the environment sometimes may threaten
\nworkers’ jobs. First as a working-class
\nkid and then as a labor official, I’ve been dealing with the two sides of this
\nquestion my whole life.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was raised in Cleveland. It was a union town, and both my parents
\nwere trade unionists. We were going to
\nthe union hall all the time; that’s where the picnics and social functions and
\nconcerts happened.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the same time, we kids were swimming in Lake
\n Erie, and I watched them post the signs saying, “Don’t swim in the
\nlake.” We were catching 50 to 100 perch
\nevery weekend and eating them until they posted the signs, “Don’t eat the
\nperch.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So we experienced this switch from where the smoke coming
\nout of the steel mill chimneys meant bread on the table to a realization that
\nwe were messing up the lake that we loved and enjoyed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was there when the Cuyahoga River<\/a> caught <\/p>\n After high school, I went to work in central Pennsylvania in an aluminum mill, and when the mill was <\/p>\n The environmental movement was protesting the construction <\/p>\n My local union had a bumper sticker that said, “Hungry and <\/p>\n I’ve been making the same kind of argument ever since.<\/p>\n That long, strange <\/p>\n In the 1980s, the same Industrial Union Department that had <\/p>\n When the U.N. Commission on Global Warming formed, I served <\/p>\n I took on the assignment to organize labor’s role in the <\/p>\n We had more than 60,000 people on the streets, perhaps <\/p>\n Yesterday … and <\/p>\n Looking over the decades since the first Earth Day, what do <\/p>\n Some things this Earth Day are radically different from the <\/p>\n The devastating threats resulting from climate change affect <\/p>\n A study <\/p>\n We are already seeing such costs in extreme weather events, <\/p>\n At the same time, the necessity for transforming our entire <\/p>\n Both of labor’s “two hearts within a single breast” can be <\/p>\n Meanwhile, “environmentalism” is broadening into a movement <\/p>\n Some things this Earth Day are the same as they were 40 <\/p>\n Workers are still human beings who face the same consequences <\/p>\n UAW President Walter Reuther, who wrote that first check Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on Earth Day parties<\/a><\/p>\n Good news for Earth Day: We can reduce climate pollution and boost the economy, all at once<\/a><\/p>\n
\nfire, and that was an alarming wakeup call. The burning river and the dying lake led the first Earth Day in Cleveland to be a
\nmonumental event. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland
\nHistory<\/a>, an estimated 500,000 elementary, junior-high, high-school, and
\ncollege students took part in campus teach-ins, litter cleanups, and tree
\nplantings. More than 1,000 Cleveland State
\nUniversity students and faculty staged
\na “death march” from the campus to the banks of the Cuyahoga River. The headline in the Cleveland Press read, “Hippies and Housewives Unite to Protest
\nWhat Man is Doing to Earth.”<\/p>\n
\nflooded out by Hurricane Agnes, I got a job doing flood cleanup at Three Mile Island<\/a>,
\nwhich was under construction at the time, and joined the laborers union. That really got me involved in the labor
\nmovement. At 19 or 20, I became a
\nfull-time shop steward on safety and health issues. <\/p>\n
\nof the power plant.<\/p>\n
\nout of work? Eat an
\nenvironmentalist!” I objected, and I
\nwent to the local and said, “You know, they’re not really our
\nenemies. They’re protesting the
\nconstruction of this power plant because it wasn’t built to withstand the
\nimpact of a Boeing 707. And the
\nairport’s right there. So it kind of
\nmakes sense, doesn’t it?”<\/p>\n
\ntrip<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nhelped start Earth Day initiated perhaps the first labor-environmental
\ncoalition, called the OSHA Environmental Network. I was appointed its field director. We had active coalitions in 22 states with
\nthe Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth and IUD member unions. At first, labor’s “job-protection heart” came
\nto the fore: The United Mineworkers Union was afraid that the alliance might
\nencourage limits on the high-sulfur coal that caused acid rain, thereby
\nthreatening some miners’ jobs; it insisted that our environmental network be
\nshut down. Later, encouraged by labor’s
\nother “heart” in the form of unions that supported sulfur reduction, the
\nMineworkers negotiated an acid-rain compromise agreement with Sen. George Mitchell
\nof Maine.<\/p>\n
\nas a representative of the IUD. Before
\nevery meeting that I went to, I would be lobbied strongly by the Mineworkers
\nand the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the one side to kill
\nwhat would become the Kyoto Treaty, and then on the other side by the
