Bheki Ntshalintshali, deputy general secretry of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, addressed labor delegates at the U.N. Climate Change Conference.

More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the 10-day U.N. Climate Change Conference. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 are from North America, including Donald Caswell, director of communication and training at the Boilermakers union, who sends us this report. U.S. delegates have sent us a series of posts from Bali here, here, here, here and here. 

As we were picking up our badges for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, members of the Boilermaker delegation bumped into Sen. John Kerry.

“Did the Boilermakers come all the way to Bali to stir up trouble?”

Kerry was joking, but that could have been a serious question for some people at the conference. Labor participation in climate change discussions is viewed with suspicion by many here this week.

The purpose of these annual meetings is to develop mechanisms that encourage and enable nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Government delegates as well as delegates of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) often view unions as barriers to this process, because our mission does not directly include environmental protection.

Labor unions from the United States evoke an even higher level of suspicion, because the Bush administration refuses to support ratification of the most important emissions-reduction mechanism established so far: the Kyoto Protocol.

The greatest skepticism is reserved for unions like the Boilermakers, because we represent workers in many of the industries most frequently blamed for greenhouse gas emissions—most notably, coal-fired electric power plants. Our effort to protect our members’ jobs is often viewed as a defense of “business as usual.”

But in reality, we are no different from any other NGO or government delegation at the conference. We are here to advocate for our constituency. To use a term often used at this conference, we are concerned with “the human dimension” of climate change.

Unions have a legitimate—and a significant—role in the development of programs to alleviate the causes and adverse effects of global warming. We address the human dimension by ensuring these programs do not place an unfair burden on workers of any country.

Over the next 50 years, the energy and transportation industries throughout the world will undergo monumental changes. They must, because continuation of present practices will lead to disaster.

Through participation in the Bali conference, the unions that make up the International Trade Union Coalition are working to ensure that those changes result in better lives for workers around the globe. Because climate change will affect workers in every nation, and because remedies for it will involve global actions, trade unions around the world must work together. We cannot allow climate change to be used as another excuse to oppress workers.

So when Senator Kerry teased us about being in Bali to cause trouble, we were able to respond in all seriousness:

No, Senator. We’re here to do the right thing.

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