AFL-CIO Backs a Green Jobs Economy

by Mike Hall, Mar 5, 2008

The AFL-CIO Executive Council yesterday outlined a strategic approach to combat global warming domestically and around the world—and at the same time create a “green economy” with good jobs.

In the council’s “Greening the Economy” statement approved during its March 4–6 meeting in San Diego, the council says:

The AFL-CIO believes we can have both a healthy economy and a cleaner planet….The greening of the economy means that every job that contributes to a low-carbon future is a green job.

The council’s blueprint follows December’s U.N. meeting on climate change in Bali, where the global union movement called for decisive action, especially global warming. As the council notes:

The world is looking to the United States for leadership because we are the most energy-intensive nation in the world and one of its leading emitters of greenhouse gas. Our nation can lead a new technological revolution in the way energy is generated and used—a revolution that will be of immense benefit to the world as a whole and which can be the foundation of a revival of the middle class in the United States. But to accomplish this, we need a strategic approach centered on domestic investment in new technologies and good jobs. And we need to lead in fostering a shared international response to this issue.

Some of the steps the council calls for in this country include:

• Diversity in the electric utility industry and the retention of all current generating options, including fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro and renewable energy.
• New investment in a sustainable energy infrastructure must be structured to create good jobs and ensure stable energy prices.
• An economy-wide cap-and-trade program that is transparent and requires all sectors to come to the table to reduce their carbon emissions.
• Energy incentives and investments by the federal government must be based on a set of economic development principles that clean the environment and create jobs but will not encourage offshoring of manufacturing jobs.

The AFL-CIO believes that we can have both a healthy economy and a clean planet. The investment portfolio we have supported—carbon capture and sequestration technology, domestic production of advanced technology vehicles, renewable energy and biomass, electric grid modernization, low- and moderate-income relief and more—has been well received in Congress. In a major breakthrough, pending legislation includes domestic investment requirements and international provisions regarding the participation of developing nations, including a border mechanism. However, many other issues remain.

Congress must be unambiguous in establishing an environmental economic development policy that seeks to increase the per capita income and protects the interests of working families. Workers exercising their free choice to form unions and bargain collectively and the respect for legal standards protecting workers’ wages and benefits are fundamental to this goal.

On the global front, the council applauded much of the work that came out of the U.N.’s Bali climate change conference but says there is much more that must be done to control the carbon emissions that fuel global warming and that the voice of workers around the world must be heard in the debate on climate change strategies.

The International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC) statement on climate change sent a powerful message about the nature of the crisis and an opportunity for change that creates good jobs, improves communities and reduces poverty. We demanded a workers’ voice in the UN process, a role for workers at all levels of decision-making, skill development and stronger laws that promote “employment rights and the right to organize and bargain collectively.”

Click here to read the entire statement.

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