\nSteelworkers who wanted to see the treaty enacted. In 1997 the AFL-CIO blasted the treaty and
\nsent a high-level representative to Kyoto
\nto oppose it. So I resigned from the
\ncommission. <\/p>\n
\n1999 protests against the WTO in Seattle. As we were organizing, AFL-CIO President John
\nSweeney came out to address the Washington
\nstate AFL-CIO convention. I had been
\nplanning 15,000 people as a goal for labor’s piece. John made his speech and he said 50,000
\npeople. As he came off the podium, I
\nsaid, “John, it’s 15,000—15,000 is our goal.” And he turned to me and said, “Joe, it’s
\n50,000 now.”<\/p>\n
\n40,000 of them from labor. It was
\n“Teamsters and turtles, together at last.” Stopping the WTO, and building the coalitions we built, was a culmination
\nof all the things I believed in and all the things I had been working for. To me it represented the power we have when
\nlabor’s two hearts beat together—when we recognize that the real
\nself-interest of workers and the labor movement is the same as the rest of the
\nworld’s: to fight for a sustainable
\nfuture.<\/p>\n
\ntoday<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nwe see about the relation between environmentalism and labor?<\/p>\n
\nfirst Earth Day 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
\nus not just as “citizens and consumers” but as workers. The impact of global warming on American
\nworkers and workplaces is laid out in a study by the Union of Concerned
\nScientists, “Climate
\nChange in the United States: The Prohibitive Costs of Inaction<\/a>.” After reviewing effects on flooding,
\nhurricane intensity, tourism, public health, water scarcity, shipping, agriculture,
\nenergy, infrastructure, and wildfires, the study concludes, “If global
\nwarming emissions continue unabated, every region in the country will confront
\nlarge costs from climate change in the form of damages to infrastructure,
\ndiminished public health, and threats to vital industries employing millions of
\nAmericans.”<\/p>\n
\nby the University of Maryland<\/a> [PDF] adds, “the costs of climate change
\nrapidly exceed benefits and place major strains on public sector budgets,
\npersonal income, and job security.”<\/p>\n
\ndrought-caused water crises, intensified forest fires, floods, and other costly
\ncatastrophes. Today American workers
\nhave a direct, personal, job-based reason to fight for climate protection.<\/p>\n
\neconomy to a low-carbon basis provides the opportunity to create tens of
\nmillions of new “green jobs.” Such a
\nreconstruction effort could rival World War II as a means for creating full
\nemployment and conditions favorable to worker power and organization.<\/p>\n
\nseen in its response to the danger and opportunity of the climate crisis. On the one hand, organized labor has been
\nenthusiastic about the prospect for “green jobs” and has supported climate
\nlegislation that might help expand them. On the other hand, much of organized labor, including the AFL-CIO, has
\nopposed implementing the binding targets for greenhouse-gas reduction that
\nclimate scientists say are necessary to reduce the effects of global warming.
\nSuch targets are crucial not only for climate protection, but because the
\nmillions of potential green jobs are unlikely to be created unless all
\ndecision-makers know that a major transformation of our economy to reduce
\ngreenhouse-gas emissions is in fact going to happen.<\/p>\n
\nthat calls for social and economic as well as environmental
\nsustainability. The Earth Day Network<\/a>, which coordinates Earth
\nDay worldwide, is committed to “expanding the definition of ‘environment’ to
\ninclude all issues that affect our health, our communities and our environment,
\nsuch as air and water pollution, climate change, green schools and
\nenvironmental curriculum, access to green jobs, renewable energy, and a new
\ngreen economy.” Such a sustainability
\nmovement is a natural ally for organized labor in its efforts to challenge an
\neconomy currently driven by corporate greed.<\/p>\n
\nyears ago.<\/p>\n
\nof environmental destruction as everyone else.
\nAs Olga Madar, the first head of the UAW Conservation and Resource
\nDevelopment Department, put it back then, union members were “first and
\nforemost American citizens and consumers” who “breathe the same air and drink
\nand bathe in the same water” as their neighbors in other occupations.<\/p>\n
\nsupporting the first Earth Day, spelled out what that should mean for organized
\nlabor: “The labor movement is about that problem we face tomorrow morning.
\nDamn right! But to make that the sole purpose of the labor movement is to miss
\nthe main target. I mean, what good is a dollar an hour more in wages if your
\nneighborhood is burning down? What good is another week’s vacation if the lake
\nyou used to go to is polluted and you can’t swim in it and the kids can’t play
\nin it? What good is another $100 in pension if the world goes up in atomic
\nsmoke?”<\/p>\n