From Bali: ‘Voices Heard Round the World’

Roxanne D. Brown, USW assistant director for legislation (left), and Jill Kubit from the Cornell Global Labor Institute.

More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world are gathered in Bali, Indonesia, for the 10-day U.N. Climate Change Conference. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 are from North America, including Roxanne D. Brown, assistant legislative director of the United Steelworkers (USW). U.S. delegates have sent us a series of posts from Bali, here, here, here and here.

An unmistakable determination is in the air among the approximately 90 trade union delegates to the climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia. These unionists from countries as far away as Japan and as near as Canada and Mexico are ensuring that the voices of working men and women from around the world are being heard on climate change. The Bali meeting is the 13th conference of the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

While we work to learn about the role workers in one another’s countries have played in trying to combat global warming and try to develop the next steps, one thing is very clear: Working people globally will, and are, playing a critical role in the fight against global warming.

It is the spirit of the labor movement to educate, agitate and organize. We have done this in the fight for good jobs, safe workplaces and retirement security. It is now necessary that we apply that spirit to a fight that is already affecting working people and their families around the world. By lending our voices and action in efforts to address deforestation, mitigation, the “greening” of workplaces and minimizing the adverse affects (trade, environmental, social, etc) of climate change, we can ensure that our world is a better one for generations to come.

The effects of global warming are not limited to the environmental dangers it is having—and will continue to have on our communities and world if not abated—but also extend to our economy.

My union, the United Steelworkers (USW), represents workers in many energy-intensive industries (steel, paper, chemicals, rubber, etc.), as do other AFL-CIO affiliate unions. These industries and others such as transportation will face many challenges as policy is developed to address climate change. The climate change debate gives the workers of these and other industries the opportunity to share our ideas on how we can enact sound policy that will maintain a strong economy, create jobs and slow and ultimately stop the effects of global warming.

At the close of this conference, all the unions represented here are charged with bringing the information we have learned back to our various countries and unions. For real and effective action to occur on this issue, it is critical that ongoing conversations occur from our local unions to our communities. Step 1 is to educate ourselves, our communities and each other on climate change. Step 2 is to agitate and get each other fully engaged on this issue. Step 3 is to organize ourselves around fighting it.

My union and others representing the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) will hold a side event open to all UNFCCC conference delegates where we will lay out the principles of the labor statement developed before we arrived in Bali. We will emphasize the need for all countries to be involved in the fight against global warming as well as the employment effects of climate change, sector challenges, the creation of green jobs and other key issues.

The UNFCCC conference presents an important opportunity for workers around the world to voice our concerns and ideas about dealing with global warming. As we continue to communicate with each other and governments, companies and organizations throughout the world in this last week of the conference, we encourage workers in communities throughout the United States to also begin having discussions about how each of us can work together to effect change.

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